Catholic Studies Commons^™

Marianist Educational Associates: Advancing And Promoting The Mission Of Catholic And Marianist Universities, Corinne Brion, Allison Leigh

Journal of Catholic Education

Preparing employees to become stewards of the Marianist values and charisms has become a priority at a Marianist institution because employees impact the institution’s environment and faculty and staff directly impact student learning. To date, there is a lack of research conducted among employees of a Marianist institution on how new understandings of institutional mission get transferred to their jobs. Additionally, there is a lack of empirical studies that examine what enhances and hinders the transfer of such understanding. Using the Multidimensional Model of Learning Transfer as a theoretical framework, the purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the …

Mission, Faith, And Values - A Study Of 94 Voices From Rhode Island Catholic Secondary School Graduates, Thomas E. Keefe

Journal of Catholic Education

While the mission statements of Catholic schools include strong language on faith formation, Catholic schools are more often identified with high-quality academics and less for the development of faith. A qualitative descriptive study was designed to understand how Rhode Island Catholic secondary school graduates described the influence of the Catholic educational mission on the formation of faith and personal life values. The results of the study indicate the graduates of Catholic secondary schools in Rhode Island recognized the strength of the academic programs at the four identified Catholic secondary schools. Participants also profusely described the influence of the Catholic educational …

Utilizing Comparative Education As A Platform For Deepening Student Engagement With Catholic Social Teaching: An Exploratory Case Study In Study-Abroad, Bryan Meadows

Journal of Catholic Education

Central to the mission of Catholic higher education are the themes of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). This contribution to the Education in Practice section recounts a 15-week undergraduate course that deepened student engagement in CST themes through comparative education studies and a study abroad experience to Japan. A detailed description of the course main segments draws on artifacts of student coursework and post-interviews. The contribution of comparative education is that students are provided a platform upon which they can explore deeper, underlying principles to individual CST themes. This contribution further provides practitioners step-by-step guidance in how to develop similar learning …

Department Of Catholic Studies Newsletter, Spring 2021, Michelle Loris

Catholic Studies Newsletter

Highlights: From the Chair --Meet the faculty: Charles (Charlie Gillespie, Ph.D., Jillian Plummer, Ph.D., Emily Bryan, Ph.D., Chelsea King, Ph.D. --Department scholarship: Publications and conference presentations.

Catholics & Cultures As An Act Of Improvisation: A Response, Thomas M. Landy

Journal of Global Catholicism

This essay responds to seven articles published in the same issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism on the use of Catholics & Cultures, a multimedia website, as a pedagogical resource for college classrooms. The site is deliberately presented in a fashion that undermines notions of center and periphery and presents Catholicism from a lay, lived-religion perspective as the multicultural faith that it is, minimizing reference to religious typologies. Particular attention is given to how to navigate tensions around theorizing, categorizing and sorting information for cross-cultural comparison. Given scholars’ current state of knowledge, writing about and teaching about global Catholicism …

Catholics & Cultures: A Panoramic View In Search Of Greater Understanding, Stephanie M. Wong

Journal of Global Catholicism

While internet-based technologies can open up greater awareness of the world or create self-perpetuating echo-chambers, the Catholics & Cultures project aspires to do the former. Aiming to ‘widen the lens’ on the variety of Catholic communities and practices, the site delivers on this goal by introducing viewers to a vast array of articles, pictures and videos from around the world. The organization of the site by country and by certain key features of lived Catholicism offers some interpretive guidance. However, the project could be strengthened as a pedagogical resource if it were more extensively thematized and hosted reflections on potential …

The Value Of Online Resources: Reflections On Teaching An Introduction To Global Christianity, Hillary Kaell

Journal of Global Catholicism

Reflecting on my experience teaching Introduction to Global Christianity, this essay ponders questions at the heart of undergraduate teaching: How can we encourage students to utilize online sources? How can we empower them to seek out answers to their questions? It offers practical examples of how I have used the Catholics & Cultures website in my classroom at a large public university. In particular, I reflect on my experience working with students who are mostly of Catholic heritage, but from many cultural and social contexts.

