ON JESUIT HIGHER EDUCATION Spring 2013 • Number 43

Eloquentia Perfecta We are not made for ourselves alone. Writing and Speaking Well SPRING 2013 NUMBER 43

Members of the National Seminar on ON JESUIT HIGHER EDUCATION Jesuit Higher Education

Laurie Ann Britt-Smith University of Detroit Mercy Eloquentia Perfecta Lisa Sowle Cahill Boston College Susanne E. Foster Writing and Speaking Well Marquette University

Patrick J. Howell, S.J. Seattle University 2 Vincent O’Keefe, S.J., R.I.P. LEADER AND FRIEND

Steven Mailloux Loyola Marymount University Features Diana Owen 3 “Not for Ourselves Alone,” John W. O’Malley, S.J. 6 The Best Training for Public Life, Paul Lynch Stephen C. Rowntree, S.J. 10 A Good Person Speaking Well, Steven Mailloux Loyola University New Orleans 14 Eloquentia Perfecta and the New Media Landscape, Diana Owen Alison Russell Xavier University

Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. writing across the Country | Progress Reports on How to Teach and Do It America Magazine 18 Why Students Don’t Write, Kristine Johnson Sherilyn G.F. Smith 20 Spread Out, But Close, Laurie A. Britt-Smith, Lisa Zimmerelli, Cinthia Gannett, LeMoyne University and John Kerrigan William E. Stempsey, S.J. College of the Holy Cross 21 A Course to Blog About, Laura Davies and Erin Mullally

22 Round-Up, John C. Bean 23 Writing-Across-the Curriculum and the Promise of Something More, Conversations is published by the National Seminar on Jesuit Higher Joseph Janangelo Education, which is jointly spon- sored by the Jesuit Conference Board and the Board of the Student Piece Association of Jesuit Colleges and 25 The Art of the Medical Interview, Francis DeMichele Universities. The opinions stated herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the How to do it | Four Jesuit Alumni Share their Experiences JC or the AJCU. 26 How to Write About Crime, Mike Wilson 27 How to Write About Television, Hank Stuever Comments and inquiries may be 28 How to Cover the World, Loretta Tofani addressed to the editor of Conversations 29 The Managing Editor’s Job, Rene Sanchez Edward W. Schmidt, S.J. Institute of Jesuit Sources 3601 Lindell Boulevard Media and Citizenship St. Louis, MO. 63108 30 “Eloquent” Film and TV | How to Quicken a Heart Rate, Mark P. Scalese, S.J. Phone: 314-633-4622 e-mail: [email protected] 31 From Class to Community EP 2.0 and the New Media Legacy of Jesuit Education, Allen Brizee and Jenn Fishman For information about subscriptions to Conversations: 33 How To Talk Ethically | Cultivating the Digital Citizen through Eloquentia Stephen C. Rowntree, S.J. Perfecta, Morgan T. Reitmeyer and Susan A. Sci Secretary to the National Seminar on Jesuit Higher Education Loyola University New Orleans Book Reviews 1575 Calhoun Street New Orleans, LA 70118 35 R. Emmett Curran on Loyola Marymount University, 1911-2011: A Centennial History. Phone: 504 865 2781 e-mail: [email protected] 38 Paul Soukup, S.J., on Language, Culture, and Identity: The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J.

Conversations back issues are available online at Talking Back http://epublications.marquette. 41 How We Might Move On From Here: A Hope, Claude N. Pavur, S.J. edu/conversations/

Design and layout by Pauline Heaney. Photo Collages Printed by Peacock 24 Saint Peter’s University • 34 Gonzaga University• 43 College of the Holy Cross Communications, Lincoln Park, N.J.

Front cover photos, clockwise from top left: St. Ignatius Loyola, Joan Didion, , George Orwell, Loretta Tofani, Walter Ong, S.J., Edward R. Murrow, . From the Editor

My Last Lecture

y first encounter with eloqentia perfecta was the October 1935) Ernest Hemingway told a young writer to tap tap tap of my newspaperman father upstairs “read everything” — so you know whom you have to beat. typing with two fingers his editorials on his His list included Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Flaubert, Mann, Henry M Underwood. James, Twain, and Joyce. Every day he wrote all the editorials for the Trenton Good writing is true writing, he stressed, and the more Times, plus others for the Brooklyn Eagle, New York Herald experience the truer it will be. For Hemingway, the writer’s Tribune and Philadelphia Record. This overtime sent my life was like an iceberg — the nine tenth under water was brother Dave and me to St. Joe’s Prep, Fordham College and the experience feeding the one tenth prose above the sur- summer camp, plus piano lessons. Because the Trenton face. That’s where risk comes in. For years I traveled alone American Legion baseball team was named after him, my to places in trouble — Vietnam, Cuba, Peru, South Africa, father had an annual team dinner at which everyone at the and Iraq — to test myself, in search of that detail that moved table, including Dave and me, had to stand up and speak. my emotions and would thus move the reader, and come Dad was a distinguished public speaker, and before big back with a story. events I could hear him up in his third floor room memoriz- I built my writing classes around Virginia Woolf, for the ing his remarks in front of the mirror. relationship between memory and detail; George Orwell for Every step of my life I learned to write and speak “Why I Write” and political courage; E.B. White for memory, because an older person — parent, Jesuit, or lay teacher — observation, and wit; James Baldwin for eloquence inspired took the initiative and challenged me to do something diffi- by anger ; and Joan Didion because she writes to find out cult and different. what she is thinking. In fifth grade, I wrote a composition from the point of he best writers, especially war correspondents, are view of a horse galloping across the prairie. My teacher, a moralists. I think of Richard Harding Davis’ picture Franciscan nun, told me, “You can write.” At the Prep my of the German army marching into Brussels and scholastic English teacher, John F.X. Burton, S.J., in front of T burning Louvain in 1914: he had witnessed wars the class, told me to compete in a speech contest. where both sides followed some rules, but, “At Louvain it My father recommended memorizing David Lloyd was war upon the defenseless, war upon churches, colleges, George’s “Shall We Not Sing the Eisteddfod?,” a traditional shops of milliners and lacemakers; war brought to the bed- concert in Wales during World War I. I lost, but learned side and fireside; against women harvesting in the fields, something about George. Burton named me yearbook editor. against children in wooden shoes at play in the streets.” At Fordham Fr. Joe Frese, S.J., whose daily Mass I served, What would he say today about drones? told my parents at the dinner table, “Raymond should go to Your papers are due tomorrow in the first minute of class. France.” In Paris an American Jesuit philosopher, J. Quentin Lauer, later at Fordham, tore my writing apart, convinced me that “such” had no meaning and thus should never appear. From Europe I wrote reports for the Fordham Ram. I After editing Conversations for ten happy years, enjoying the returned named editorial editor and columnist. In senior year friendship of the seminar’s members, forged in all day discus- the Ram’s moderator, Edward A. Walsh, told me I should sions, including dinner and the pub, and listening to faculty publish articles beyond the campus. Two years later, at 23, and students at all 28 Jesuit colleges and universities, I am pass- my first article appeared in America. ing the editorship to an admired colleague, Fr. Ed Schmidt, S.J. After my army service in Germany and teaching journal- During these years as Conversations became more pleasing to ism at five Jesuit and three secular universities, my formula the eye, credit goes to Pauline Heaney, a great artist and dear for eloquentia perfecta boiled down to three steps: read, risk, friend. When I left Saint Peter’s College two years ago I missed write and rewrite. teaching; so it is an extra joy that five authors in this issue are The Jesuit formula in those years was based on imita- friends from my teaching years. ■ tion. — read the best and write and speak like the best do. Asked by a young writer how to improve his novel, Faulkner RASsj replied, “Read Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, and Anna Karenina.” In “Monologue to the Maestro,” (Esquire,

Conversations 1 Vincent O’Keefe, S.J. R.I.P.

LEADER AND FRIEND

ello. I’m Vinny O’Keefe. I’m a friend were doing, intervened and placed his own rep- of Joe Frese [a Jesuit Fordham histori- resentative, a conservative Jesuit who had been an] and he told me to look you up.” I a confessor to Pius XII, to run things — until the ‘H was only a scholastic in studies and Pope realized two years later that he had miscal- O’Keefe was a distinguished theologian, but culated. During all this O’Keefe kept his cool, because he and I had the same friend, he and I helped hold the Society together until its origi- were friends too. Named president of Fordham in nal governance was restored in 1983. 1963, he took the initiative in making Fordham fully co-educational by starting Thomas More O’Keefe’s genius was high intelligence com- College for women. The provincial said he had bined with a leadership style by which he drew gone too far and told him to call it off. O’Keefe you in by listening and really taking you serious- told the provincial that if he canceled Thomas ly. He wrote a memoir now waiting to be pub- More he’d have to find a new president. He won. lished. To the historian’s delight, until his death in July 2012, he had no hesitation telling his fel- In 1965 he was pulled to Rome as an assistant low Jesuits — in lectures, conversation, inter- general for the and a confidant views at the Murray-Weigel Hall Fordham infir- of the general . Following Fr. mary, and a series of DVDs — what was really Arrupe’s stroke in 1981, O’ Keefe most likely going on. would have been elected general of the whole Society; but Pope John Paul II, apparently misin- Ray Schroth, S.J. formed about what Jesuits do and what they

2 Conversations “Not for Ourselves Alone”

Rhetorical Education in the Jesuit Mode With Five Bullet Points for Today

By John O’Malley, S.J.

or most people means vapid, insin- Although the Jesuit school began almost as a rival to the cere, or manipulative speech, a prejudice that university, it soon developed into a partner—of sorts. From goes all the way back to ’s critique of the the beginning the Jesuits believed the two systems were Sophists in fifth-century Athens. Educators like compatible and that they complemented and completed ourselves, however, use the term neutrally to each other. If, however, it had not been for the student-cen- indicate forms of effective communication, tered philosophy of the humanistic tradition, it is highly especially verbal. There are a few of us, final- doubtful the Jesuits would ever have committed themselves ly, who use rhetoric in the specific and techni- to engage in formal schooling for lay students. cal sense that was developed by the great the- oreticians of the “classical tradition” -Isocrates, Literature as core Cicero, , Erasmus, and many others, including FJesuits. That is how I will use it here in relating it to the edu- In this student-centered system as it developed historically, cational enterprise we are engaged in today in Jesuit schools. literature in all its forms, which included history, was the Jesuit education has traditionally had two aspects to it. core of the curriculum. These “humane letters” were subjects The first is the strictly academic, technical, or scientific not taught in the universities. The humanist educators of the aspect, inspired by the training Ignatius and his first compan- Renaissance saw them as crucial to true education because ions received at the in the 1530s. It has they treated questions pertinent to human life—questions of intellectual problem-solving and the acquisition of profes- life and death, of virtue and vice, of greed and redemption, sional skills leading to career advancement as its two goals. and of the ambivalence in human decision-making. They It took on its firm institutional form in the thirteenth century dealt with such questions not so much through abstract prin- with the founding of universities, which to this day have ciples as through stories, poetry, plays, and historical exam- retained those same goals as the very definition of what they ples that illuminated moral alternatives and, supposedly, are about. inspired students to want to make choices leading to a satis- The second aspect is student-centered. It looks to the fying human life. physical, social, ethical, and emotional development of the In this tradition a satisfying human life was seen not as student qua human person. That aspect originated in ancient self-enclosed and self-absorbed but as directed, at least in Greece and Rome in the humanistic philosophy of education in which rhetoric was the determining discipline. It did not get its institutional form until the Renaissance, that is, until two centuries after the universities were founded. As an insti- John O’Malley, S.J., is a university professor at Georgetown tution it has been known by different names, such as Latin University and author of several books on Jesuit history and school, lyceum, academy, and, in the Jesuit system, college. What Happened at Vatican II.

Conversations 3 some measure, to the common weal. That finality, which began, however, not with study of oratory but with other is what made the tradition appealing to the Jesuits, was forms of literature. Until more recent times that literature imposed upon the system by rhetoric, the culminating consisted almost exclusively in the classics of Greek and and defining discipline in the curriculum. The rhetor was Roman antiquity—Sophocles, for instance, and a certain kind of person. Thucydides, Virgil, and Livy. These authors were studied or Renaissance educators, as for their fore- because they were assumed to be the “best,” whose style bears in antiquity such as Cicero and set the standard for all time, an assumption we certainly Quintilian, rhetoric meant the speech-act. do not share today. But what such authors in fact did Although it included effective communi- was stretch students’ minds and imaginations by intro- cation in all forms, it primarily meant ora- ducing them to cultures not their own—in this case, tory. As speech-act it took place, there- pagan cultures—and by thus giving them a sense of the fore, in public space—the courtroom, the wide possibilities of the human spirit. Fsenate, assemblies of various kinds where the goal was to persuade to a specific course of action. In such situa- Bolt, not bug tions speakers’ whole person and personality were on display and played into the effectiveness of the words This study was more immediately directed to developing they uttered. As the old saying goes, what you are thun- in the students a high standard of excellence in written ders so loud I can’t hear what you say. and oral expression, which was honed by paying atten- The discipline of rhetoric, we must remember, first got tion to words and their effective use. It was directed, that codified in the grass-roots democracy of fifth-century is to say, to the cultivation of eloquence. Mark Twain Athens. Citizens had to be able to speak well to make their once said that the difference between the right word and voices heard. They had to speak well if they wanted to the almost right word was the difference between a play an effective role in ensuring the well-being of their lightning bolt and a lightning bug. Eloquence consists in city. In time, therefore, rhetoric became known, aptly, as knowing that difference and being able to choose the “the civic discipline.” It looked beyond one’s personal lightning bolt. advantage to the good of others. No one put this aspect of Furthermore, the theorists realized, at least implicit- the rhetorical tradition more forcefully than Cicero: ly, that thought and finding the right word to express it were not two acts but one. Without the right word one We are not born for ourselves alone…We as did not have thought but, instead, a musing or rumina- human beings are born for the sake of other human tion. They believed that “ya know what I mean” meant beings, that we might be able mutually to help one you did not know what you meant. At the very headwa- another. We ought therefore to contribute to the ters of the rhetorical tradition Isocrates himself said, “The of humankind …There are some proper use of language is the surest index of sound people who claim that all they need to do is tend understanding.” to their own business, and thus they seem to them- That brings me, finally, to the Jesuits. Just eight years after the order was founded in 1540, they opened their selves not to be doing any harm. But this means first school in Messina in Sicily. That school was a they become traitors to the life we must all live humanistic school, engaging the same curriculum together in human society, for they contribute to it humanists like Erasmus had laid out and doing so with none of their interest, none of their effort, none of the same goals in mind. Most attractive to them was the their means. (De officiis, 1.7.22 and 1.9.29) rhetorical goal of helping form young men dedicated to the common good of church and society at large, a goal After Plato’s scathing criticism of the Sophists’ indif- that well correlated with the evangelical precept to love ference to ethical questions, theoreticians of rhetoric and serve one’s neighbor. beginning with Isocrates, Plato’s younger contemporary, I call special attention to the fifteen goals for Jesuit have through the ages insisted that the good speaker, the schools that Juan Alfonso de Polanco, Saint Ignatius’s good practitioner of rhetoric, the good leader had to be brilliant secretary, produced for members of the Society a good person. As Quintilian put it, vir bonus, dicendi of Jesus just a few years after the opening at Messina. peritus—“a good person, skilled in speaking.” Almost The list could have been written by Erasmus himself. from its inception, therefore, the rhetorical tradition had The last goal sums up the rest: “Those who are now only a moral center. According to its best theorists, rhetoric students will grow up to be pastors, civic officials, was the very opposite of vapid and ethically unprinci- administrators of justice, and will fill other important pled speech. posts to everybody’s profit and advantage.” The program of student formation in this system

