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I moved to the University of Notre Dame in 1997 because I fell in love with its distinctive vision, including its core mission as a Catholic university. A year later I became dean. When during interviews I asked prospective faculty members how they might contribute to the distinctive mission of Notre Dame, broadly understood, I realized that they did not really understand what a Catholic university was, so I gave them my own understanding of Notre Dame and of the idea of a Catholic university. Eventually, I turned my oral answer into a short book, which articulates that vision in ways that should inspire anyone, whether they are Catholic or not.
I picked up this book immediately when I became dean at a Catholic university and poured over the most important primary documents. They cover a crucial period in the history of American Catholic universities, including above all their increasing autonomy.
The anthology includes the Land O’Lakes Statement and Pope John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesia, which are among the most important modern statements on Catholic higher education.
I moved to the University of Notre Dame in 1997 because I fell in love with its distinctive vision, including its core mission as a Catholic university. A year later I became dean. When during interviews I asked prospective faculty members how they might contribute to the distinctive mission of Notre Dame, broadly understood, I realized that they did not really understand what a Catholic university was, so I gave them my own understanding of Notre Dame and of the idea of a Catholic university. Eventually, I turned my oral answer into a short book, which articulates that vision in ways that should inspire anyone, whether they are Catholic or not.
I reviewed this book for the Press and offered the following blurb: “Based on a combination of scholarship and personal experience, The Future of Catholic Higher Education offers great imagination, sparkling clarity, and good common sense. Heft’s book will be a valuable resource for orientations and retreats at Catholic universities, but many of its insights apply to higher education more broadly.”
Heft has considerable experience, and his vision fills a tremendous gap, given the rapid transitions in leadership we are seeing at Catholic universities. Using the image of the open circle, the book advances a concept of the Catholic university as neither a closed circle for Catholics alone nor a generic marketplace of ideas that lacks any distinctive mission.
The Catholic Church has gone through more change in the last sixty years than in the previous six hundred. These changes have caused a significant shift in the future outlook of Catholic higher education as the United States has developed a culture that has grown less receptive to religious traditions and practices. Drawing upon his extensive experience, James Heft lays out the current state of Catholic higher education and what needs to be done to ensure that Catholicism isn't fazed out of the educational system. Heft analyzes the foundational intellectual principles of Catholic Higher Education, and both the strengths and…
I moved to the University of Notre Dame in 1997 because I fell in love with its distinctive vision, including its core mission as a Catholic university. A year later I became dean. When during interviews I asked prospective faculty members how they might contribute to the distinctive mission of Notre Dame, broadly understood, I realized that they did not really understand what a Catholic university was, so I gave them my own understanding of Notre Dame and of the idea of a Catholic university. Eventually, I turned my oral answer into a short book, which articulates that vision in ways that should inspire anyone, whether they are Catholic or not.
Robert Benne interviewed me for his book, which offers case studies of several different kinds of religious universities. You know the interview is conducted well, when the person asking the questions is forcing you to think anew about your own implementation of vision.
Benne asked me how we socialize faculty into our distinctive vision. I immediately sensed that we did not do enough and addressed the issue more fully both in practice and in one of my books.
At a Catholic university, one should also think about how other kinds of religious universities define and realize their mission. This book accomplishes that.
This book demonstrates that, despite much evidence to the contrary, there are still Christian colleges and universities of high academic quality that have also kept their religious heritages publicly relevant. Respected scholar Robert Benne explores how six schools from six different religious traditions (Calvin College, Wheaton College, St. Olaf College, Valparaiso University, Baylor University, and the University of Notre Dame) have maintained "quality with soul". These constructive case studies examine the vision, ethos, and personnel policies of each school, showing how 'and why' its religious foundation remains strong.
I moved to the University of Notre Dame in 1997 because I fell in love with its distinctive vision, including its core mission as a Catholic university. A year later I became dean. When during interviews I asked prospective faculty members how they might contribute to the distinctive mission of Notre Dame, broadly understood, I realized that they did not really understand what a Catholic university was, so I gave them my own understanding of Notre Dame and of the idea of a Catholic university. Eventually, I turned my oral answer into a short book, which articulates that vision in ways that should inspire anyone, whether they are Catholic or not.
This book is the one furthest from my own interests. Instead of articulating a vision, it includes the results of interviews with senior administrators across more than 30 campuses. But it is important to know not only what should be, but also what is.
The authors’ conclusions about the current landscape of Catholic higher education are sobering. The most prominent finding, is that many lay leaders have insufficient vision and knowledge of the Catholic intellectual tradition.