Teaching Sexuality On The Catholics & Cultures Website: A Refreshing Turn Toward The Longue Durée, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

I present a close reading of the Catholics & Cultures (C&C) website’s treatment of sexuality-related issues and discuss this material in relation to debates about how to teach sexuality in religious studies and theology classrooms. The C&C website occasionally and intermittently uses a typical “contemporary issues” approach that considers sexuality in relation to legal and legislative decisions and government policies. In contrast, country profiles consistently situate sexuality in relation processes like nation building, urbanization, and lay Catholics’ growing authority. My interpretation highlights the site’s decision to emphasize the longue durée, long-term and deep structural processes driving cultural and religious changes. …

Ritual Among The Scilohtac: Global Catholicism, The Nacirema, And Interfaith Studies, Anita Houck

Journal of Global Catholicism

More than six decades after its publication, Horace Miner’s 1956 article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” remains a reliable pedagogical tool, remarkably successful in helping students see their own ethnocentric biases. Catholics & Cultures has potential to do similar work. The site lacks some of what makes Miner’s text so effective, in particular its capacity to bring about a sudden shift in perception. The site also shares some of the article’s limitations, particularly in focusing on ritual to the relative exclusion of other aspects of religion. That said, the site can help students gain the religious literacy and develop the …

Focus On The Busy Intersections Of Culture And Cultural Change, Laura Elder

Journal of Global Catholicism

The dynamics of religious resurgence reveal the important ways that religious ritual and performance are meaning making spaces which are not self-contained or cut off from the rest of culture, but rather are a key locus of cultural change. A renewed emphasis on the busy intersections of meaning making – as rituals are connected, disconnected, and reconnected to other domains of social life – would improve the utility of the Catholics & Cultures website for understanding global cultural change. And a renewed emphasis on cultural change would also provide a better means for exploring reflexively by seeking to understand both …

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …

Introducing Catholics & Cultures: Ethnography, Encyclopedia, Cyborg, Mathew N. Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

In introducing the Catholics & Cultures site and the articles in this special issue, this essay initially locates the overall Catholic & Cultures project within the traditions of ethnography and encyclopedia. Drawing extensively on the work of J. Z. Smith, this essay reflects upon the theoretical implications of emphasizing the diversity of Catholicism in and through a web-based platform that facilitates comparative study and pedagogy. This essay then more specifically considers the web-based aspects of Catholics & Cultures by identifying a nascent cyborgian aesthetic in the site and considering how the site might eventually engage post-modern themes and concerns.

Actualizing Mission And Holistic Education Through Service-Learning, Michelle C. Sterk Barrett

Scholarship and Professional Writing from the J.D. Power Center and Donelan Office

The author reflects on how to update the mission and holistic education through service-learning. Her chapter connects reflection with emerging research evidence, providing a solid analysis about service-learning and her contribution to the development of a fraternal spirituality.

Contemplation For Educators: Theoretical, Ethical, And Practical Dimensions Drawn From The Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Joseph Polizzi, Darcy Ronan

Education Faculty Publications

Catholic colleges and universities educate thousands of teachers and school administrators every year to be at the forefront of teaching and leading. The mission and vision of Catholic colleges and universities is unique in higher education while sending their graduates forth into every sector of the wider world. We explore the contribution of the Catholic intellectual tradition (CIT) for colleges of education at Catholic colleges and universities. In this particular piece, we mine the tradition's emphasis on contemplation to cultivate and inform a practice of reflection for aspiring educators.

See, Judge, Act: Restorative Justice And Catholic Social Teaching’S Impact On American Incarceration, Maxim Caron

Montserrat Annual Writing Prize

No abstract provided.