4 Conversations What about today? The tradition has undergone and not only with the Jesuit tradition of spirituality but as well has needed to undergo many transformations. with the rhetorical philosophy of education. Nonetheless, I believe that its basic goals remain valid 4. Eloquentia perfecta, perfect eloquence. This expres- and in fact are central to what we are trying to achieve. sion took hold in the Jesuit tradition as capturing the Here are the five bullet points promised in my sub-title. most immediate goal of rhetorical training. The goal was I am sure they will not be unfamiliar to you: achieved through the study of great literature in one’s own language and in the languages of other cultures. 1. “The fly in the bottle.” I adopt the well-known metaphor Eloquence, a word sadly out of fashion in most quarters of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. What the rhetor- today, is the skill to say precisely what one means and ical tradition is meant to do is help the fly out of the bot- to do so with grace and persuasive force. It is the funda- tle, that is, to help students escape the confines of their mental skill needed by anyone in a leadership position, experience up to this point, to expand their thinking however humble. It is a skill, as well, that helps one “get beyond the comfort zones of the assumptions with which ahead” out in the marketplace, and sometimes get far- they grew up, to expose ther ahead than those with them to other cultures and nothing more than the tech- to other modes of thought, nical skills of the trade. to lift them beyond the quo- 5. “The spirit of finesse.” Many tidian. To help them expand decades ago Henri Marrou the areas in which they can coined this term to describe dare to ask questions not what the rhetorical tradition only in the areas in which tried to accomplish for the their trade or profession individual, and he distin- moves but about life itself. guished it from the “geomet- 2. “Heritage and Perspective.” ric spirit.” The spirit of finesse This goal or value is closely realizes, unlike the geometric related to the first. It is based spirit, that in the murky dark- on the truth that we are the ness of human interaction product of the past and that and motivation two plus two we cannot understand our- does not equal four. Humane selves and the situations in letters when properly taught which we find ourselves sharpen student’s aesthetic unless we have some idea sensibilities, but, more to the of how we got to be where point, in their authentic we are—as individuals and depictions of characters and as a society. If we forget situations they mirror the who our parents were, we ambiguities of our own life- don’t know who we are. If University of Detroit Mercy. experiences and invite reflec- we don’t know who we are tion upon them. They weave or where we are, how can we make our way and help webs with words that reflect the webs we weave with our others make their way? This goal also looks to the cul- lives, which are not neat geometric patterns but broken in tural enrichment of the student, to goad them, for places and filled with knots and tangles. instance, beyond considering texting the highest form of The virtue the rhetorical tradition especially wants to literary expression. inculcate is prudence, that is, good judgment, the wis- 3. “We are not born for ourselves alone.” Beginning in dom that characterizes the ideal leaders and makes them ancient Athens the imperative of directing one’s skills and sensitive in assessing the relative merits of competing talents not only to one’s own advancement but also to the probabilities in the conflict of human situations. It hopes benefit of one’s neighbors and fellow citizens has been a to turn students into adults who make humane decisions central and consistent element in the rhetorical tradition. for themselves and for any group they might be leading. It means fostering in students a sense of agency. It fosters a wise person, somebody, that is, whose judg- In the 1970s Father Pedro Arrupe, then superior gen- ment you respect and to whom you would go for per- eral of the Jesuits, asserted that turning out graduates who sonal advice, rather than to the technocrat, the bureau- would be, in his expression, men and women for others crat, and the zealot. It tries to instill a secular version of had to be a fundamental aim for Jesuit schools. I am sure what we in the tradition of the Spiritual Exercises of he did not realize how profoundly his words resonated Saint Ignatius call discernment. ■

Conversations 5 The Best Training for Public Life

n Jesuit Child, British loneliness and whatever that silly Reconciling journalist MacDonald question was about sex we had to Hastings offers the fol- answer in ten seconds, was pre- lowing anecdote about dictable.” Does this mean that his Traditions: the Jesuit education he answers had been Jesuitical? had received at Hastings inquired. “I wouldn’t say Stonyhurst in Britain. A that,” replied the discerning col- Jesuit Rhetoric renowned correspon- league. “People only call a man dent during the Second Jesuitical when they are beaten in World War, Hastings had an argument.” and Ignatian been asked to participate on a It should not be surprising that panelI on current affairs. After the a certain style of argumentation program ended, he was would mark the graduate of a Pedagogy approached by one of his co-pan- Jesuit school. From its earliest days, elists, who asked Hastings which Jesuit education put argument at Jesuit school he had attended. the center of its basic curriculum. Having said nothing about his The —the pro- By Paul Lynch schooling during the evening, gram that organized the Jesuits’ Hastings asked how his co-panelist worldwide system of schools for had guessed. “Everything you said on the platform tonight made me suspect it. Your attitude on any Paul Lynch is an assistant profes- question, whether it concerned sor in the English department at intensive farming, town planning, .

6 Conversations almost two centuries—required deep study in the classi- ally take his place of leadership through his practice of cal arts of persuasion, more commonly known as rheto- rhetoric. In our day, however, rhetoric has lost this noble ric. Day after day, students in the humanities course association. The word “rhetoric” is now more likely to were drilled in rhetorical practice. They delivered ora- elicit suspicion than support. It is all-too-common to tions, wrote and rewrote compositions, and engaged in hear statements like, “Hey, let’s tone down the rhetoric endless debate with their peers and their professors. and just say what we think” or “don’t let his rhetoric fool Students worked through sequences of written rhetorical you; let me tell you what he really wants.” Most ironical- exercises: letters of petition, eulogies, descriptions, nar- ly, our campaign seasons are filled with accusations of rations, and poems. They also practiced all of Aristotle’s rhetoric, as in “My opponent has got nothing but rheto- rhetorical genres: deliberative, forensic, panegyric—that ric” or “He’s all style while I’ve got substance.” Rhetoric is, speeches for public deliberation, for judicial proceed- is always what the other guy is selling. ings, and for ceremonious occasions. The goal of all this The art of persuasion has suffered such accusations work was eloquentia perfecta, or perfect eloquence, since its Athenian beginnings, when Plato accused the which, according to Ratio, “includes two most important sophists of being peddlers in deceit. Even the Jesuits, subjects, oratory and poetics (out of these two, howev- who were sometimes perceived as the sophists of their er, the leading emphasis should always be given to ora- day, suffered scruples about the using “the spoils of tory) and it does not only serve what is useful but also Egypt,” as Ignatius put it, “for the honor and glory of indulges what is ornamental.” God.” In spite of early misgivings, however, the Jesuit For the modern educator, the most striking aspect of Ratio made eloquentia perfecta the ultimate end of its the Jesuit rhetorical curriculum is likely to be its empha- humanistic curriculum. In contrast to the Socratic and sis on contest and competition. The Ratio repeatedly Platonic tradition of skepticism toward rhetoric, the charges Jesuit educators to engage their students in Jesuits adopted the Ciceronian tradition that saw rheto- rhetorical agonism, a term derived from the Greek agon, ric as training in public service. For the Jesuits—as for meaning not only “contest,” but also “assembly” or Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian—rhetoric was the art of “gathering.” Agonism essentially means a “struggling argument in the public sphere. Rhetoric, as Aristotle puts together.” Just as we cannot produce a game without the it in his famous definition, is a means of discerning, in striving of opposing teams, agonism assumes that we can- any situation, the “available means of persuasion.” It not produce a community without the striving of opposing offers a way of deliberating over important practical arguments. It is therefore different than antagonism. Rather questions, of producing good reasoning and avoiding than seeking to destroy the opponent, agonism assumes bad reasoning. that struggle will strengthen and improve both opponents. This assumption animates Jesuit rhetorical education in the Ratio. Students were assigned rivals, or aemuli, and these Today, “rhetoric” is what the rivals not only debated and corrected each other, but also were responsible for each other’s progress. The faults of a other guy is selling given student’s oration were the responsibility of his aemulus, as well. So intense was public argumentation There are many reasons why rhetoric eventually lost that the Jesuit instructors were charged during disputations its central curricular seat in Western education: the emer- to “forcefully press the arguments being presented to heat gence and eventual dominance of print culture, the up the competition more.” In other words, it was often the Enlightenment’s emphasis on scientific method and an teacher’s job to stir the pot. often rigid rationality, the invention of the modern Why this emphasis on rhetorical contest? Jesuit edu- research university. Despite their commitment to classi- cators assumed that it would provide the best training cal humanism, Jesuit schools were not immune to these for public life. Cypriano Soarez, the author of an early developments, and their curricula eventually came to and influential Jesuit textbook, offered the following resemble the curricula of non-Jesuit institutions. Yet rationale for rhetorical training: “The excellence of elo- there is another potential challenge to the revival of rhet- quence can be understood from the fact that it has oric, and ironically enough, it comes from the Jesuit tra- always especially flourished and ever held sway in every dition itself: Ignatian pedagogy, which offers the most free people, and most of all in undisturbed states.” This contemporary vision of Jesuit education. justification directly links eloquentia perfecta and com- Ignatian pedagogy was articulated in two documents munity participation. The Jesuit graduate would eventu- produced by the International Commission on the

Conversations 7 Apostolate of Jesuit Education (ICAJE). The first, Characteristics of Jesuit Education, appeared in 1986 (exactly four hundred years after the first official draft of the Ratio Studiorum). Seven years later, the ICAJE published Ignatian Pedagogy: A Practical Approach, whose title reveals the document’s purpose and contents. While teachers at Jesuit schools had embraced the ideals of Characteristics, they had asked for more specific guidance on how to implement those ideals. (Interestingly, this was the same request that had prompted the 1599 Ratio Studiorum, which was essentially a more practical version of the 1586 Ratio. Then, too, Jesuit teachers had applauded the ideals of the 1586 Ratio but wondered how they were to make it work. Thus, we have the 1599 Ratio, or what we now know as “the” Ratio, which is practical in the extreme and anticipates every detail of educational administration, cur- riculum, method, and discipline.) Characteristics and Ignatian together rearticulate the distinctive nature of Jesuit education, but they do so for a modern world, a world of coeducation; lay leadership; advances in science and technology; and racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. Characteristics is the vision statement and offers “an inspiration that can make the day-to-day strug- gle have greater meaning and bear greater fruit.” Ignatian, on the other hand, offers “a paradigm that speaks to the teaching-learning process, that addresses the teacher- learner relationship, and that has practical meaning and application for the classroom. Unfortunately, both documents also eschew the rhetorical heritage of the Ratio. Characteristics, for example, makes only a couple of short references to eloquence, and

8 Conversations Ignatian reminds us that the fourth section of the Jesuit weapons. This martial metaphor will likely seem unper- Constitutions (the section dealing with schools) “appears suasive to many, as will any call for a return to the to place teachers’ personal example ahead of learning or Ratio’s agonism. Yet we know that the world is unlikely rhetoric as an apos- to thank our students tolic means to help for being men and students grow in val- women for others, just ues.” Both documents Learning is not the public struggle as we know that the also reject the com- pursuit of justice often petitiveness that of argument, but rather an attracts more enemies marks the Ratio. engagement with meaningful than friends. If we say Characteristics does that we wish students so explicitly: “Jesuit experience … to pursue justice, we education today faces are also saying that a different reality: a we wish to prepare world of excessive competitiveness reflected in individ- students for struggle. Rhetoric, as the authors of the ualism, consumerism, and success at all costs.” Ignatian, Ratio understood, is the art of struggle, and Western cul- meanwhile, describes a paradigm that implicitly rejects ture’s oldest pedagogy of advocacy. agonism. The Ignatian model offers pedagogy based Of course it is neither desirable nor feasible to think upon the “interplay of experience, reflection, and that we could simply graft Renaissance humanism onto action.” Learning is not the public struggle of argument, our current curricula. Jesuit education has always been but rather an engagement with meaningful experience too sensitive to the particularities of time and place to that bears some relation to the students’ actual lives and attempt such a simplistic revival. Yet without some ver- that, through reflection, leads students to a new course sion of rhetorical training, the commitment to service of action. The reflection called for in Ignatian pedagogy enshrined in Ignatian pedagogy seems equally implausi- follows Ignatius’ spiritual habit, enshrined in the ble. The moral leaders Jesuits admire—Arrupe, Ellacuria, Exercises, of paying attention to what moves him in a Romero, Day—all shared a talent for persuasion. To given situation. In this model, the teacher is more like a emulate them, we need not assign students aemuli (or spiritual director and less like a debate moderator. even Cicero in the original). But we do need to consid- bviously, there is much to recom- er how we might fashion a contemporary rhetorical ped- mend the Ignatian model, which agogy. That project should begin with the idea that rhet- reminds us that Jesuit education has oric can be taught through the Ignatian triad of experi- always been about something more ence, reflection and action. than the accumulation of knowledge First and foremost, rhetoric is an experience, one as the basis for a lucrative career. It that engages mind and heart; indeed, rhetoric is some- also is easy to see why the designers thing our students experience all the time. Rhetoric is Oof Ignatian pedagogy would be wary of the endless also something they do all the time. They write papers, argumentative contest of the Ratio. Five minutes of cable request extensions, discuss politics and sports and music news is enough to convince anyone that the last thing (and occasionally the material we assign). They apply our culture needs is more argument. And surely we for scholarships and jobs and further schooling. They should discourage the kind of competitiveness that leads perform a great deal of community service, around our students to see a grade of B as nothing more than the campuses and around the world, and these projects end of their (or their parents’) dream of the right law demand constant communication. In other words, our school or the right medical school. Yet if we are to join students are already immersed in both the experience of the pursuit of justice articulated in Characteristics and receiving rhetoric and the action of producing it As Ignatian, we would be unwise to ignore the rhetorical teachers of perfect eloquence—no matter our disci- heritage of the Ratio. Characteristics specifically calls for pline—our job would then be to lead students through a “critical analysis of society” [emphasis in original] and the reflection that makes rhetoric intentional. Ignatian Ignatian hopes that students will students will “have a pedagogy thus offers the perfect vehicle for crafting an powerful and ever growing sense of how they can be eloquentia perfecta appropriate to our moment, shaped effective advocates, agents and models of God’s justice.” by deep erudition, manifested in a range of communica- To encourage analysis and advocacy without any means tion media and, most importantly, unwaveringly commit- of persuasion is to send students into battle with no ted to justice. ■

Conversations 9 A Good Person Speaking Well

Eloquentia Perfecta in U.S. Jesuit Colleges: A Brief Genealogy

By Steven Mailloux

he Rhetoric Class “instructs to perfect elo- late eighteenth century when the Society was temporar- quence.” This eloquentia perfecta forms basis ily suppressed. Describing eloquence as “wisdom speak- of a Jesuit rhetorical tradition spanning four ing copiously,” Soarez argues for the educational princi- and a half centuries, a tradition that encom- ple of combining Christian morals with secular learning passes all of the Jesuit ministries of the Word, and follows Cicero declaring that rhetoric must be joined from preaching and teaching to running for- “with probity and prudence. If we bequeath the power eign missions, hearing confessions and of speaking to people without these virtues, we would not directingT the Spiritual Exercises. In each of these min- be making orators but would just be giving weapons to istries, Jesuits adjusted their words to the capacities of madmen.” For Soarez and later Jesuit rhetoricians, the ideal their hearers and readers, practicing a rhetorical sensitiv- rhetor unites the language arts with wisdom and virtue. ity to audience needs, historical exigencies, and spiritual Jesuit eloquentia perfecta can thus be characterized as an aims. During educational formation, Jesuits traditionally influential form of Christian rhetoric, a pedagogical elabo- spent a year studying as “rhetoricians,” and, as they ration of the classical ideal of the good person writing and opened their schools to lay students, the rhetoric class speaking skillfully for the common good. became central to the humanist liberal arts curriculum Quoting Quintilian’s definition of the perfect orator described in their Ratio Studiorum of 1599. as the good person speaking well, many Jesuit rhetori- The Ratio’s “Rules for Professors of Rhetoric” require cians developed his thesis that virtuous character was teaching language arts combined with an erudition required for true eloquence. The seventeenth-century directed at both practical utility and cultural enrichment. French Jesuit Nicolas Caussin, for example, distinguished Erudition comes from studying the history and customs three types of eloquence: human, divine, and heroic. of nations, scriptural authority, and church doctrine. For There is an admirable human eloquence, powerful and a rhetorical textbook, the Ratio recommends the Jesuit beautiful, like that of Cicero and Demosthenes. Greater Cyprian Soarez’s De arte rhetorica, primarily a synthesis of the classical rhetorical theory of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, which was reprinted in various forms over Steven Mailloux is president’s professor of rhetoric at 200 times from its first publication in 1562 through the Loyola Marymount University.

