New Notre Dame Pres.

[ZagHoya04]

Chicago Tribune article on the Rev. John Jenkins, the new President over at Notre Dame:

"In all of American higher education, Notre Dame has a distinct position. It aspires to be, and is, among the leading universities ... It is at the same time the only one with religious character, with all respects to our friends at Boston College and Georgetown," he said, referring to the more liberal Jesuit schools. "The inertia is always to be like everyone else. To be different, you have to chart a course and have a clear idea about where you want to go."

www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/12744817.htm

[WilsonBlvdHoya]

zaghoya04 said:

Chicago Tribune article on the Rev. John Jenkins, the new President over at Notre Dame:

"In all of American higher education, Notre Dame has a distinct position. It aspires to be, and is, among the leading universities ... It is at the same time the only one with religious character, with all respects to our friends at Boston College and Georgetown," he said, referring to the more liberal Jesuit schools. "The inertia is always to be like everyone else. To be different, you have to chart a course and have a clear idea about where you want to go."

Well, he's off to a bad start already but at least it's a start consistent with the annoyingly superficial and supercilious way that many at ND believe they somehow have more "religious character" than GU or BC. If so, where is the imam at Campus Ministry at ND? Or the rabbi? GU was the first Catholic university in the US to have both on its Campus Ministry staff. I guess that's testimony to GU's lack of religious character.

I think what really motivates/drives these types of comments is the distinct sense on the part of ND types that GU has passed them by in the academic sphere--see R. W. Apple, Jr's telling comment in the NYT and his book on American cities that GU is the "finest Catholic university" in the country. Insecurity tends to provoke this ignorant type of commentary on the part of the Fighting Irish...

I still ask the NDers who do they really worship on campus --Jesus or Touchdown Jesus?

[DFW HOYA]

We don't have to agree with the Domers, but Georgetown's fractured reputation within the Catholic educational community nonethelss suffers when it is seen as being "too good" for its fellow Catholic schools and its use of religious diversity as a shield against criticism that it no longer focuses on Catholic (capital C) educational needs.

Georgetown often tries to have it both ways and that is resented by other schools like ND.

[WilsonBlvdHoya]

How is it a bad thing that GU is mentioned in the same breath as Duke, Penn, Cornell, Berkeley or Virginia? On the contrary, the remainder of American Catholic universities would do well to aspire and achieve the same level of academic excellence that GU has in such a short period of time. Would you rather that GU is still associated with St. Joe's, Fordham and Fairfield as it was 50 years ago?!??!

In addition, American Catholic education is only recently beginning to escape the insularity and, yes, at times but not always, mediocrity which characterized it for much of the 20th century. This is in no small measure due to demographics and the efforts of orders like the Jesuits to educate the whole person. Catholic education needs to be both capital C (Roman) and small c (universal) which would inherently include the teaching and exploration of other faiths. This is a great strength of GU and a great weakness of other, more provincial, Catholic universities.

[CTHoya08]

I think the point that the ND guy is trying to make (not that I necessarily agree) is that Notre Dame has been able to reach a highly respected place in the academic comunity without transforming its focus to the point where Catholicism is just a minor part of its identity, as he suggests is true at Georgetown and Boston College.

For the record, I chose GU over ND, and I am a Catholic. I visited both schools, and I would agree that Notre Dame has much more of a Catholic school feel to it. Here, it seems that Georgetown is only Catholic to the Catholic population, that is, student life is not permeated by Catholicism at any level, although students wishing to pursue their faith may do so. I guess the difference is that at Notre Dame, Catholicism is a central, unifying element of the campus community, whereas at Georgetown it means little more to most people than two theology classes, no birth control sold on campus and seeing Jesuits here and there. I think Georgetown offers sufficient opportunities to religious Catholic students (I assume the other ministries on campus are considered adequate to those they serve, but I cannot speak from experience) but that one definitely has to seek them out, as opposed to the religious aspect of the school being at the surface. That being said, I am very happy at Georgetown, although I feel it is quite a bit less Catholic than my Jesuit high school was. Finally, it does Edited me off when ND people come out and say things like this, because it just antagonizes everyone for no reason. However, I still have great respect for the University of Notre Dame, especially because during the information session I attended as a high school junior, they didn't BS like many other schools tend to do, and were very up-front about their admission policies regarding legacies and affirmative action.

That being said, I root for their football team, but strongly against all their other teams.

[Cambridge]

These comments are just jingoistic in nature and should be pitied. Just like the GU t-shirt sported by some GW fans (mentioned in another thread) this sort of statement is just meant to rile up some sort of self-righteous derisive sentiment to cover up a deep seeded and pervasive sense of insecurity.