Mother Church or Uncle Sam

Wyoming ­Catholic College, of which I serve as ­president, recently ­determined that it has a duty to abstain from federal student-loan and grant programs. As a new college that received the accreditation necessary for federal funding only this year, Wyoming Catholic faced a stark choice for or . . . . Continue Reading »

Residual Entities

In the 1880s, when the bishops of the United States founded The Catholic University of America and obtained a papal charter for it, they intended it to help fulfill their responsibility to teach and promote Catholic faith. The University was governed by a Board of Trustees consisting mainly of bishops and was managed by clerics chosen by that Board. Continue Reading »

Notre Dame's Core Curriculum Review

Much has already been written on the University of Notre Dame’s current core curriculum review—and on its toying with the idea of dropping the two undergraduate theology requirements. The question has been addressed from a number of angles: Margaret Blume, a doctoral student in theology at ND, . . . . Continue Reading »

Wyoming Catholic and the Federal Burden

Wyoming Catholic College has decided to opt out of Title IV—specifically, federal student aid and loan programs. (See the press release here).President Kevin Roberts’ video explanation is a simple and eloquent expression of the bind religious colleges face in today’s regulatory climate. . . . . Continue Reading »

Mary on the Prairie

The city of Bismarck was founded in 1872 in what was then the Dakota Territory, at a bend in the Missouri River where Lewis and Clark had stopped on their famous expedition to the West. Bismarck was chosen as the city’s name after the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck in hopes of luring German settlers and German investments to a part of the world far removed from the Rhineland. And the settlers came, Germans and others, attracted in part by a gold rush in the Black Hills not far away. Continue Reading »

Education or Advocacy?

Catholic University has cancelled a screening of the film Milk, a biopic of Harvey Milk, a San Francisco politician murdered in 1978 by an angry office-seeker. Because Milk was the first outspokenly gay elected official in California, he is a martyr to the cause of gay rights, and the film (with Sean Penn) emphasizes Milk’s struggle against homophobia. Continue Reading »