10 Conversations Priests preparing for mass, Gonzaga University. Photo by Rajah Bose still is a divine eloquence, impossible to be taught but that in non-Jesuit schools. In both, the classical theory of performed by such figures as Isaiah and St. Paul. To the Greco-Roman tradition (Aristotle, Cicero, and illustrate, Caussin retells the story of the Apostle’s trial Quintilian) was often combined with the belletristic before Antonius Felix, the Roman procurator of Judea, eighteenth-century British tradition (especially Hugh when Paul was attacked by the prosecuting rhetorician Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belle Lettres. After the Tertullus. Paul successfully defends himself and Caussin American Civil War, as U.S. Jesuit colleges continued draws the lesson: “In this incident appears how weak and emphasizing a classical course of study centered on meager is human eloquence, compared with the divine; Latin and Greek, they also continued requiring English here the theorhetor Paul demolished the machinations of rhetoric textbooks similar to those in non-Jesuit schools. that rhetorician with a crushing blow of the spirit.” This textbook situation changed in the last quarter Other theorhetors exemplify the third type of elo- of the century, as Jesuit colleges adopted new quence, the heroic, which joins human skill and divine written by members of their Society. The most popular inspiration, a practice developed by church Fathers like Jesuit rhetoric textbooks in English were A Practical John Chrysostom, who from the time of their youth Introduction to English Rhetoric (1880) and The Art of strived to improve their rhetorical abilities. Consistent with this tradition of heroic eloquence, Jesuit educators advocated teaching rhetoric combined with informed Virtuous character was required thinking, moral discernment, and civic responsibility. This eloquentia perfecta remained a part of the for true eloquence Jesuit rhetorical tradition into the nineteenth century after the official restoration of the Society in 1814. The Oratorical Composition (1885), written by a Belgium- term still appears in the Ratio Studiorum of 1832, a born Jesuit, Charles Coppens. Father Coppens taught revised version that was promulgated but never official- rhetoric at St. Louis University, St. Mary’s College, and ly adopted as the universal standard by the Society as a the St. Stanislaus Novitiate as well as other subjects at whole. Differences in national practices and institutions several American Jesuit colleges and universities, includ- had led to a diversity that resisted global standardiza- ing Detroit, Creighton, and Xavier. During the 1880s and tion. In the United States at midcentury, Jesuit colleges 1890s Coppens’s rhetorics were required at Jesuit continued to be guided by the Ratio; however, the schools across the country. A Practical Introduction to explicit rhetorical theory promoted differed little from English Rhetoric became the standard textbook for

Conversations 11 Rules for Professors of Rhetoric writing in the poetry and humanities class years, while (Ratio Studiorum of 1599) The Art of Oratorical Composition was required in the rhetoric class teaching oratory. The latter book contin- ued the earlier nineteenth-century combination of clas- I. Grade.—The grade of this class cannot be easily sical and belletristic rhetorics, but it also gave the tra- assigned to certain definite ends: for it instructs to dition a more recognizably Jesuit character as well as adding a more specifically American dimension. perfect eloquence, which embraces the two highest Coppens often quotes Aristotle, Cicero, and faculties, oratory and poetry (of these two, however, Quintilian along with Blair, but he also cites the German Jesuit Joseph Kleuten’s Ars dicendi and the preference is always given to oratory); nor does it includes Jesuit orators as examples. Americans are serve only for usefulness, but also nourishes culture. prominently represented in rhetorical practice with speeches by Daniel Webster and in rhetorical theory Nevertheless it can be said in general that it is con- with quotations from the Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory by John Quincy Adams, Harvard’s first fined to three great fields, the precepts of oratory, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory. Coppens’s style, and erudition. use of Adams’s lectures is somewhat surprising given the particular way the Boylston Professor explicitly rejects Quintilian’s definition of the perfect orator, writ- As to the precepts, Quintilian and Aristotle may be ing that the Roman’s arguments “in support of his added to Cicero. Although precepts may be looked favorite position, are not all worthy of his cause. They for and noted in other sources, still in the daily do not glow with that open, honest eloquence, which they seem to recommend; but sometimes resemble the prelections nothing is to be explained except the quibbling of a pettifogger, and sometimes the fraudu- rhetorical books of Cicero and the rhetoric of lent morality of a Jesuit.” Nevertheless, Adams’s argu- ment for continuing the classical tradition no doubt Aristotle, and, if he likes, the poetics of Aristotle. appealed to Coppens in developing his version of Style is to be learned only from Cicero (although the Jesuit rhetoric. Coppens distinguishes among the terms rhetoric, most approved historians and poets may be tasted); oratory, and eloquence. Rhetoric is “the art of invent- all of his books are well adapted for the study of ing, arranging, and expressing thought in a manner style; but let only the orations be given as prelec- adapted to influence or control the minds and wills of others,” whereas oratory is “that branch of rhetoric tions, so that the principles of the art may be seen as which expresses thought orally.” To define eloquence, practiced in the speeches. Coppens simply relies on Webster’s Dictionary: elo- quence is “the expression or utterance of strong emo- tion in a manner adapted to excite correspondent emo- Let erudition be derived from history and the cus- tions in others.” Jesuit rhetorical strategies often toms of tribes, from Scriptural authority, and from appealed to strong emotions, beginning at least with all doctrine, but in small quantity as benefits the the rhetoric of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Also typical of the Jesuit rhetorical way, Coppens notes that capacity of the students. eloquence applies to writing as well as speaking. He describes oratory as “a noble art” and, like many rhetoricians before him, quotes from the first book of “The Ratio Studiorum of 1599,” translated by A. Cicero’s “De Oratore”: “On the influence and the wis- R. Ball, in St. Ignatius and the Ratio Studiorum, dom of a perfect orator depends not only his own dig- edited by Edward A. Fitzpatrick (New York: nity, but also, to a very great extent, the safety of mul- titudes and the welfare of the whole republic.” McGraw-Hill, 1933), pp. 208-09 Coppens discusses “national variations” in rhetoric, asserting that “American eloquence aims at the perfec- tion of the Latin,” which emphasizes “the beauty of

12 Conversations eloquence, without, howev- er, ignoring its usefulness.” The Art of Oratorical Composition includes major sections on the invention, arrangement, and develop- ment of thought as well as on memory, elocution, and different genres of oratory. Coppens precedes all of these divisions with a sec- tion, “Sources of Success in Oratory,” which gives prominence to moral virtues along with natural talent and learned knowledge. “But far more important than any physical power in the ora- tor,” he writes, “are the Jerry Hess instructs law students, Gonzaga University. Photo by Rajah Bose. moral virtues with which nature and his own efforts, with the help of God’s grace, Similar rhetorical traditions continue today at several have adorned his soul.” To be truly eloquent or persua- Jesuit colleges as they reform their curricula and devel- sive the speaker must be a virtuous person. Coppens op their pedagogical practices. For example, Loyola adds emphatically: “It is the chief duty of education to Marymount University recently adopted a new core cur- make men virtuous; any system of training which does riculum that begins with a required two-course not put virtue in the first place is a false system.” Among sequence, a “freshman seminar” followed by “rhetorical the virtues “most necessary for an orator,” he lists: pro- arts,” which replaces the old freshman composition bity, temperance, public spirit, compassion for the unfor- course and works to train students in oral and written tunate, benevolence, modesty, confidence, self-com- rhetoric in various media. According to the adopted mand, and a habit of application and industry. course description, rhetoric arts “teaches an integrated The intimate connection maintained between elo- set of skills, competencies, and knowledge that enables quence and virtue throughout the Jesuit rhetorical tradi- students to engage in public debate with persuasive tion effectively advanced the long-standing educational force and stylistic excellence.” goals of the Society. The 1599 Ratio urges that “impres- Noting that Jesuit rhetoric emerged out of the sionable minds” be trained “in the classroom and out- Renaissance, the description focuses on how Jesuit elo- side… in the loving service of God and in all the virtues quentia perfecta built on “the classical ideal of the good required for this service,” and these same ends contin- person writing and speaking well for the public good ued to be and promotes the teaching of eloquence com- emphasized in bined with erudition and moral discernment. the course cat- “…the quibbling of a Developing this tradition in light of modern alogues of U.S. composition study and communication theo- Jesuit colleges pettifogger, and ry, the rhetorical arts course complements the and universi- sometimes the fraudulent other foundation courses with topics such as ties through- ethics and communication, virtue and author- out the nine- morality of a Jesuit.” ity, knowledge and social obligation.” In sum, teenth centu- the class aims “to foster critical thinking, moral ry. One typical reflection, and articulate expression.” Courses formulation stresses the value of a “liberal education” in like LMU’s rhetorical arts bear witness that the Jesuit tra- the tradition of the Ratio, which aims “to develop the dition of eloquentia perfecta remains alive and well in moral and mental faculties of the students, to make good the twenty-first century. ■ Christians, good citizens, good scholars.”

Conversations 13 Tumblr, Vilmeo, Pinterest, Wikis, Mashups Eloquentia Perfecta and the New Media Landscape

By Diana Owen

he ability to judiciously apply eloquentia per- The New Media Landscape fecta to new situations has been a hallmark of Jesuit education. Steven Mailloux of Loyola The American media environment has been undergoing Marymount University stated in an address at a significant transformation since the 1980s. Broadcast that “ … rhetoric is going media which disseminate information of general societal to be embedded in the media of the day.” interest to large geographically dispersed audiences have ConsistentT with the aims of eloquentia perfecta, he been joined by platforms that narrowcast content to spe- argued, the digital revolution can be used to promote cific individuals. The media landscape now consists of a the greater good. Students can be provided with the complex, multi-tiered system that accommodates tradi- intellectual tools to engage responsibly and eloquently tional mass media, novel digital media, and hybrid forms in the digital realm. incorporating elements of old and new media. The complexity and cultural underpinnings of the cur- Traditional forms of entertainment programming, like rent media landscape present challenges for Jesuit colleges television and radio talk shows, have gotten into the and universities seeking to adapt the tenets of eloquentia news business. New technologies have given rise to a perfecta to the modern-day curriculum. Students are bom- vast array of media options, like blogs, social network- barded with information from a constantly evolving array ing sites, and video sharing sites. Established media are of platforms that require increasingly specialized skill sets adapting to the shifting environment, as traditional for- to navigate successfully. The questionable quality and vit- riolic tone of much of the content disseminated via media run in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of Diana Owen, associate professor of political science eloquentia perfecta. A tradition of well-reasoned, carefully and director of American Studies at Georgetown articulated arguments is more difficult to achieve in a University, teaches in the graduate program in media environment that encourages an abundance of communication, culture, and technology. She is editor information expressed in brief. In these times, rhetorical of the journal, Electronic Media and Politics training that emphasizes substance, civility, and responsi- (http://www.emandp.com). bility is vital.

14 Conversations Gonzaga University. Photo by Rajah Bose. mats incorporate current innovations. The websites of Traditional print media have fallen on difficult times, as mainstream media organizations have become multi- their budgets have been slashed, staffs have been cut, media resources that feature content produced by pro- and investigative journalism has fallen by the wayside. fessionals as well as citizens. Print newspapers have witnessed a significant decline in Well-established broadcast channels continue to readership over the past two decades, but maintain a form the backbone of media system. The majority of dedicated following of 31 percent of the population. A people still rely heavily on television for news, entertain- 2012 Rasmussen Report finds that only 28 percent of ment, and sports even as new media formats, and the readers prefer the online to the print version of their devices for accessing them—cell phones, tablets, net- favorite newspaper. books—proliferate. A 2012 Pew Research Center study indicates that over 70 percent of the public gets most of The new media first emerged in the 1980s when tra- its information from television news programs. Further ditional entertainment media became deliberately evidence of television’s popularity in the new media age involved in the distribution of news. Radio and televi- is found in a Pew report indicating that 73 percent of the sion talk programs, comedy shows, tabloid newspapers, public watched the 2012 Olympics on television, com- celebrity magazines, and music television increasingly pared to 17 percent who followed the games online and disseminated content related to legal issues, election 12 percent who tracked the action via social media. campaigns, public policy, and societal events.

