Georgetown at Two Hundred: Faculty Reflections on the University's Future
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GEORGETOWN AT Two HUNDRED Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown GEORGETOWN AT Two HUNDRED Faculty Reflections on the University's Future William C. McFadden, Editor Georgetown University Press WASHINGTON, D.C. Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Copyright © 1990 by Georgetown University Press All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Georgetown at two hundred : faculty reflections on the university's future / William C. McFadden, editor. p. cm. ISBN 0-87840-502-X. — ISBN 0-87840-503-8 (pbk.) 1. Georgetown University—History. 2. Georgetown University— Planning. I. McFadden, William C, 1930- LD1961.G52G45 1990 378.753—dc20 90-32745 CIP Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown FOR THE GEORGETOWN FAMILY — STUDENTS, FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS, STAFF, ALUMNI, AND BENEFACTORS, LET US PRAY TO THE LORD. Daily offertory prayer of Brian A. McGrath, SJ. (1913-88) Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Contents Foreword ix Introduction xi Past as Prologue R. EMMETT CURRAN, S J. Georgetown's Self-Image at Its Centenary 1 The Catholic Identity MONIKA K. HELLWIG Post-Vatican II Ecclesiology: New Context for a Catholic University 19 R. BRUCE DOUGLASS The Academic Revolution and the Idea of a Catholic University 39 WILLIAM V. O'BRIEN Georgetown and the Church's Teaching on International Relations 57 Georgetown's Curriculum DOROTHY M. BROWN Learning, Faith, Freedom, and Building a Curriculum: Two Hundred Years and Counting 79 JOHN B. BROUGH Philosophy at Georgetown University 109 vn Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown viii CONTENTS WILLIAM C. MCFADDEN, SJ. "Catechism at 4 for All the Schools": Religious Instruction at Georgetown 143 Science Education and Story JOHN F. HAUGHT Science Education and the Importance of Story 169 JOSEPH E. EARLEY Science and Story at Georgetown 185 The Challenge of Cultures ANNE D. SULLIVAN Interracial and Intercultural Education at Georgetown University 201 GWENDOLYN MIKELL Catholic Diversity, Pluralism, and Interracial/Intercultural Education 213 New Worlds and Old: Women's Studies and Jesuit Education LEONA M. FISHER The Challenge of Women's Studies: Questions for a Transformed Future at Georgetown 237 JAMES P. M. WALSH, SJ. Saint Ignatius's Way of Proceeding: The Spiritual Exercises and Education 265 Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown CONTENTS ix The University Challenge: Graduate and Professional Education RICHARD B. SCHWARTZ The Georgetown Graduate School in 1989 281 MILTON CORN Medical Education at Georgetown: A Historical Overview 293 MARK TUSHNET Catholic Legal Education at a National Law School: Reflections on the Georgetown Experience 321 Architecture on the Hilltop ELIZABETH PRELINGER "From Her Spires and Steeples Beaming": Mission and Image in Bricks and Stone 335 Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown FOREWORD A Bicentennial celebration provides a university with a distinctive oppor- tunity to reflect on its past and present and to focus its vision and energy on the future. Georgetown University's Bicentennial maintained such reflec- tion and focus as a primary objective. The chapters in this volume are a result of that effort. In the fall of 1987, after broad consultation and discussion, a faculty seminar of seventeen members was convened under the leadership of Dorothy M. Brown and William C. McFadden, and with the enthusiastic support of then-president, Timothy S. Healy, S J. Seminar members were challenged by the president to "take a good, hard look at ourselves," with confidence that "we have something helpful to say to ourselves and to oth- ers as we enter our third century." The seminar began with very candid and open-ended discussions prior to choosing topics for individual papers. To provide a context for these discussions, and to situate Georgetown within the universe of Catholic higher education in the United States, a John Carroll Lecture Series was organized on the topic of "American Catholic Higher Education: Challenges for the Third Century." Scholars from sister institutions around the country joined Georgetown faculty to explore a range of contextual questions prior to our own reflection. Beginning in February 1988, seminar members met to discuss one another's papers before revising them for this publication. On September 23, 1989, during the closing weekend of the Bicentennial year, seminar members engaged in a series of campus-wide "Conversations on the Future of Georgetown University." Leo J. O'Donovan, S.J., Georgetown's new president, actively participated in these