Catholic higher education in the United States is undergoing dramatic changes, driven largely by the virtual disappearance of nuns, brothers, and priests from Catholic university campuses. Today Catholic colleges and universities are dealing with critical questions about what constitutes Catholic collegiate identity, what are appropriate ways to engage the Catholic tradition across all sectors of university life, what constitutes a critical mass of committed and knowledgeable Catholics necessary to maintain religious identity, what is an appropriate level of knowledge and religious commitment for those who lead, govern, and teach at Catholic institutions and how do they acquire it. Many people…
I am a Catholic wife and mother and desire to share my Catholic Faith. Growing up in the 1970's and 80's, I enjoyed reading books by Beverly Cleary. As I grew, my tastes for books grew to include true stories of the lives of saints and Catholic history, including the apparitions in Fatima. I also enjoyed reading fictional stories about time travel. Then it came to me. Why not write about a girl who, after coping with loss, finds solace after traveling back to the place and time where the apparitions took place? Bingo. Janie's Prayer was born. In my writing, I hope to inspire others and help spread the Catholic Faith.
As a fan of Catholic history and historical fiction, this story is surely one of my favorites. Set during the Great War, WWI, twenty-one-year-old Julia has her heart set on meeting her future husband. She makes and purchases expensive gifts for him–she's ready. Surely, she will meet her beloved soon.
When Julia is sent overseas with the Red Cross, she finds herself caring for injured soldiers in a field hospital in France. As she matures, Julia begins giving the gifts she'd made or purchased to the injured soldiers. A touching addition to this book was the addition of beautiful sonnets between Julia and her beloved.
"Outstanding and unforgettable book!" Jean Heimann, authorAs a young girl, Julia began buying gifts for her future spouse, a man whose likeness and personality she has conjured up in her mind, a man she calls her “beloved.” Soon after the United States enters the Great War, Julia impulsively volunteers as a medical aid worker, with no experience or training. Disheartened by the realities of war, will Julia abandon the pursuit of her beloved? Will Julia’s naïve ‘gift scheme’ distract her from recognizing her true “Great Love?” From Philadelphia to war-torn France, follow Julia as she transitions from unworldly young woman…
I’ve been fascinated by Central and Eastern Europe all of my adult life. Many cruises along the Danube and around the Baltic Sea have allowed me to see the stunning best of the region. Since the early 1990s, I’ve taught the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburg Monarchy, and the Russian Empire to a generation of students. Professor of Polish-Lithuanian History at University College London since 2013, my next challenge is to promote the history of Poland to allcomers via the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, the wonderful city which is my home.
Martyn Rady has an extraordinary ability to tell stories that make sense. His jaw-dropping anecdotes about the men and women of the world’s most inbred royal dynasty help us to understand how and why the Habsburgs managed to keep reinventing themselves and their global pretensions for seven hundred years. By the time you’ve finished laughing and wincing at their antics, you’ll also understand why the Habsburgs’ Central European heartland became far more than the sum of its diverse parts.
The definitive history of a powerful family dynasty who dominated Europe for centuries -- from their rise to power to their eventual downfall. In The Habsburgs, Martyn Rady tells the epic story of a dynasty and the world it built -- and then lost -- over nearly a millennium. From modest origins, the Habsburgs gained control of the Holy Roman Empire in the fifteenth century. Then, in just a few decades, their possessions rapidly expanded to take in a large part of Europe, stretching from Hungary to Spain, and parts of the New World and the Far East. The Habsburgs…
I’m a developmental psychologist and former professor of education. My life’s work and 10 books have focused on helping families and schools foster good character in kids. Educating for Character: How Our Schools Can Teach Respect and Responsibility is credited with helping launch the national character education movement. My first book for parents, Raising Good Children, described how to guide kids through the stages of moral development from birth through adulthood. My focus these days is kindness and its supporting virtues. My wife Judith and I have two grown sons and 15 grandchildren, and with William Boudreau, MD, co-authored Sex, Love, and You: Making the Right Decision, a book for teens.
Reading this book is like taking a course from a wonderful teacher who opens your eyes to how much more there is to a subject than you ever imagined. David Isaacs was director of the School of Education at the University of Navarre, has published ten books and is the father of six children. This enduring classic, originally published in Spanish in 1976 but available in English, provides a clear, concise chapter on the meaning and importance of each of 24 teachable virtues: good judgment, orderliness, respect, responsibility, obedience to legitimate authority and rules, industriousness, moderation, modesty, justice, generosity, patience, friendship, and more.