Conversations 15 Presidential candidates seeking to gain more favorable increasingly rely on citizen-produced content to fill the coverage than they were getting from the mainstream void created by budget and staffing cuts. Amateur new- press courted entertainment media. Candidates now gain shounds from across the globe report on events and pro- more publicity by appearing on the front cover of People vide analysis. New media can enable civic activism by Weekly magazine than through stories in Time or empowering people who lack the resources to engage Newsweek. They routinely make the rounds of television the political process meaningfully through conventional talk shows, like Ellen and The View, where they face most- mechanisms. Voters use social media to take part in cam- ly supportive audiences. This type of new media/old tech- paigns, creating their own candidate ads, recruiting vol- nology has resulted in the rise of infotainment, an obses- unteers, and organizing campaign activities outside of sion with gossip and scandal, and the degradation of news the official candidate and party organizations. standards. At the same time, it has made news more acces- The proliferation of offerings has prompted shifts in sible and palatable to more people. audience media preferences. Individuals negotiating the The second phase in new media’s evolution is labyrinth of choices are turning to specialized outlets inspired by technology. The arrival of the Internet and that best suit their needs. For some people, social media the World Wide Web enabled the creation of entirely have become an integral extension of their daily lives. new communication platforms. Advances in digital tech- According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, nology continually push forward the boundaries of com- 82 percent of the American population was online as of munications possibilities. Innovations emerge rapidly April 2012. Over 40 percent of the public gets news and haphazardly. Digital media run the gamut from for- about national and international issues from Internet mats that resemble offline counterparts or perform simi- sources. The audiences for digital media are dispersed lar functions to traditional media, such as the websites of among numerous sources. This audience fragmentation mainstream newspapers, to truly novel formats that facil- is illustrated by the fact that one-quarter of the electorate itate new ways of relating. In the 1990s, early forms of followed the 2012 presidential campaign on CNN.com, digital media—email, websites, blogs, and discussion 10 percent on FoxNews.com, and 9 percent on boards—afforded users unprecedented opportunities to MSNBC.com. The majority of voters used a plethora of monitor, comment on, create, and distribute information. other news sites, blogs, and social media sites, each Social media that make sophisticated use of the interac- drawing 2 percent or less of the population. tive capacity of digital tools came to prominence in the mid-2000s. Wikis allow people to work collaboratively Eloquentia Perfecta in the Digital on projects and documents. Social networking sites, like Facebook and Pinterest, help users to make and main- Age: Challenges and Opportunities tain contacts, share information, connect with others with similar interests, debate, and organize events. The information age media system thrives on a steady Microblogs, like Twitter and Tumblr, and text messaging influx of content that is produced by a wide circle of services let people share snippets of content with others providers. Little of that content, rises to the level of in their networks and follow events as they unfold. rhetorical excellence. Professional information producers Content-hosting sites, like the video-sharing platforms in the new media era have shunned textbook journalis- YouTube and Vimeo, serve as widely accessible reposi- tic norms defiantly in favor of entertainment values. The tories of material that can be immediately retrieved. public service imperative that once guided media organ- Virtual games and social worlds, like Second Life, not izations commanding the public airwaves has taken a only allow players to make friends and have fun, but back seat to profit-making in a competitive marketplace. also are used for teaching through simulations that Average citizens often lack the appropriate training to require students to do research and develop decision- become purveyors of quality information. making skills. Audience members have difficulty sorting through New media are distinct from traditional media in a the glut of information available through so many number of ways. They have robust interactive capabil- media sources. Distinguishing fact from fabrication and ities and readily facilitate the development of network the important from the trivial can frustrate even the most connections. They can supersede temporal, geographi- hardy information consumer. The desire to simplify cal, and socioeconomic boundaries. They are able to choices can lead people to seek channels that reflect subvert mainstream media organizational hierarchies, their own personal viewpoints while ignoring those that and offer average people enhanced opportunities to offer alternative perspectives. This “echo chamber” effect become engaged. Mainstream news organizations identified by University of Pennsylvania Professors

16 Conversations Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella thwarts The first of these goals acknowledges the need to count- meaningful dialogue and hampers civil conversation. It er the unfortunate norms of digital age discourse that contributes to increased political polarization that pre- devalue the quest for truth and accuracy in reporting cludes cooperation. Political commentators dubbed the information, undermine accountability, foster incivility, 2012 presidential election the nastiest and ugliest they and fail to promote the public good. The second aim have ever seen, as attacks by and against the candidates seeks to generate awareness of the constantly shifting were flamed by a new media system that rewards nega- platforms and changing modes of conversation that are tivity with publicity. That new media allow people to the reality of today’s media environment. It implies the lodge attacks under the cover of anonymity does not need to broaden the curriculum to encompass noncon- help matters. ventional formats, such as 140 character limits, audio These developments present opportunities for edu- and video presentations, and mashups. cators seeking to institute the principles of eloquentia Young people are at the forefront of innovation with perfecta into the curriculum as the need to teach stu- novel platforms and applications. They are attuned to the dents proper rhetorical practices is great. Loyola characteristics of new media and proficient in their use. University of Maryland specifies undergraduate learning They have been instrumental in building the information aims related to eloquentia perfecta that are well-suited to architecture that underpins the new media system and ele- the digital age. These are: “the ability to use speech and vating its use. With proper guidance, our students can writing effectively, logically, gracefully, persuasively, inevitably play an active role in the adaptation of eloquen- and responsibly” and “critical understanding of and com- tia perfecta for the new media age curriculum. ■ petence in a broad range of communications media.”

A Word on Our Departing Editor

Pat Howell, S.J.

r. Ray Schroth, S.J., concludes his ten-year run as editor of Conversations with this issue. Characteristically, he is not gearing down or tak- F ing it easy. Just the opposite. His added respon- sibilities at America as literary editor will keep him busier than ever. Because of his talent as a journalist and his breadth of knowledge about Jesuit universities, Fr. Schroth Photo by Kerry Weber. brought great suggestions, skilled editing, and creative more skilled for advancing this mission on our National layouts to Conversations. Seminar for Jesuit Higher Education than Ray Schroth. Conversations began shortly after the Georgetown Our seminar members hold him in great affection, and Conference on Jesuit higher education in 1989 at which we are consoled by knowing that he is just a phone call Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach gave a major address. away for recommendations about articles, writers, or Afterwards, an urgent need was felt to have greater com- “hot’ topics. He himself embodies the Eloquentia munication among the Jesuit universities, to share Perfecta, which we explore in this issue. ■ insights and best practices, and especially for lay col- leagues to delve into, understand, embrace, and take Patrick J. Howell, S.J., is chair of the Jesuit Seminar on responsibility for the Jesuit mission. Higher Education and rector and professor of pastoral No one has been more central, more committed, and theology at Seattle University.

Conversations 17 Why Students Don’t Write Educating in the Era of Credentialing

n 2005, the Spellings great capital in this crisis narrative. Academically Commission declared a cri- The authors claim that American sis in American higher edu- students are learning very little—at Adrift: Limited cation: at the same time that best—during their first two years colleges and universities are of college. Although the book may Learning on becoming less accessible and be criticized on methodological Iless accountable, they are failing to grounds, it is helpful reading for prepare the workforce and strug- faculty and administrators at Jesuit College gling to maintain international sta- colleges and universities, institu- tus. Extending the national focus tions with aims that Richard Arum Campuses on educational accountability into and Josipa Roksa argue have been higher education, the Spellings lost in American higher education: Report called for information about educating with intellectual rigor the quality and cost of college and a commitment to society. By Kristine Johnson degrees. Policymakers and govern- Academically Adrift reports ment officials are questioning how on a study of 2,322 students much undergraduates learn and, in enrolled at twenty-four four-year the interest of greater accountabili- American colleges and universi- ty, are urging colleges to publicize ties. These students were national- data about student success. ly representative of traditional-age undergraduate students in terms of Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (University of Kristine Johnson teaches writing at Chicago Press, 2011) has gained Xavier University in Cincinnati.

18 Conversations racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds; high school their roles that recognized that providing supporting for grades; and scores on standardized college entrance student academic and social development was a moral exams . Arum and Roksa used the Collegiate Learning imperative worth sacrificing for personally, professional- Assessment (CLA) to measure learning during the first ly, and institutionally.” Students leave college not only two years of college; students were tested in Fall 2005 as academically adrift but perhaps morally and socially incoming freshman and in Spring 2007 at the end of their adrift, without the virtues to become engaged citizens. sophomore year. Through a performance task and two Arum and Roksa do not argue for a return to these val- analytical writing tasks, the CLA claims to measure gen- ues, but they contend that envisioning American higher eral skills such as critical thinking, complex reasoning, education as credentialing neglects the moral, social, and and writing rather than specific content knowledge. The intellectual factors that are integral to thinking, reason- mean gain in CLA scores was seven percentile points, ing, and writing—to eloquentia perfecta in the classroom and the authors conclude that “many students are only and in the world. minimally improving their skills in critical thinking, com- Within the discipline of rhetoric and composition, plex reasoning, and writing during their journeys Academically Adrift has received significant criticism for through higher education.” Yet the top ten percent of its bold claims about student writing. The entire study is students improved forty-three percentile points, and based on results from the CLA, which assesses writing in these high-performing students came from all family ways that are neither authentic nor perhaps valid—a backgrounds, academic preparations, and racial/ethnic ninety-minute test that now scores analytical writing by groups. Because some students did indeed make machine. Composition scholars argue that the authors remarkable gains during their first two years of college, manufacture an educational crisis by interpreting their Arum and Roksa go on to ask how “specific college results quite negatively and citing only studies that found experiences and contexts can shape” growth after stu- similarly discouraging results. Though the sample group dents enter college. as a whole and each subgroup recorded statistically sig- Three factors emerged as significant for learning nificant gains, they nonetheless conclude the gains were growth: spending time studying alone, taking classes limited, overlooking other studies that show improve- from faculty with high expectations, and taking classes ment throughout the undergraduate years. Arum and that require more than forty pages of reading per week Roksa use these results to call for deeper dedication to and more than twenty pages of writing during the undergraduate education: more rigorous classes, more semester. For those who teach college writing and rhet- contact between faculty and students, and more faculty oric courses, the last finding—that writing positively cor- time devoted to teaching. These goals are certainly relates with growth in learning—is certainly not surpris- admirable, but they also obscure economic and material ing because it confirms decades of composition realities. Many of the courses students take during the research. However, Arum and Roksa found that fifty per- first years of college are taught by teaching assistants or cent of students reported not taking a single course contingent faculty, and the credentialing model directing requiring more than twenty pages of writing in a semes- American higher education may not allow for this dedi- ter. This finding is especially troubling if we assume that cation to undergraduate education. more than fifty percent of students take a writing course Academically Adrift calls attention to the wide- during their first two years of college, and it may also spread perception—one held by faculty, administrators, indicate that opportunities to undertake substantial writ- and students—that a college degree is simply a creden- ing projects have dissipated in postsecondary classrooms tial to be deployed in the economic market. Policy state- as they have in secondary classrooms. ments such as the Spellings Report reinforce this percep- tion, focusing on student learning as a way to assign Moral authority, or just a credential? value to the credential. In this educational landscape, faculty and administrators from Jesuit colleges and uni- Though Arum and Roksa ultimately draw narrow conclu- versities may reflect on the ways in which their work sions, their work suggests a broader claim: higher edu- challenges this perception by aiming to educate students cation has shifted from an institution that embraced ethically, morally, and intellectually. Although standard- moral authority for student development to an institution ized assessment instruments cannot measure these ethi- that simply credentials workers. They identify a shift in cal and moral goals, Academically Adrift highlights their the way faculty and administrators view their roles: importance not only for student learning but also for the “Many higher-education administrators and faculty today continued existence of American higher education as a have largely turned away from earlier conceptions of public good. ■

Conversations 19 Reports Writing Across the Country Progress Reports on How to Teach and Do It

Spread Out Conference on Rhetoric and for the collaboration to be successful. Composition, responded to a call for But beyond the writing itself, our But Close papers at the European Association of work evokes the Jesuit notion of the Conversations and Teachers of Academic Writing collaborative process of learning and Collaborations: Conference in Ireland (2011). We acting, “nuestro modo de proceder”— worked together to prepare a presenta- listening, sharing, and attending to Eloquentia Perfecta on tion, “The Spiritual Life of Writing” on what is common and unique about our 21st Century Jesuit joining the reflective/ spiritual and aca- contexts, then moving forward through demic uses of writing. This drew from language together. Our collaboration Campuses our own institutional approaches, but has led us to better appreciate and transformed to a unified whole as we share the features of eloquentia perfec- Laurie Ann Britt-Smith, worked online, met in Limerick, pre- ta that our programs strive to enact. Lisa Zimmerelli, Cinthia Gannett, sented together, and responded to the That is, what is distinctive about our and John Kerrigan useful questions and thoughtful feed- collaboration is the way it forges an back of our international audience. interrelationship between/ among us How can the tradition of eloquentia per- As fellow travelers exploring the and our work on campuses. We realize, fecta still animate our current sense of extension of the Jesuit rhetorical tradi- for example, that we are all interested rhetorical education? The Jesuit tion into the 21st century teaching of in synthesizing the role of rhetoric and Conference on Rhetoric and writing, we learned as we taught, first reflection as central program aims and Composition, an association of interest- for our international presentation, and in identifying ways to teach language ed writing faculty from the 28 American then as we have worked on this article as a means of forming “men and Jesuit colleges, was founded over a and other projects together and on our women for others.” decade ago, prompted by the need to own campuses. This primarily digital These initiatives take very different recover and re-imagine what is vital collaboration (email, Skype, google forms, given institutional histories, about Jesuit rhetorical education for the docs) is one means by which we enact structures, and resources, but they each 21st century. In this Jesuit-lay collabora- and model eloquentia perfecta. We have important contributions to make tion, faculty in rhetoric-composition challenge ourselves to generate writing to our conversation. At Rockhurst meet and communicate regularly to that reflects all our individual voices, University, we learn, discussions sponsor colloquia, summer institutes, yet also forms a larger whole. This between first-year writing faculty and presentations, published scholarship, process can be arduous, requiring more disciplinary faculty, noting the conver- and pedagogical reform. Our voluntary time to complete a project than if we gence of reflection as a “best practice” association promises to help create and attempted to keep the conversation in teaching writing and Ignatian peda- sustain a new version of eloquentia per- smaller. Yet we find real value in mak- gogy, developed ways to infuse and fecta across curricula, programs, and ing the effort to understand each assess a reflective pedagogy. Similarly, institutions aligned with current views of other’s and our own imperfect (unfin- Fairfield University’s developing core Jesuit mission and identity which join ished) efforts. We have discovered that writing course sequence supports its academic excellence and social justice. we need to mind the gap between our core pathway, Rhetoric and Reflection, As one example of this work, we aim of eloquence and our (and each and it is sustaining institution-wide teacher-scholars at four distinctly differ- other’s) daily scribbles, maintaining a interest by engaging the faculty broad- ent and geographically-dispersed Jesuit delicate balance of and cura per- ly as “a community of writers” through institutions, all partners in the Jesuit sonalis in our companionship in order the Center for Academic Excellence.