discussions, thus emphasizing their importance for the University. The Bicentennial theme chosen by Georgetown, "Learning, Faith and Freedom," is an attempt to capture the synthesis which was originally intended by its founder, John Carroll, and to characterize the best of Georgetown for two hundred years: a community committed to a vigor- ous life of the mind within a climate of faith and a tradition of freedom. XI Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown xii FOREWORD These pages reveal how that theme is expressed today and raise important challenges for how it will be expressed in the future. No one volume can embrace all of the important issues George- town faces on the threshold of its third century, but it is safe to say that every issue explored here is important for the present and the future of the nation's first institution of Catholic higher education. While many of the particulars will vary from institution to institution, it is also safe to say that much of what is contained here will be helpful to other colleges and universities. I am most grateful to each seminar member and to the cochairs, Dorothy Brown and William McFadden, for their generous and wise con- tributions to this important component of the Bicentennial. Special thanks are also due to the Loyola Foundation for their support which helped make the seminar possible. Charles L. Currie, S.J. Director of the Bicentennial Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown INTRODUCTION When Jesus preached about the kingdom of God, he described its nature through a series of arresting images. One of them, the image of the mus- tard seed, has been very much on my mind over the past few years. The kingdom of God is a mystery of hidden growth and utterly surprising re- sults. To teach this, Jesus compared it to the mustard seed, which is "the smallest of all the seeds on earth" and yet "grows up and becomes the great- est of all shrubs" (Mark 4:30-32). I used to think that "shrub" was something of a letdown. Why not a majestic cedar of Lebanon? Now I think it provides an insight into Jesus' understanding of the kingdom. Let Pharaoh be compared to a cedar in Lebanon with its top among the clouds (Ezekiel 31:3). God's kingdom is more on a human scale but, nonetheless, its growth can result in some unexpected outcomes. This parable has often come to mind recently because in 1989 we celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of Catholic higher education in the United States. From St. Joseph's College in Maine and Barry Univer- sity in Florida, to St. Martin's College in Washington and the University of San Diego in California (and let us not forget Chaminade University in Hawaii), Catholic colleges and universities are spread across the nation. They run alphabetically from Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut to Xavier University (there is one in Louisiana and another in Ohio), the largest of which is St. John's University of New York (over 19,000 stu- dents). Catholic devotion to Mary is reflected in twenty-two different ways in the names of fifty-one schools, including the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, the first Catholic college for women in the United States to award the Bachelor of Arts degree (1899). There are well over two hundred of them, enrolling more than half a million students at last count. A shrub, to be sure, but a sizable one, and many an attractive bird comes to nest in the shade of its branches. All of this two-hundred-year growth began in a two-story brick building which John Carroll had constructed in 1788 on the banks of the Potomac at George Town in Maryland. Carroll's "modest academy" xm Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown xiv INTRODUCTION celebrated its Bicentennial with a year-long series of lectures, symposia, and events of an artistic and celebratory nature. It was also a time to re- flect on the past and to make plans for the future. In the fall of 1986, then-president Timothy S. Healy, S.J., expressed his desire that there be a "reflective center" during the celebration of the upcoming Bicentennial. He asked the director of the Bicentennial, Charles L. Currie, S J., to organize a faculty seminar to look critically at the pres- ent state of the University and identify problems which Georgetown should be addressing as it begins its third century. The seminar's task was not to engage in self-congratulation or to weave a rug under which Georgetown's failures could be swept out of sight. It was to strive for a completely honest description of the present state of the institution as a stimulus for internal debate. They say, if you want to get something done, entrust it to someone who is busy. So, Currie turned to Dorothy M.