Explore, Fall 2020, Vol. 21: Engaging With Mission In A Time Of Crisis, Ignatian Center For Jesuit Education

explore

• Engaging with Mission in a Time of Crisis - Aaron Willis
• Seeking Common Ground in the Wake of COVID-19 - Julie Hanlon Rubio
• Gandhi, Technology, and the Human Spirit - Rohit Chopra
• Remembrances of Transformation, (de)Humanization, and White Supremacy - Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica
• Spirituality and Business Leadership Education - Jennifer Woolley
• Cura Personalis and the Entrepreneurs’ Law Clinic: Radically Student-Centered - Laura Norris
• Next Monday Morning and Ignatian Attitudes - Dorian Llywelyn, S.J.
• 2019–20 Ignatian Center Highlights
• Letter from the Interim Executive Director - Michael Nuttall
• Artists Spotlight

Teachers' Perceptions Of The Role Of Teacher-Parent Partnerships That Best Benefit Students In A Parochial College Preparatory High School, Sarah H. Gates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Current research on teacher–parent partnerships has increasingly focused on early childhood education. This transcendental phenomenological study expanded and extended the understanding of effective teacher–parent partnerships in secondary education at a parochial college preparatory high school. According to Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory (BST), academic growth and development in late adolescents are impacted by the overlapping systems of influence: the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify secondary educators’ perceptions of teacher–parent partnerships that best benefit students. Faculty at a parochial college preparatory high school were asked about their perceptions of parental involvement …

Teachers' Perceptions Of The Nine Defining Characteristics Of Catholic Identity In Ursuline Secondary Schools Of The Usa, Barbara Ann Middendorf

Doctoral Dissertations

Catholic schools are integral to the Catholic Church’s mission of evangelization. A Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who is Jesus Christ. Education is the concern and task of the Church, called to serve humankind from the heart of God. This study examined the perceptions of teachers working in Roman Union, Ursuline secondary schools of the Central Province of the United States regarding the extent to which the nine defining characteristics of Catholic identity were present in their respective schools and classrooms. For this research, Catholic identity was operationally defined using the seminal Catholic education …

Service-Learning Research For Development: An Option For The Poor In Practice Through Social Analysis And Community Engagement, Thomas M. Kelly, Kate L. Nolt

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

A group of faculty, staff and students from Creighton University conducted a research project using a strengths-based approach to create a community health needs assessment (CNHA) in the fall of 2017. The instruments, including a survey to determine health status, a focus group questionnaire, an environmental scan and an individual interview instrument, were developed to help shift the paradigm from which many international medical missions are conducted with Creighton’s community partner in the Dominican Republic, the Centro de Educación para la Salud Integral (CESI). In the process of creating, developing, implementing, assessing and reformulating this strength-based CHNA, researchers encountered both …

In His Saintly Patience, John Henry Cardinal Newman Lifts Up The Church’S People, Michael W. Higgins

Mission & Culture Publications

This Oct. 13, John Henry Cardinal Newman will be made a saint. It’s about time.

A Victorian of immense productivity in a generation of prolific high-achievers, Newman is of special significance at this moment for two reasons: his championing of the role of the laity in Catholicism, and his penetrating insights into the nature of the university and the liberal arts.

God And Governance: Reflections On Living In The Belly Of The Beast, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In this critical rage article, Peter McLaren unleashes his revolutionary critique aimed at capitalist injustice behind postdigital socio-technological developments, historical forms of injustice such as racism and colonialism, and recent political events and developments including but not limited to US interventions in Latin America and the presidency of Donald Trump. Rising from two important prongs of McLaren’s work—revolutionary critical pedagogy and liberation theology—the article connects myth, religion, science, politics, technology, and humanity. The article reveals McLaren’s most intimate thoughts and experiences and aligns them with sophisticated theory and philosophy. It dances between the individual and the collective, the realistic and …

More Schools, Larger Schools, Or Both? Patterns Of Enrollment Growth In K12 Catholic Schools Globally, Quentin Wodon

Journal of Catholic Education

After the governments of China and India, the Catholic Church is probably the third largest provider of K12 education in the world. How has growth in enrollment in K12 Catholic schools varied across countries over the last two decades? Which countries have accounted for most of the growth at the regional and global level? What has been the role of the number of schools and the size of schools in enrollment growth, or in the decline observed in some countries? Given trends towards higher enrollment in the developing world due to population growth and higher educational attainment, has enrollment growth …

Tolkien’S Allegory: Using Peter Jackson’S Vision Of Fellowship To Illuminate Male Adolescent Catholic Education, Adam P. Zoeller, Thomas E. Malewitz Ph.D.