20 Conversations Like Fairfield, the University of Detroit University of Detroit Mercy; Lisa ing prompts as arguments themselves. Mercy (UDM), has also revised its writ- Zimmerelli is an assistant professor The assignments and classroom activi- ing program, improved its writing cen- and writing center director at Loyola ties were all selected to stage teaching ter, and adopted new learning out- University Maryland; Cinthia Gannett as a rhetorical activity. comes in the soon to be implemented is an associate professor of English, The course was organized around core curriculum which focus on the director of core writing, and CAE a progression of three questions: What development of ethos, language as coordinator of writing across the com- is Jesuit higher education for? What civic action, and other enduring rhetor- munity at Fairfield University; and does it mean to be a college writer ical competences. At Loyola University John Kerrigan is an associate professor today? What does it mean to get a col- Maryland (LUM), the writing depart- of English and chair of the humanities lege education in the 21st century? ment enacts the centrality of writing division at Rockhurst University. First, the students explored the and rhetoric by bringing together the 450-year history of the Jesuit order and core writing course, a writing major read about Ignatian spirituality, the and minor, writing-across-the curricu- A Course to worldview of , and lum support (including a Loyola writ- Blog About scholarship about the Catholic intellec- ing handbook with contributions from tual tradition (including selections by every department), and the writing John Paul II, John Henry Newman, center into an integrated ensemble of Laura Davies and Erin Mullally Adolfo Nicholás, Peter-Hans initiatives. Their writing center extends Kolvenbach, James Martin, Monica the ideal of social justice into the larg- A few weeks ago, Laura stumbled upon Hellwig and Kevin Clarke). These er Baltimore community through its a blog one of her writing students kept. works gave the course a foundation high school peer tutoring program. To her surprise, the student cared upon which to explore contemporary As we confer across campuses, our enough about what they had talked merits of liberal arts education and the mutual commitment to eloquentia per- and wrote about to post her essays pros and cons of campus life in authors fecta bears a transformational capacity. about critical writing and Ignatian spir- including Mark Edmundson, Louis Accompanying each other in the Jesuit ituality on her very non-academic blog. Menand, Mary Eberstadt and Donna sense, with humility—not appropriat- In one post, she wrote: ‘Though I am Frietas. The specific shared vocabulary ing each other’s projects, but being in not even halfway through the semester, alone allowed for nuanced conversa- dialogue with each other as we choose I feel like this course has already tion as the students noted the frequent how to proceed, cultivates our sense of helped me to grow a lot and come to use of these same terms throughout self-awareness and criticism, and has terms with who I am …’ their campus. opened avenues of possibility that have We believe that this student found Then students read scholarship in enhanced our individual work. Our her critical writing course meaningful composition and rhetoric (selections by ongoing collaborative work will contin- because of the nature of the course. Gerald Graff, Lester Faigley, Mike Rose, ue to focus on Jesuit rhetorical practice For fall 2011, we designed a pilot first- Rebecca Moore Howard, Donald for discernment and action in service of year writing course at Le Moyne Murray and Walter Ong), challenging the common good, grounded in best College that enacted Ignatian peda- them to find connections between practices in contemporary composition gogy: teaching writing through a holis- Ignatian pedagogy and the theories and rhetoric. And when we grow frus- tic pedagogical framework that empha- that inform our understanding about trated by the pace and complex nego- sized 1) care of the individual stu- inquiry, rhetoric and digital technology, tiations of group writing and the long dent, 2) individual reflection and self- the writing process, collaborative writ- trail of drafts, emails, and conversa- evaluation, and 3) a concern for the ing with sources, and academic argu- tions, we remind ourselves that the first ethical ramifications of rhetorical acts. ment as conversation. great Jesuit educational document, the We had five sections of freshman Although we found the course Ratio of 1599, was the result of count- composition, approximately one hun- engaging, we noticed some limitations. less iterations, reports, revisions. We dred students. We wanted students to We designed the course with the tradi- have to laugh and ask, Why should it approach writing through Ignatian ped- tional first-year, first-semester college be any different now? agogy. We also wanted them to see student in mind. Many of our students who the man behind the curtain was, fit this category, but not all. The older, Laurie Ann Britt-Smith is an assistant naming for them the processes we non-traditional students found the professor of English and director of the were following, so they could contem- course meaningful, but in different writing program and center at the plate our classroom practices and writ- ways than we expected. One, an Army

Conversations 21 Reports

veteran wounded in Iraq, wrote about College give me the freedom to do nary commitments to eloquentia per- how he saw his life intersecting with what I feel is my own path and that fecta that help students understand the the story of Ignatius. Other students, they will be supportive of power of writing to promote deep returning to college, added to our dis- that.” Another student notes that “As a learning, civic engagement, and dis- cussions of the worth and cost of a col- Jesuit Institution Le Moyne has specific cernment of beliefs and values. lege education today. goals set out for its students including “WAC-type things”: Three quick Additionally, although we used the education of the mind and body, a examples include Gonzaga same major assignments and many of dualism at the heart of the Jesuit tradi- University’s pilot initiative in reading the same readings, our courses were tion, critical reasoning and eloquence, across the curriculum; the day long not identical. It’s important that the skills necessary for students to go into workshop that Tom Pace and col- course remain flexible so that it can the world, and a dedication to service leagues at John Carroll conduct for fac- adapt to teachers’ individual expertise. and learning, which lies at the center of ulty teaching writing-intensive courses; We developed a shared vocabulary and Jesuit spirituality.” or Rockhurst University’s discus- a core set of texts, while retaining the These two responses—one sur- sions of eloquentia perfecta across the autonomy to tailor the courses to our prised by the nature of Jesuit educa- curriculum. own interests. Finally, our pilot project tional ideals that do not conform to A different “WAC-type thing” is the was supported through an institutional negative assumptions of Catholicism writing fellows program by Paula grant, which gave us the resources to and one that sees positive links Mathieu at Boston College. Unlike a do extensive curricular development between academic and non-academic drop-in writing center, a writing fellows the previous summer. goals—are typical. Erin felt that these program pairs trained graduate-student In one assessment, students were students understood the implications fellows with an interested faculty mem- asked to define academic writing, a behind why one should attend a Jesuit ber on a specific course. The fellows question previously asked on the first college. All private colleges must work with the professor and consult day which most could not answer demonstrate to their students why their throughout the semester with students clearly. Now, however, all gave particular institution is worth attending; during draft stages of assignments. answers that included terms like “argu- even early on, these students seemed Also, at least two Jesuit universities mentative,” “support,” “back up your receptive to the distinctive nature of the have WAC websites providing support claims,” “include opposing view- college they had chosen. information for both students and fac- points,” “prove a point.” Additionally, ulty. The Marquette website includes when asked to reflect on what they Laura Davies and Erin Mullally teach a “department-by-department” refer- have learned about themselves as writ- in the English department at Le Moyne ence guide as well as writing tips for ers, the overwhelming response mimics University. students. Loyola Maryland has also this one student’s response: “I’ve produced a writing handbook available learned that my writing needs work.” on-line. We were delighted by the over- Round-Up WAC via core initiatives:. whelmingly positive response because Fordham University’s eloquentia we had feared that students would What’s New in Writing perfecta seminars, taught by faculty reject any prolonged engagement with across the Curriculum across the curriculum, were featured in Ignatian ideals in a required course. at Jesuit Institutions a recent article in America (“How to During an in-class reflection early in Build a Better Student” May 16, 2011). the semester, Erin’s students considered Today? Students must take four EP seminars the links between that day’s reading during their undergraduate years. St. and the college mission statement. John C. Bean Joseph’s University also requires a Their responses noted how both the writing-intensive course during each of statement and the author’s argument on “So, while John Carroll (JCU) does four years. Seattle University’s new the nature of Jesuit ideology affirm the not have an official Writing Across the four-year vertical core requires writing necessity of individual freedom of con- Curriculum (WAC) program, we do a in every core course and specifies that scious and the importance of living a number of WAC-type things,” says Tom particular courses must require a writ- full life. As one student, skeptical of Pace, the director of writing at JCU. ten or oral assignment. the “Catholic” element of the Le Moyne Like John Carroll, most Jesuit colleges WID (writing in the disciplines) mission, notes: “It is comforting to and universities do a lot of WAC-type initiatives: In Seattle University’s know that the Jesuits and Le Moyne things. What’s new are cross-discipli- writing-in-the-majors program, each

22 Conversations major identifies a capstone project that requires “expert insider prose” in the discipline. Disciplinary faculty, using the process of backward design, devel- op instructional modules and assign- ment sequences needed earlier in the major to prepare students for capstone work. (For a bibliography of peer- reviewed articles on Seattle University’s use of assessment to sustain WAC, email [email protected]) Reflection across the Curriculum:. Whereas “reflection” in writing instruction has typically focused on metacognition, Jesuit universities are increasingly using reflection in the Ignatian tradition of discernment, ask- ing students to wrestle with questions about meaning and value. Fairfield’s new core has a pathway entitled “Rhetoric and Reflection.” Seattle University’s new Core also requires reflection in a number of courses, including social justice.

John C. Bean is professor of English at Seattle University.

Writing-Across-the Curriculum and the Promise of Something More composing texts designed for online Numerous journals sponsor under- Joseph Janangelo presentation and circulation. These proj- graduate research. For example Young ects prepare students for careers design- Scholars in Writing publishes work in Writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) ing company web sites, maintaining rhetorical theory and practice. The con- courses represent a nexus of what is their social media presence, and creating cept of audience is writ large when new and renewed for students at Jesuit online databases and reports. This helps undergraduates write for hundreds of colleges and universities. Three recent students create texts of encapsulated elo- readers. developments illustrate this combination. quence with a few well-chosen words More and More 1. Students compose digital texts and a menu that is clear and inviting. The more students write and revise across the curriculum. Instructors also help students incorpo- their work in carefully mentored WAC For years, students and teachers rate visuals (e.g. still and moving courses, the more attentive, rigorous, have used web sites and databases to images) and sounds (e.g. music). and capable they become as readers further their research. Contemporary 2. Students write in scholarly and and writers. Learning to write well is a WAC instructors are moving from sim- professional genres. life-long project. First-year composition ply using existing online texts to help- Genres include lab reports, case stud- courses lay a strong foundation. ing students create new ones in con- ies, brochures, and teaching portfolios. temporary professional genres. 3. Undergraduates publish their Joseph Janangelo teaches English at Students receive mentored practice in research. Loyola University Chicago.

Conversations 23 Saint Peter’s University

24 Conversations the stress and importance of learning the material, a low score can often limit a student’s career options following The Art of the medical school. Thus, most of the time spent preparing to be a doctor centers around building a strong scientific foundation. Even though making clini- cal decisions requires a mastered Medical Interview understanding of this scientific materi- al, doctors cannot lose sight of the fact that treating the human spirit requires the skills of an artist. By Francis DeMichele Loyola understands the value of human connections in the medical profession and balances their medical ny doctor can order tests, curriculum with classes which focus on examine vitals, and ana- treating the whole patient. According to lyze charts, but to possess an article from the Journal of General the skill to interview a Internal Medicine by Dr. Mack Lipkin, patient well requires noth- Jr., a patient’s diagnosis can be made by ing short of perfect elo- the medical interview alone 80 percent quence.A A doctor must show confi- of the time. Because a successful inter- dence without arrogance and must view can be such a valuable asset in clin- build trust while placing the patient at ical medicine, we begin learning how to ease. At any point during the interview, navigate patient interviews during our especially when meeting a patient for first year of medical school. We are the first time, this process can go horri- taught to consider each individual bly wrong and become awkward for patient’s circumstances beyond simply both the patient and physician. the disease or its symptoms. We contin- However when done successfully, a ue to practice these skills frequently, good interview will be the foundation which prepares us for seeing patients on for quickly reaching the correct diagno- a regular basis during our third year. sis and providing optimal care. This interviews. I needed to ask direct ques- The ability to clearly articulate and interview process used by physicians is tions which would give me the infor- communicate is indispensable whether not unlike that used by journalists mation that I needed without ever in the field of journalism or medicine. investigating complex societal issues. seeming offensive. Sometimes people When writing for the newspaper, jour- After observing many senior physi- were apprehensive when answering nalists need to analyze all of the infor- cians interview patients in the hospital questions from fear of having their mation obtained and present only the and subsequently attempting to imitate words manipulated or turned against useful and relevant parts in a logical, their example with my own patients, I them. Once I built a rapport with them organized and straightforward article. quickly understood the difficulty and demonstrated my willingness to Similarly, a clinician must consider all of involved in mastering this skill. only report the truth in an unbiased the factors of a patient’s condition and Multiple obstacles must be overcome in manner, the people I interviewed were distill what was initially many loosely order to professionally interact with willing to cooperate and help me to connected statements into a clear clini- patients. Some patients are suffering write an accurate article. cal assessment and plan of treatment. because of their conditions and do not The nature of medical school often When physicians combine scientific wish to be bothered while others come allows students to disregard the value expertise with the interviewing skills of with preconceived aversions to medical of polished communication skills. In pertinent questioning and attentive lis- professionals. Nonetheless, by asking order to build an understanding of the tening, they can then practice medicine thoughtful questions and sincerely lis- highly technical scientific principles in the ideal way. Like a journalistic inter- tening, this process gives patients con- applied in the medical field, the med- view, a medical interview requires a fidence in the care they receive. ical school curriculum necessitates a yearning for the truth tempered by a Learning to conduct interviews, I fast paced teaching and learning envi- respect for human autonomy. ■ have found myself drawing from my ronment. Students must commit mas- experience as a former editor of my sive data banks of interdisciplinary sci- Francis DeMichele, former editor of the college newspaper. The key to gather- entific and clinical information to mem- Saint Peter’s University Pauw Wow, is a ing information for a story depended ory and take standardized board exams medical student at Loyola University on my ability to conduct successful to prove their knowledge. To add to Chicago.

Conversations 25 HOW TO DO IT Four Jesuit Alumni Share their Experiences

later, I can still remember the people — a woman in line in HOW TO WRITE a convenience store, a man on his front porch — who were kind enough to pause and chat with an earnest, self-con- scious stranger about the place where they lived. ABOUT CRIME It was an important day because it was uncomfortable. No one hiring college graduates for jobs in journalism is By Mike Wilson looking for someone to sit in an office, “using up Mr. (insert name of publisher)’s air conditioning,” as a former colleague “Excuse me …” in Alabama liked to say. These two words remain the most difficult part of my At the New York Times, I’ve sought pedestrian wisdom workday. Approaching complete strangers and asking them and reaction to everything from an attempted car-bomb in to answer questions — often, in crime reporting, on what Times Square to an accumulation of slush in the streets. I’m has suddenly become the worst day of their lives — never still self-conscious. It hasn’t gotten any easier, but I’ve gotten gets easier. No improvement in technology, no iPhone app, faster. New Yorkers are far too accustomed to being no social network will change this eternal, analog approached by strangers part of the job: sticking a notebook in your back carrying a petition to be pocket and a pen in your front and walking out of signed, or shaking a cup of the door to talk to people. loose change, or, yes, hold- The great ones I studied at Loyola University in ing a reporter’s notebook. New Orleans made it look easy. Gay Talese’s “Frank Crime reporting can be very Sinatra Has a Cold,” which I first read at age 19, tore uncomfortable. Interviewing the roof off what I understood journalism to look the relative of a murder vic- like, to be able to do, and it let in fresh air and color. tim is something you don’t It read like a novel, which I did not know was ever get good at doing, but allowed. The complete immersion into the life of a you hope, you become less subject — to do this for a living? I was hooked. bad at it. An editor at my To this day, I tell everyone to read “Frank first job threatened that if Sinatra Has a Cold.” I had dinner with Mr. Talese last she ever heard a reporter year and struggled, star-struck, to explain the impact ask someone, “How did it of the piece on my life. He cut me short, with ques- make you feel?” she’d fire tions about my work. Always asking questions. He him right there on the spot carries around strips of cardboard from the dry cleaner in his with his pen in his hand. I never asked that question. coat pocket, for taking notes. Always working, always look- I offer the honest truth: I never met the victim, and I’d ing for a story. You can’t teach curiosity, but you can teach like to say something about him besides just the way he how the good writer channels curiosity into art. died. The same approach holds for the family of the bad guy. In journalism classes at Loyola, we were assigned to My favorite crime journalism is David Simon’s “Homicide: A write profiles of one another, and as a reporter at the week- Year on the Killing Streets,” the fruit of a reporter’s frustra- ly campus newspaper, The Maroon, I interviewed my fellow tion with the emptiness of his routine daily stories about this students about everything from sorority recruitment policies or that murder. to a car wreck down the block. But one assignment, on trav- The journalism class with no classroom is no less impor- el writing, required us to go to a neighborhood that we tant. Go Out and Interview People: 101. For some, it will be knew little or nothing about and get a feel for the place by the toughest part of the semester, and the most valuable. walking around and talking to people. I borrowed a car and drove to an area called Mid-City, parked, got out, and froze. Now what? Whom do I approach, Mike Wilson, a graduate of Loyola University New Orleans and what do I say? These were not fellow students with and former editor of the Loyola Maroon, is a regular whom I shared a lot in common. To this day, 20-plus years Saturday morning New York Times columnist on crime.