Isaacs helpfully groups these virtues into four developmental periods (early and middle childhood, early and late adolescence) and tells us which virtues to emphasize during each period based on the characteristics of children at that age. His vision of virtues is also informed by his Catholic view…
In this book, author David Isaacs, an educationalist and parent, offers ideas and suggestions on how parents and teachers can help children's all-round development. The emphasis is on character building, approached from the viewpoint of moral habits. Professor Isaacs takes twenty-four virtues and discusses how the child - at different ages - can be encouraged to be obedient, industrious, sincere, prudent, generous, optimistic, sociable, and so on. There is no book on child development quite like this.
I’m a gay Midwestern novelist who finds that literary fiction is often humorless, with a narrow emotional range that begins with ennui and ends in despair. If you're weary of trauma porn and want to read books with a broad emotional range, this list of recommendations is for you. My favorite writers ably mix laughter and tears, and are able to find the funny in just about anything life can throw at us.
If you’re older, you probably read O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” for one or more lit classes; if you’re younger, you may have never heard of her as she is now “problematic” according to the unfunny woke-on-steroids crowd. I love O’Connor because I love characters with moral failings, I love mordant humor, and I love the possibility that even the most irredeemable among us can experience moments of grace. The brief details in her stories do such heavy lifting in terms of irony, for example when a Wellesley undergrad hits Mrs. Turpin in the head with a copy of Human Developmentin the short story “Revelation.” The action itself – a privileged white college student from an elite school inflicting violence upon a rural white woman – also speaks to our ongoing culture wars.
In her short lifetime, Flannery O’Connor became one of the most distinctive American writers of the twentieth century. By birth a native of Georgia and a Roman Catholic, O’Connor depicts, in all its comic and horrendous incongruity, the limits of worldly wisdom and the mysteries of divine grace in the “Christ-haunted” Protestant South. This Library of America collection, the most comprehensive ever published, contains all of her novels and short-story collections, as well as nine other stories, eight of her most important essays, and a selection of 259 witty, spirited, and revealing letters, twenty-one published here for the first time.…
Edward Castronova is a gamer who also has a PhD in Economics and a lifetime of research on games, technology, and society. In this book he applies everything he has learned to the burning questions at the heart of every person’s life: What am I doing here? How am I supposed to live? When Castronova faced those questions himself, the answer was clear: I have been thrown into a game called “Life” and, being a gamer, I should figure out the rules to this game and try to beat it.
Speaking of ancient wisdom: Here you have a manual of right and wrong. You’re not going to agree with all of it, or even most of it. But what I got out of reading this, before I became Catholic, was that some very smart people over the course of hundreds of years had thought through the basic norms of correct action and written them down. The catechism embeds rules for living within a larger framework of reality, built on faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God. Again, most of you aren’t going to believe that, as I didn’t when I first read the Catechism. But the critical thing is the coherence and accountability in this document. Nothing is out of place. Every rule for right action has some connection to the overarching scheme. There are no inconsistencies (this is the church’s theory, not its actions).
This statement of the Catholic faith, produced by the Church after consultation throughout the world, reflects the new way that the Catholic Church has been looking at its doctrine since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s. It should be useful for all those involved in Catholic teaching, writing, preaching and pastoral work. It should also be of significance to all ecumenical relations, Anglicans and other Christian groups.
I love Catholic historical romance novels for what they do and don’t include. They feature history, multiple characters, community and faith that together set a rich stage for love stories. The novels don’t include graphic violence or sex scenes. A former journalist, I started writing in the genre because I couldn’t find what I wanted to read. I’m both traditionally and indie published. I’m a member of the Catholic Writers Guild, as are the authors whose books are listed here. Family and community play important roles in my books. They show how a couple is never an isolated pair but always part of a multilayered world. Just like real life.
This is a touching story about love and forgiveness, of oneself as well as of others. The novel is partially historical: the narrative shifts between the 1940s and the present day. The storylines are linked by a beautiful rose ring that is important to the heroines in both eras. Both storylines include love, loss, and love re-found, but not before the modern-day heroine must face what her heart is truly telling her. More than one character finds the redemption that true forgiveness can bring, but each also discovers the journey can be challenging. This novel drops a surprise twist in the middle, so keep your eyes open! I had tears in my eyes when the stories converged and brought closure.
Left at the altar by Zach Richards ten years ago, Julia Manning has buried her pain by leading a quiet life working at a bookstore, helping her sister, visiting residents at a local nursing home, and attempting to be a good daughter. When Zach suddenly arrives back in town and her overbearing mother fixes her up with the last man on earth she would ever want to date, Julia is forced to face her past, whether she wants to or not.
A resident at St. Francis Nursing Home, Elizabeth Phelps suffers from dementia and becomes convinced that a ring Julia…