Journal of Catholic Education

With many of the Catholic student population disengaged from regular ritual experiences their working vocabulary of the prayers and knowledge of the Church is limited. A beneficial bridge for many of these disconnected students, specifically male adolescents has been the use of storytelling in connection to Catholic themes to lay the foundations of ritual and deeper concepts through a more familiar setting. Through media literary, multi-modal instruction and Scripture exegesis adolescents can begin to recognize, understand, and feel a connection with the severity of the sacrifice of the Apostles in following Jesus of Nazareth. This article will offer some insights …

Mattingly, Alix, B. 1990 (Fa 1287), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1287. Student collection titled “We Walk By Faith” in which Alix Mattingly undertakes a genealogical exploration of her family’s personal connection to St. Ann Catholic Church and School in Morganfield, Kentucky. Mattingly’s paper examines how religion, segregation, and education intersect in ways that have a lasting effect on understandings of heritage and identity. The collection also contains photographs, a partial transcript, and a copy of the audio interview recording.

Cover Photo: 1907 - College Of The Holy Cross Commencement Parade, Brynn A. Cotter

Of Life and History

This essay provides context for a photograph of the College of the Holy Cross 1907 Commencement Parade, which features an image of James Cardinal Gibbons. Cardinal Gibbons, a prominent religious figure of the time, was the Commencement speaker that year.

The photograph was published as the cover art for Of History and Life, vol.2 by permission of the College of the Holy Cross Archives and Special Collections.

Department Of Catholic Studies, Spring 2019, Michelle Loris

Catholic Studies Newsletter

Highlights: Meet the faculty --Department scholarship: Publications and conferences --Student voices: The CIT seminars --From an instructor's perspective: Michael L. Iannazzi --CS faculty and the Common Good: Kirsten Nestro and buildOn --Catholic Studies faculty attend Dante Conference, by Joe Nagy --Highlight: January Human Journe colloquium --Dr. Mark Roche colloquium --Contemporary Catholic Voices: Rebel with a cause: The Religious landscapes of David Adams Richards, by Michael W. Higgins --Catholic Studies film series Spring 2019.

Sr. Nicole: Being A Teacher, Sierra Rood

Ask a Sister: Interview Wisdom from Catholic Women Religious

I interviewed with Sr. Nicole who spoke about her life experiences as a woman religious. This paper includes a portion of the interview where she spoke about her journey of becoming a woman religious and being a teacher.

The Purple Book, Office Of Mission

Holy Cross Bookshelf

This untitled volume, commonly referred to as "The Purple Book" was first produced in 2011 by the College Committee on Mission and Identity to provide informative essays on Jesuit education, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and the history of the College of the Holy Cross. It was intended that the book might also offer a rich sampling of sacred texts and poems submitted by students, faculty, and members of the staff.

Sr. Lucille And Sr. Mary Anne: Choice In Ministry, Chris Ray

Ask a Sister: Interview Wisdom from Catholic Women Religious

I interviewed Sisters Lucille and Mary Anne regarding their experience as women religious within the Church. This paper highlights a portion of the interview dedicated to the changes for women religious relating to the choice in ministry and the decreasing number of women entering the church.

Sr. Luke: Religious Missionary, Martha Tomesen

Ask a Sister: Interview Wisdom from Catholic Women Religious

In this paper, I will reflect upon my interview with Sr. Luke. In our interview, she spoke of her life as a religious missionary, the meaning of humility and what she learned from serving in some of the world’s most poor countries.