26 Conversations HOW TO WRITE ABOUT TELEVISION

By Hank Stuever

When school groups and other visitors take the tour of the Washington Post newsroom, they often make a brief stop near my dimly lit office in the corner of the Style section. I have some idea of what the guide says: See that man there? His job is to watch TV all day and then write what he thinks about it. Can you imagine being paid to watch TV? The job sounds cushier than it is, of course – and it still sounds trag- ic to my mother, who always begged me to shut the televi- deans, Greek organizations, theater directors, my own pro- sion off and go outside, play. fessors. The questions we asked and the way we wrote was- My first two decades as a journalist were spent in the n’t always perfect, but no one questioned our motives and newspaper equivalent of a raucous and occasionally upset- our work more than we did. This, to me, has always been ting playground, as a features writer who sought out people the point of it all, to think critically and actually criticize, to and stories that spoke to some theme of the human condi- question authority even when they won’t answer, to enter a tion. I followed a bride-to-be through the self-manufactured debate you might not win, and to write clearly about an drama of wedding planning. I followed a family of morti- event or an idea – but most of all to question yourself. cians who owned a discount funeral home in a strip mall. I There’s a lot of noise about popular culture now. Anyone traced the story of one acoustic guitar back through its five can dash off something about a TV show or a celebrity, and owners, each of whom dreamed of mastering it and being a everyone does. I became a TV critic a few years ago not campfire troubadour – and never really did. I wrote about because it looked easy, but because it looked difficult and rock bands and Dairy Queens, dilapidated roller rinks and clamorous, and because it is another way that I can write about dead shopping malls. I covered two Miss America pageants, society and culture in the present tense. The difference now is six Oscar nights, White House dinners, a space-shuttle crash, that I’m looking at it through the distorted prism of our flat- a Winter Olympics, the events of September 11th and the screens and iPads. I watch and listen to its content and then Oklahoma City federal building bombing. I wrote about peo- interrogate it, to a degree, with intellectual passion. ple who were mentally ill or just crazy in love. The point of A few days ago, I reviewed a new reality show on NBC it all was to write about people as they are, to get at the that features C-list celebrities and military special-ops veter- deeper truths we all sense in our everyday lives but can ans playing war games in quasi-combat scenarios. All in fun, never quite articulate. you see. One of the military men, a Navy SEAL sharpshoot- It’s not the important journalistic work performed by my er, boasted that he had 160 confirmed kills. His co-stars colleagues up in the investigative department. I always did seemed thrilled to hear that. Once the show aired, various better on the margins of the news. What I did – what my anti-war groups and a handful of winners of the Nobel peace Jesuit-flavored education taught me to do – was listen to prize voiced their disgust to the network. people talk about their lives. Listen and then listen and then But the TV critic is the one who gets to see it first. That’s listen still. Listen to the citizens of a millennial era – a time my job as a lifelong student of our mass-media culture. Listen when nobody seems to listen anymore. closely and ask why. We have a moral obligation to listen to one another but we also have a moral obligation to ask questions, including the questions people would rather not answer. That was my Hank Stuever (Loyola University/New Orleans, B.A.,’90) has main takeaway while studying journalism at Loyola worked as a reporter at newspapers in New Mexico, Texas, University in New Orleans. It’s about intellectual rigor and, for the last 13 years, at The Washington Post. He is the applied to everyday life. It’s about engaging the community author of Off Ramp a collection of essays and articles about and having the courage to ask critical questions. Being a stu- modern American life, and Tinsel a nonfiction book about dent journalist is no route to collegiate popularity, I learned; the emotional and economic impact of Christmas. This fall when I think back to time spent at the campus paper, I most- he taught at the University of Montana School of Journalism ly remember someone always being mad at the editors – as the 2012 T. Anthony Poliner Professor.

Conversations 27 during nine months, during my off-hours and while report- HOW TO COVER ing other stories my editor did want. There was something else guiding me as well: At Fordham, in a course called Books That Changed America, I THE WORLD had read the investigative journalism of Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair and Rachel Carson. Journalism, I knew, could prompt government officials to correct policies that hurt peo- By Loretta Tofani ple. I thought that was a worthy goal. At various times, I pur- sued that goal. Fordham University’s newspaper, The Ram, was my base In the 1990s, I was based in China as a staff writer for from 1971 to 1975. The various jobs I practiced there as a The Philadelphia Inquirer. My husband, John White, M.D., student — reporter, features editor, editor-in-chief — gave and infant daughter, Nicole, now 20, shared my Beijing me many of the skills I have used as a journalist during the apartment. I wrote many hundreds of stories from China, as last 35 years. well as from Japan, North and South Korea, Myanmar, I worked as a staff writer for The Washington Post for Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, India and Nepal. Most of my nine years, and for The Philadelphia Inquirer for work was more similar to a 14 years. Currently I’m a free-lance writer. firefighter’s (chase the crisis) At The Washington Post, I began feeling some and an air traffic controller’s frustration. I kept seeing types of stories that did (requiring logistics skills) not seem to “fit” into newspapers. They were sto- than to a journalist’s with a ries about social problems overlooked by govern- social activist heart. ment. These types of stories did not seem particu- Nevertheless, I am proud of larly interesting to my colleagues. Maybe I had my series on Tibetans who judgment problems? I had my share of self-doubt. were arrested and tortured in I persevered. In 1983 I won a Pulitzer Prize prison by Chinese authorities for local specialized (investigative) reporting for a for their loyalty to the Dalai series called “Rape In The County Jail: Prince Lama. To report part of the George’s Hidden Horror.” (Receiving the prize series, I covertly scrambled helped me get over my doubt.) The series docu- with fleeing Tibetans mented that rapes were occurring routinely in a through the Himalayas at county jail. The victims were innocent, awaiting night. One night, at 18,000 trial on misdemeanors; they were in jail because feet, I broke my leg. My they did not have enough money for bond. The friends called my stories rapists were convicted armed robbers and murder- “Tibet Your Life.” ers. As a result of the series the jail changed its More recently, in 2007, I policies, separating violent from non-violent reported and wrote a series inmates. Fewer rapes occurred. called “American Imports, I became aware of the jail rapes while cover- Chinese Deaths” that was ing the courthouse beat. I did not know all the necessary published in The Salt Lake Tribune. The series won several techniques to report and write such a story, but that turned national awards, but it had little impact. (It can be read at out not to be a barrier. I learned techniques as I needed http://extras.sltrib.com/china.) Chinese factory workers still them. (Need jail medical records? Visit the jail medical tech- are getting fatal occupational diseases and limb amputations nicians at their homes at night, for many nights.) while making products for America. What was important at the time was that I had a social I have learned that journalism has impact in democra- conscience. All those years in Catholic grammar school, cies, not in totalitarian regimes. Although some of my inves- Catholic high school, and Fordham College had given me a tigative stories – particularly in China — have not brought moral compass. about positive change, I feel privileged as a journalist to be My editor wasn’t interested in stories about men getting a witness. And for that I am grateful to my Catholic school raped in jail. I might have deferred to him. But my sense of education and my professors at Fordham. outrage was high. And I could still hear the words of my journalism professor from Fordham, Ray Schroth, S.J. “A jour- Loretta Tofani now lives in Idaho. A newspaper series she nalist’s job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfort- didn’t mention is her long investigative piece on how AIDS able.” So I reported the rape story anyway. I did the work is communicated all over Africa.

28 Conversations THE MANAGING EDITOR’S JOB

By Rene Sanchez

It’s 6 p.m., strong news judgment. You need it every day. The best way deadlines are to acquire it is on the front lines of the profession. Through fast approach- the trials of your own stories, you learn over time about ing, and another what’s most worth reporting and what’s mere spin, you get rough-and-tum- thick skin and learn humility, and you discover that you real- ble day inside ly can be both fair-minded and relentless pursuing stories the the Star public needs to know. Tribune news- Good editing also demands an unflinching commitment to room in ethics. That must be part of your daily DNA. Anyone aspiring Minneapolis is to be a newspaper editor, or teaching students how to be edi- reaching its tors, ought to spend a lot of time scrutinizing seminal journal- usual climax —- with stories suddenly emerging, others ism cases in which editors either showed moral courage and falling apart. upheld high ethical standards — or failed to do so. The website needs a fresh jolt of news, and the front Another necessity: Know your history. And not just journal- page we’re building is still hostage to a display photo that ism history, although that’s essential, too. As an editor, super- should arrive any minute. Unless it doesn’t. vising coverage of vital subjects such as politics and govern- Tick, tick, tick. ment, or education and poverty, you need to grasp how Exactly as I predicted when I walked into the office nine they’ve evolved not just recently but over decades or more. hours earlier. Understanding the long arc of stories allows you to coach your In newspaper journalism, as an editor presiding over the reporters to think and write with depth and sophistication. daily news, you learn to expect the unexpected, no matter Lastly, no editor really succeeds without understanding how meticulously you plan. You learn that the credibility of good writing. It’s the lifeblood of our work. On my office wall, the stories you publish, and thus your credibility as an insti- I have a quote from an old New York newspaper editor: “If tution, pivots on even the smallest of facts — so you have to you don’t hit a newspaper reader between the eyes with your be very careful, even in haste. And in this journalistic era, first sentence, there is no need of writing a second one.” even on constant deadline, you learn that you always have Editors can have reporting experience, high ethical stan- to be innovating and adapting to our dynamic new digital dards and good news judgment, but they won’t have much world. But, just as importantly, you have to do that without impact unless they can also bring the daily work of a news- ever forsaking the principles or priorities that define the best paper to life with writing that has authority, clarity or emo- newspapers and the role they still must play as fearless tional force. watchdogs of the public interest. Too many newspaper stories are listless, dull or dense - It’s quite an adventure. No two days are alike. And it’s — and the pressure of daily deadline is not a good excuse good for the soul —- you’re rooting out the full truth of for tolerating it. issues that really matter in the lives of a community. Mediocre writing puts the vital mission of what we do as So, how do you prepare for life editing a daily newspa- journalists in peril: If the writing is not compelling to read- per and website? ers, what’s the point? First and foremost, I’ll say something that you might find A good editor has to insist on good writing. But that surprising: Do not aspire to be an editor, at least for a while. cause is doomed, especially amid the swirl of daily dead- The best editors usually have had sustained, successful lines, unless anyone aspiring to be an editor studies the best careers as reporters. They’ve lived that work and all its chal- work in journalism, reads great books, and makes sure he or lenges and nuances — from learning how to cover many she knows first-hand the joys and rigors of the craft. subjects, to cultivating sources, digging for records, and mas- tering the craft of reporting and writing. A graduate of Loyola New Orleans, Rene Sanchez is One of the most important aspects of an editor’s life is managing editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Conversations 29 “Eloquent” Film and TV How to Quicken a Heart Rate

By Mark P. Scalese, S.J.

he Jesuit tradition of teaching students “perfect elo- dynamism and energy, whereas symmetrical compositions quence” developed during an era when printed texts shot from a tripod can connote stability and order. — and the thought-patterns they fostered — domi- In our film and TV editing course they learn about the nated Western culture. As Walter Ong, S.J., once “Kuleshov Effect,” in which individual shots of film have no pointed out, such communication is linear and based fixed meanings on their own, but rely instead on their juxta- onT propositions that can be verified by facts and subjected to position before or after other shots. We show students how logic. But in his classic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), alternating sequences of shots (called “parallel editing” or Neil Postman made clear that we no longer live in such a text- “cross-cutting”) suggest that two or more lines of action are based world. What he wrote about television during the 1980s occurring at the same time in different locations, and how is equally true about the Internet today: they are non-linear and steadily decreasing the amount of time that shots are on the non-hierarchical media whose contents appeal more to aesthet- screen will quicken the pace of a scene — and the heart rate ics and emotion than to logic or facts. of audience members. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Our history and analysis courses sensitize students to Independence, he felt compelled to enumerate the abuses depictions of race, gender or class, and how those depictions King George III had imposed on his American colonies can influence their self-images and aspirations in the world. (things that could be verified by factual events), whereas Tea For example, after watching the “Poor Unfortunate Souls” Party activists protested “Obamacare” in 2009 with signs scene from The Little comparing the President to Hitler. What the Patient Mermaid in our “Films of Protection and Affordable Care Act had in common with the We educate the 1980s” course, students Final Solution wasn’t very clear, but equating President are surprised to discover Obama with the German dictator was a rhetorical appeal to our students as that a beloved cartoon the emotional gut, and in our day and age, such tactics can storytellers heroine actually chooses to be very persuasive. lose her voice and change While fluency with words and grammar is essential for her body (for legs, no less) “perfect eloquence” in speeches or printed texts, what kind in order to get the man of her dreams. of mastery is necessary to communicate effectively in the Ultimately, the courses in our program at Fairfield strive audio/visual media that dominate our culture and which for to educate our students in “perfect eloquence” as storytellers. all intents and purposes, ARE our culture? At Fairfield In our film studies, screenwriting, or senior capstone courses, University, that’s what we teach in our film, television, and we constantly ask them, “Does this story perpetuate racial or media arts program. While our major is relatively young with gender stereotypes, or undermine them?” “How does it about 100 students, our curriculum requires a dozen courses explore the human condition or what it means to live an that give equal emphasis to hands-on media production as authentically human life?” “Does it shed light on issues that well as historical and theoretical analysis of film or television help to promote social justice?” When students graduate from “texts.” The very first course introduces students to aesthetic our program, we not only want them to discover their creative concepts like space, rhythm, or color. For example, they voices and to find jobs in the film or television industries. We learn that images composed primarily of reds or yellows are want them to think about how they can use their technical considered “warm,” with all the literal and symbolic mean- skills and media savvy to help make the world a more just and ings associated with that term, and that opposite connota- humane place. tions can be suggested using shades of blue. Of course, our program at Fairfield is only one of sever- Our “Lights, Camera, Audio” course not only immerses al Jesuit colleges or universities across the country that teach students in how to use technical equipment, but in how to film and television production and/or media studies. creatively wield those tools to convey meaning. For exam- Together, we are all doing our part to adapt the tradition of ple, they learn that aiming a camera at people from below eloquentia perfecta to our post-textual, audio/visual age. ■ their eye-level can suggest that they are heroic or powerful, but that aiming lights at them from the same position can make them seem corrupt or sinister. Likewise, we teach them Mark P. Scalese, S.J., is a professor of visual and perform- that a constantly gliding camera can convey a sense of ing arts at Fairfield University.

30 Conversations From Class to Community EP 2.0 and the New Media Legacy of Jesuit Education

By Allen Brizee and Jenn Fishman

s early Jesuits traveled across Europe, Legacy Asia, and the Americas, they carried not only their faith and their mission but As teachers of EP 2.0 at Jesuit institutions, we are also their era’s newest medium: print. A inheritors of a significant legacy: consistently early, powerful and mutually sustaining mix, yet careful and critical adoption of new media for conviction inspired calling, calling pedagogical purposes. As John W. O’Malley reminds inspired print, print inspired conviction, us in The First Jesuits (1993), “[A]t least some Jesuits and so on. Jesuit education developed considered publication incompatible with their Awithin this cycle, and lessons in eloquentia perfecta vocation,” while Ignatius and others took great care helped lay and Jesuit students participate. At the out- to demonstrate how print might “aid Jesuits in their set, when rhetoric was taught alongside humanities ministry.” The Ratio studiorium (1599) is an excel- and grammar, studying classical speeches and style lent example. The product of thirty years’ collabora- meant integrating orality with scribal and print litera- tion, written correspondence, and print technology, cies. Today, instruction in eloquentia perfecta is con- the Ratio represents the same balance of innovation centrated in (though not limited to) first-year compo- sition, English, and writing and communication curric- ula, where it involves a range of media. As a result, a Allen Brizee is assistant professor of writing in the new version of eloquentia perfecta is emerging: what department of writing at Loyola University we call EP 2.0. Still dedicated to communicating with Maryland. Jenn Fishman is assistant professor of and for others, EP 2.0 enables students to make good, rhetoric and composition in the English department ethical and effective media choices while learning to at Marquette University. use media well.

Conversations 31 and consideration we seek as we incorporate available This assignment challenged students to engage EP 2.0 media into our pedagogy. fully, from choosing a medium to drafting and editing their Certainly now the need for EP 2.0 instruction is arguments and related computer code. Since many stu- greater than ever before. As Fr. Adolfo Nicholás warns in dents initially equated digital literacy with knowing “Depth, Universality, and Learned Ministry: Challenges Microsoft Office, their learning curve was steep, and they to Jesuit Higher Education Today” (2010), new media took Selber’s ideas seriously even while they took over his can short-circuit the work of serious critical thinking and writing. Working together, they gained new functional lit- communication (2). However, when new media are used eracy, which Selber associates with technical knowledge. well, Fr. Nicholás explains, they can help us “find creative They also refined their critical literacy by analyzing peers’ ways of promoting depth of thought and imagination,” and professionals’ multimedia writing, and they extended and “maximize…new possibilities of communication and their rhetorical literacy by producing a group blog cooperation.” Online, JesuitNet and AJCU members’ digi- (http://multiliteraciesremix.wordpress.com/). For the final, tal repositories support these objectives, and the Jesuit students designed individual capstone projects, which Conference has even developed a mobile app invited—and challenged—them to celebrate their growing (http://tinyurl.com/bqs3kav). In turn, when we integrate mastery of EP 2.0. Matching argument and audience to these resources into instruction, we have similar goals. medium, their projects ranged from an academic essay about video games to research-based resource blogs Classroom designed for a variety of audiences.

For Jenn, teaching advanced composition means assign- Community ing new media “readings” and research, as well as invit- ing students to make new media texts in response to For Allen, EP 2.0 means helping students learn about problems they want to address. When, for example, one rhetoric, social justice, and new media in and beyond class declared Stuart Selber’s monograph Multiliteracies the classroom. For many of his courses, he assigns serv- for a Digital Age (2004) “outdated,” she challenged them ice-learning projects that pair students with economical- to change it—and they did. Working in small groups, her ly challenged communities near Loyola University students transformed the book into a blog populated Maryland’s Baltimore campus. As students work with with their own examples. They also expanded Selber’s community partners to help them develop online text, adding a section on new media and reflection. resources, they experience how EP 2.0 enacts the Jesuit new media legacy. Students’ work in the community begins in the classroom, where they read excerpts from Isocrates, Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Augustine to under- stand historical connections between eloquence and civic participation. Students also read service-learning scholarship and articles on Baltimore and website design, all in preparation to meet—and exceed—com- munity partners’ needs for capacity-building civic rheto- ric. As representatives from one service partner, the Richnor Springs Neighborhood Association (RSNA), put it: “We need a website that helps us organize, communi- cate, and grow.” Richnor Springs works with Loyola’s York Road Initiative to provide such resources, including information about local meetings, schools, bus routes, and voting locations. Contemporary life requires active citizens to be com- petent and confident, principled and powerful commu- nicators in print and electronic formats. The conversa- tion on how to do all these things well continues. ■

Marquette University.

32 Conversations How To Talk Ethically Cultivating the Digital Citizen through Eloquentia Perfecta

By Morgan T. Reitmeyer and Susan A. Sci

niversities are faced with the chal- between these skills does a disservice to students lenges posed by the highly mediated given the increased reliance on digital media includ- culture embraced by our students and ing videos, websites, blogs, and social media which the need to adapt older pedagogical seamlessly combine writing and speaking. The con- models to our new globally net- cept of eloquentia perfecta can be used as a found- worked society. Some Jesuit institu- ing principle for first-year experience programs since tions, including Regis University, are it enables faculty to address the traditional isolation adapting the classical concept of elo- of these two fields, ultimately giving students more Uquentia perfecta during students’ initial exposure to tools to succeed in a digital world. collegiate life. By promoting “perfect eloquence” as a founda- First-year experience programs are typically tional first-year principle, Jesuit institutions can cultivate designed to expose freshman to the kinds of writing students’ practice of graceful communication, and bind and speaking skills needed to synthesize ideas and the act of communicating to a larger calling: civic demonstrate mastery of course content. The discipli- engagement and the common good. Eloquentia perfec- nary separation between English and communication ta shifts the classroom focus from students’ proficiency means that the inter-connected processes of writing in disciplinary content (i.e., English and communica- and speaking are often presented to students as sep- arate acts. Students learn composition and speech as grounded in distinct academic areas, taught in com- Morgan T. Reitmeyer is writing director and Susan pletely different courses. Highlighting the differences A. Sci is a rhetoric teacher at Regis University.

Conversations 33 quentia perfecta as a foundation for composition and speech, faculty members can reframe students’ relation- ship to digital media as a civic platform on which they can publicly share their written and spoken work. There is an inherently civic quality to our interactive, digital, and net- worked culture. News is no longer something to simply consume; rather it is something to which we are com- pelled to respond within a wide array of media. We can comment, blog, dig, pin, tweet, or create memes and video about current events, social issues, and political policy. Our digital culture is a space in which private indi- viduals can have a public voice, in text and video, as they intentionally share in conversation with a commu- nity. Current technological advances allow audiences to be engaged as digital citizens, urging individuals to join in public discourse. Eloquentia perfecta as a guiding principle for first year experience programs provides a vibrant framework for students as digital citizens and offers them a more nuanced understanding of speaking and composing as inter-connected, complex, applied acts. As students engage audience members outside of the classroom on real-world issues, they begin to under- stand that although the principles of good communica- tion may be considered universal, the application of them is concertedly contextual. For example, students participating in a forum on ImmigrationVoice.org regarding H.R. 3012, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, are encouraged to cul- tivate analysis—the ability to understand a community’s competing values affecting this legislation—as well as good writing skills. Since the forum will abjure members who engage poorly, students must be knowledgeable, ethical, and eloquent to remain in the dialogue. When a Regis University. faculty member has students create and post video blogs tion) for solely scholarly purposes to a commitment about immigration to YouTube, he/she is encouraging a towards social justice. The tradition of eloquentia perfecta very public form of oral argument. Students must was incorporated to help students develop the composition research, write, edit, practice, and deliver their claims, and speaking skills needed to address and constructively respond to political, social, and cultural issues in a feedback. These videos may be uniquely ethical manner – focusing on We can blog, dig, pin, posted and reposted by viewers, the needs of the community over the which is an added incentive for desires of the self. tweet, or create students to make sure their con- When students can imagine a tent is well constructed and more “just society,” and learn how to memes and videos provocative. eloquently describe their vision in Jesuit universities, like Fordham, writing and speech, it helps them about current events Loyola Marymount, and Regis, are create shared meaning with others using the concept of eloquentia regarding the type of community for justice. perfecta to bring the acts of writ- they collectively want to live in. The ing and speaking in concert. They vast array of digital media our students use every day invite increasingly complex civil spaces of communication can be invaluable for reaching a wide, diverse audience. into the first-year classroom. Ultimately, through the prin- What being a “just society” means increasingly is debat- ciples of eloquentia perfecta our 21st century students will ed and negotiated in virtual media. become active digital citizens and continue their critical In first-year experience programs that focus on elo- engagement well beyond their collegiate careers. ■

34 Conversations Book Review

The Road to Greatness

Kevin Starr, Loyola Marymount University, 1911-2011: A Centennial History.

Los Angeles: The President and Trustees of Loyola Marymount University, 2011.

By R. Emmett Curran

he goal of Robert the Society of Jesus. At the conclu- B. Lawton, Loyola sion of the Civil War, the M a r y m o u n t Congregation of the Mission, the University’s four- Vincentians, had begun the first teenth president Catholic college in southern (2000-2010), was California. The earthquake of 1906, nothing less than which had leveled St. Ignatius Tmaking it the pre- College and badly damaged Santa mier Catholic university of the West. Clara, had left St. Vincent’s as the In commissioning Kevin Starr to write leading Catholic institution in the the history of Loyola Marymount’s state. The Bishop of Los Angeles, a first century, Lawton indicated the former rector of the Catholic intellectual level to which he was University of America, was pressur- aspiring. With his Jesuit educational ing the Vincentians to acquire a new background and as the author of the campus and develop a comprehen- award-winning volumes on the histo- sive Catholic university. The ry of California, Starr was ideally qual- Vincentians, for their part, weighed ified to tell the story. down by debts had little interest in site in the western section of the city. Starr has not disappointed. With relocating, much less expanding Initially they confined their academ- access to administrative records their operation. When the Jesuits ic program to the high school level, through the 1990s, delvings into uni- expressed an interest in moving with college offerings to come at some versity and city news publications, Santa Clara to Los Angeles, the undetermined date. and extensive interviews with a Vincentians used it as an excuse to cross-section of the Loyola shut down St. Vincent’s and return to Marymount community, Starr has their original apostolate of service to R. Emmet Curran is a former produced an outstanding institution- the poor. The Jesuits kept the name professor of history at Georgetown al history. Like Fordham, Holy Cross, “St. Vincent’s College,” but, prodded University and author of the three- and Loyola of Baltimore, Loyola by the bishop, opened their school volume Georgetown history. Marymount had roots that predated in September of 1911 on a remote

Conversations 35 Book Review

The Jesuit St. Vincent’s had a contain 10,000 students (this at a merely to survive but to increase rather peripatetic existence during time when no Jesuit school had enrollment that, by 1939, was its first two decades, with a tempo- close to half that number) and approaching five hundred. The rary location in Hollywood before a thirty structures, including a faculty was beginning to do origi- longer stay, beginning in 1917, on Greek amphitheater and an athlet- nal research. The library surpassed Pico Heights, midway between ic bowl seating sixty thousand. To the 30,000 mark in its holdings. downtown and the western por- fund this Sullivan established the Student culture, in the form of tions of the city. In 1918 the school Loyola University Building Fund intercollegiate sports (football, bas- acquired a new name, Loyola Campaign. Sullivan tended towards ketball, and hockey) and other College of Los Angeles. It awarded the grandiose. For the ground- extracurricular activities (band, dra- its first degrees to six graduates in breaking the president preceded matics, radio), flourished. June of that year. Two years later, a the actual event with a Pontifical law school opened on the former Mass at the Hollywood Bowl. To Vincentian property on Grand coach the fledgling football team, Avenue and bore the Vincentian Sullivan offered the already leg- name, as a gesture to older alumni. endary Knute Rockne $10,000 (Rockne graciously declined). Sullivan The move to Del Rey enabled Until the legal separation of the Loyola to accommodate boarding high school from the college in students among a population that 1926, the high school dominated exceeded four hundred before the the enterprise, including the Great Depression cut enrollment teams which included both prep and brought fund-raising and con- students and collegians. In the fall struction to a halt. By the middle of 1927 the Jesuits welcomed the of the 1930s the school was in offer of Harry Culver of one hun- such dire financial shape that offi- dred acres on the western edge of cials considered opening part of y the the city, part of a remote mesa the campus to exploratory drilling end of World War II more than that Culver was attempting to in a desperate attempt to catch 1700 Loyolans, including alumni, develop. The president of Loyola, lightning in a bottle. The bishop Bwould be on active duty, includ- Joseph Sullivan, envisioned a thought they should return to ing ten Jesuit chaplains. For a grand Tudor Gothic campus at their former home in the city. year, a special Army training pro- Del Rey that would eventually Loyola resisted and managed not gram provided students and fund-

36 Conversations Book Review

ing that had helped the school non in the late twentieth century. tutions like Fordham and survive. With war’s end, the GI Casassa also was responsible for Georgetown. Loughran articulat- Bill led to an enrollment four co-education at Loyola when he ed institutional goals, raised facul- times what it had been on the eve negotiated in 1968, with Sister ty standards (decreased teaching of Pearl Harbor. The Federal gov- Raymunde McKay, an eventual loads, sabbaticals, summer ernment not only paid GIs’ tuition merger with Marymount College. research grants, etc.), and but accounted for most of the acquired property for expansion. campus construction as well. Merrifield Thomas Patrick O’Malley, with Over the next six decades Loyola Casassa’s successor, Donald P. Chancellor Merrifield as point would benefit greatly from five Merrifield, brought an MIT Ph.D. man, vigorously pursued the presidents who shaped its destiny in physics, that would prepare fund-raising, which his predeces- for the good, a consistency of him not only to steer the institu- sor eschewed to realize, and academic leadership that few, if tion through the social tumult of achieved a record of nearly $145 any institutions of higher learn- the Sixties and seventies, but also million within three years. Finally ing, Catholic or not, could match. to lead an increasingly diverse Robert B. Lawton, president dur- Loyola Marymount community at ing the first decade of the new Casassa the student, faculty, and adminis- century, specialized in building Charles Casassa, in his twenty trative levels. Under Merrifield, community relations in the broad- years, like Jesuit counterparts at governance radically changed as est sense, from the intramural Boston College, Georgetown, and the Jesuit community was legally level to the larger urban world St. Louis, led his school into the separated from the university, beyond the walls. On his watch modern world of higher educa- and the board of directors he also managed to steer LMU’s tion through his making planning became an autonomous body ship against the academic cur- an integral part of university gover- with a lay majority. rents by increasing the endow- nance, involving the institution in ment (to $355 million), increasing the larger academic community, Loughran, O’Malley, and the number of tenured and initiating graduate education, and Lawton tenure-track faculty, and adding introducing targeted fund-raising. Three gifted Jesuits followed doctoral education. By the time His introduction in 1942 of Merrifield over the next three LMU inaugurated its first lay pres- “Manifesto: The Loyola Man, decades. James Loughran was ident, David W. Burcham, in Citizen of Two Worlds,” predated brought in from the East Coast to 2010, it was well on its way by at least a generation the mission inculcate the academic culture toward becoming the premier statements which became sine qua that had distinguished Jesuit insti- Catholic university of the West. ■

Conversations 37 Book Review

A Hundred Years of Walter Ong

Sara van den Berg and Thomas M. Walsh (Eds.). Language, Culture, and Identity: The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J.

Hampton Press, Inc., 2011. 266 p. $65.00; (paper) $27.95.

By Paul Soukup. S.J.

his year, 2012, marks the centenary of orality and literacy Fr. Walter J. Ong, S.J., a scholar in human thinking, whose work in literature, orality, and with a trilogy of interiority helped to shape his own books on the role of academic discipline of English, the word in its spo- influenced other disciplines as far ken, written, and afield as psychiatry and biblical technologized forms. Tstudies, and served as foundations The essays col- for new approaches such as media ecology. lected in Language, Ong spent his career at Saint Louis University. Culture, and Identity While studying philosophy there as a Jesuit provide both a snapshot scholastic from 1938 to 1941, he also completed of and an introduction to an M.A. in English (on the sprung rhythm of Ong’s thought through Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poetry), directed by a key themes of Ong’s work young Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan called Ong’s as they find homes in dif- attention to Perry Miller’s work on Peter Ramus, ferent disciplines. the 16th century French educational reformer. Thomas Zlatic uses the Under Miller at Harvard, Ong took up the study of pairing of “in and out” to Ramus. In his dissertation (published as Ramus: Method describe Ong’s work—the and the Decay of Dialogue by Harvard University Press interior and the surface, the sounding word and the in 1958), he demonstrates how Ramus’ use of the newish printed page, the frontier, the interface. In trying to situ- printing press complemented Western thought’s visual ate him, Zlatic provides this summary: bias and shifted thought patterns away from the more Walter J. Ong resists classification. He had been, of oral dialogue of Greek rhetoric to the more visual course, University Professor Emeritus of Humanities method of Greek science. In a nice turn, McLuhan later made use of Ong’s research to bolster his own media studies. As professor of English from 1954 to 1989, Ong Paul Soukup, S.J., is a professor of communications at himself continued to explore the interlocking roles of Santa Clara University.

38 Conversations Book Review

and William E. Haren Professor Emeritus of English and Professor Emeritus of Humanities in Psychiatry at Saint Louis University, a Roman Catholic priest, a member of the Society of Jesus, and one of America’s most informed spokespersons within the humani- ties and media studies. However, his twenty-two books and approxi- mately 440 articles uniquely inter- weave, among other disciplines, lit- erary analysis, linguistics, psychol- ogy and psychoanalysis, the history of ideas, composition studies, phi- losophy, phenomenology, theology, communications studies, cultural studies, noobiology, and media ecology … (p. 7) Zlatic highlights Ong’s interest in human consciousness and interiority, in the sounding forth of language, and in the ways that humans have used tools to sup- plement their language. Walter Ong, S.J., with a group of students taking turns looking at books during an event Ong’s recognition of the separation for the Saint Louis University Classical Fraternity, 1955. (Photo courtesy of Saint Louis of the printed word from living speech University Libraries Special Collections). led him to an exploration of hermeneu- tics: one does not require interpretation of form criticism, based on more recent event and his rethinking of textuality in a live dialogue. Hermeneutics scholarship on orality. He notes of from the vantage point of orality has requires distance just as distance Ong’s contribution: requires hermeneutics. And so, given us a theoretical framework that Ong himself … was strictly speaking hermeneutics begins in earnest with is highly suitable for a revitalization an expert in the literary and intellec- writing. C. Jan Swearingen traces the and revision of assumptions, meth- interplay between rhetoric, homiletics, tual history of the Renaissance, and ods and practices that govern current and hermeneutics across the years not a biblical scholar … Yet his work biblical scholarship. between 1250 and 1750 (years to which is dotted with intriguing and often Throughout the rest of his essay Ong paid great attention in his history profound insights into the Bible both Professor Kelber demonstrates the of the changing fortunes of rhetoric). from the perspective of orality-litera- importance of Ong’s insights in ten key Hermeneutics played a role earlier cy studies (aural assimilation, tribal aspects of form criticism. as oral biblical performances received memory, oral substratum, changing John Miles Foley, the late director written form. Werner Kelber uses Ong’s sensoria, rhetoric, interiority, corpus- of the Center for Studies in Oral research on the relationship of orality cular epistemology, Bible reading Tradition, credits Ong’s “emphasis on the nature and relationship of commu- and literacy in proposing approaches and divisiveness, textual criticism nication media” as central to noetics, or to understanding the Gospels. Here, and philology, etc.) and of theolo- how people think. Foley’s own work in Professor Kelber provides a clearly gy… Moreover, his intense concen- argued critique of the historical critical oral performance in antiquity and in tration on the “word” as speech paradigm in biblical studies as well as more recent oral cultures built on what

Conversations 39 Book Review

Ong began. Here Foley describes eracy to African-American literature the Pathways Project (www.path- and the realm of what Ong called the waysproject.org), a multimedia suite “sensorium.” “According to Ong, of online resources to link oral per- each sense perception brings the indi- formance with texts and to use infor- vidual into contact with the world in mation technology to shed light on a different way and thus has a differ- how humans organize their knowl- ent relationship to abstract principles edge orally. and the conceptualization of time, space, and the organization of knowl- edge.” In this place, Casmier locates a distinctive character of African- American literature. Two essays situate Ong’s thought about the media and (com- munication) technology. Lance Strate ranks Ong as “one of the three schol- ars who make up the core of media ecology,” the study of media envi- ronments and their impact. Strate offers a kind of intellectual history of Ong’s scholarship and role in media study from the perspective of media ecology. John J. Pauly attempts a dif- ther ferent kind of intellectual history. contributors to the collection use “My goal is to open Ong’s work to Ong’s work in developing their own other kinds of scrutiny by placing fieldsO of endeavor, fields in which him in different company—not nec- Ong had published. Catherine Snow essarily the company in which he looks at literacy in young children, in would have imagined himself or the light of governmental and educa- chosen to stand, but in relation to a tional policy initiatives. Roy Schafer wider range of twentieth-century takes the reader into the world of thinkers on mass media.” For Pauly psychoanalytic insight, making links these include technologists and his- once again to the realm of torians of technology, literary histori- hermeneutics. The distance the ana- ans, and linguists. lyst seeks to bridge lies not in media, The book concludes with a 434- but in the interior self. Tod item bibliography of Ong’s writings, Chambers recalls Ong’s essay, “The compiled by the late Professor Writer’s Audience Is Always a Thomas Walsh. The bibliography, Fiction,” as he examines the chal- drawing on the collected materials of lenge of bioethics. The ethicist writes the Ong Center archives at Saint for an audience—but just who Louis University forms a framework makes up that audience? Walter Jost for ongoing work. returns to language, poetry, com- This collection offers a look at monplaces, and meaning, taking the the range of Ong’s work. Few will reader from classical Roman tropes take to every path outlined in its Above, Walter J. Ong, S.J., perusing books in through the protomodernism of chapters. But all should appreciate De Smet Hall, Saint Louis University, 1957. Emily Dickinson to the high mod- the exceedingly fertile harvest grow- (Photo courtesy of Saint Louis University ernism of Wallace Stevens. Stephen ing from Ong’s initial ideas. Having Libraries Special Collections). Casmier extends Ong’s thoughts so much in one volume makes the beyond the application of orality-lit- initial exploration a bit easier. ■

40 Conversations How We Might Move On From Here: A Hope

Response to “How We Got Here: A History” by Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. Conversations 41 [Spring 2012]

By Claude N. Pavur, S.J.

he narrative of Jesuit Manley Hopkins and Karl Rahner and ty, integrity, and historicity; how can higher education crisply Henri de Lubac and Pierre Teilhard de gospels be proved genuine; and specif- detailed by Fr. Schroth Chardin and Michel de Certeau and ic interpretations of particular gospel in Conversations 41 is a John Courtney Murray and Walter Ong texts and phrases. And here are two test pervasive one, but it is and Bernard Lonergan and countless questions from Philosophy 311 and one at least as worrisome others less celebrated. I find it hard to from Theodicy: 1. Prove: The proximate as encouraging. In believe that the wide respect achieved constituent norm of morality is man’s moderate caricature: by Jesuit educational institutions was rational nature. 2. Explain the definition Tthe triumphal story-line has the old largely baseless. Rather it is easier to of determinants of morality. Which are pious but academically underachieving think that the very idea of Jesuit educa- the three determinants? Explain each. 3. and relatively unprofessional clerical tion is already blurring into irrelevancy. Explain the definition of simple, meta- lords of the manor dethroned for the In an ethics textbook used by my physical and physical simplicity. Hardly sake of a more democratic brave new mother, Gertrude Gentilich, at Loyola of the stuff of soft and fuzzy piety, this. world of secular and universally recog- New Orleans, I found some indications No doubt there was a range of nized standards. And yet Schroth also of what was being given in college quality in the schools and teachers and realistically points to serious challenges, classes. A mid-term exam of March 9, courses, but should we think that there particularly those concerning the 1943, had twelve questions asking was something terribly second-rate and authentic embodiment, ownership, and about the following: the nature of inspi- unacceptable about the whole system? guidance of “the mission.” ration; the non-contradiction of the What if we should hold the secular But let us press this narrative. Was Bible and science; the canonicity of it really crippled and benighted, that Biblical books; apocryphal books; the old Jesuit system of education? I mean Hexapla of Origen; the Septuagint; the Claude N. Pavur, S.J., is in the the one that nurtured — even if it did Vulgate; the meaning of “gospel” and department of modern and classical not immediately appreciate — Gerard “synoptic”; what gives a book genuini- languages at Saint Louis University.

Conversations 41 Santa Clara University.

a standing order or plan of studies that cultivates in a living, disci- plined, yet not straight-jacketed way, proven, definite high-quality con- tent, at least for a substantial core. Organization and appropriation, of well-chosen material is paramount. Rampant choice and diversity are decidedly not the leading values. The building of an intellectual-spiri- tual community requires shared aca- standards and particulars to an fact that much of the old system demic focal points. I am thinking of equally hard review, especially now needed revision and improvement. (a) the sine qua non works of that we have a mountain of literature But semper reformanda goes for Scripture, particularly the gospels; (b) critiquing them? They are often not everyone. And yes, secular norms classic works, especially those created without the need for drastic have been a help. But they were an or adopted by the Judaeo-Christian improvements. (See my “Re- undeniably partial kind of help. They intellectual tradition; and (c) recent Envisioning Classics as a Liberal cannot be the touchstone. Here is my works of rich, wide-ranging, integra- Art,” available on the Web.) What thumbnail sketch of what an authen- tive synthesis, like Eagleton’s Literary are the judgments of the secular tic Jesuit education demands: Theory, Fukuyama’s The End of authorities themselves? Harry Lewis, 1. Leaders who “get it.” We History, McCloskey’s Bourgeois former dean of Harvard College, need the right kind of moral, admin- Dignity, D’Souza’s What’s So Great published in 2007 an indictment of istrative, and executive oversight by About , Beckwith’s his home institution (Excellence the right kind of people (i.e., pru- Defending Life, and Polanyi’s Without Soul: How a Great dent, well-informed, intelligent, and Personal Knowledge. University Forgot Education). In committed people who deeply Without the cultivation of definite 2008, former dean of Yale’s law understand the documents, the tradi- content, Jesuit and Catholic identity school Anthony Kronman gave us tions, the ideas, the goals, the situa- will remain forever elusive. Such a list Education’s End: Why Our Colleges tions, the needs of Jesuit education). as the one just proposed does not and Universities Have Given Up on They have to be able to be both mean that the curriculum is restricted the Meaning of Life, pleading that faithful and creative, and they them- to those titles in a new air-tight ortho- the ethical-spiritual content of edu- selves must be subject to some com- doxy. It means only that certain high- cation not be sold out to specializa- petent superior oversight. quality materials have been responsi- tion and socio-political activism. 2. Teachers who “get it.” We bly selected as promising points of Well, there you have it: Yale and need teachers aware of the larger departure for deeper and broader Harvard saying that they have been purposes and vision of the educa- understanding. So then, we have a missing the boat in a big way. tion — particularly the formational work of renaissance and reformation Should we really rejoice over being purposes — teachers who are com- ahead of us. We can make friends remade in their images? mitted to comply intelligently with with the past, and we can use it in No, we have to move on, to authentic leadership, fully cognizant new ways to support that Christian come up with a better reformulation of their own particular roles in the humanism that is “the greatest service and synthesis. I am as sure of this as education, and skilled at the meth- to development” (Caritas in Veritate). I am of the truth that is refracted in ods for achieving those goals. Agreeing on these things, then, let us Schroth’s presentation, that is, the 3. Ratio studiorum. We need begin our discussion. ■

42 Conversations Gonzaga University

Conversations 43 Letters

Don’t Forget UCCE (Boston College, Creighton, Loyola ties,” please consider mentioning Chicago, Loyola Marymount, and St. the UCCE programs as well. More Joseph’s) information about the UCCE can To the Editor: The UCCE works to support, be obtained by the visiting the always look forward to read- strengthen and sustain Catholic consortium website: www.ucce- ing the latest edition of education. Each of the 15 member connect.com In addition, the staff Conversations. The articles in universities hosts a teaching serv- here at the PLACE Corps office I the magazine tend to be ice corps whose members teach in (LMU’s UCCE program), would be thought provoking. I would like to primarily under-resourced Catholic happy to share program and con- add to the article by John Savard, schools throughout the country. sortium literature to anyone inter- S.J., “The Heart Feels What the Participants of the programs make ested in learning more about the Eyes See.” He briefly refers to post a two-year commitment to serve as various teaching service corps graduate work: “…many do con- full –time teachers while living in sponsored by the Jesuit institutions sider a year of post-graduate serv- community, developing profession- listed above. ice with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps ally, and growing spiritually. Some or Teach for America.” There is no say a UCCE program is like taking Respectfully mention of the UCCE. the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Teach Diana Murphy There are fifteen colleges/uni- for America, and Peace Corps and versities that are members of the mixing them all together. If in the Diana Murphy is PLACE Corps University Consortium for Catholic future JVC and TFA are mentioned Director, Loyola Marymount Education, of which five are Jesuit as “post-grad service opportuni- University

Left, Vanessa Estrada PLACE Corps Cohort 11, Loyola Marymount University, is teaching Kindergarten at St. Athanasius School in Long Beach CA,

Right, Magis Catholic Teacher Corps, Creighton University. Areas of study are secondary teaching, leadership, and counsel- ing, serving urban, rural, and suburban areas as well as American Indian reservations.

44 Conversations MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL SEMINAR ON JESUIT HIGHER EDUCATION

Laurie Ann Britt-Smith is an assistant professor in the English department at University of Detroit Mercy. Lisa Sowle Cahill is a professor in the theology department at Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts. Susanne E. Foster is an associate professor in the philosophy department at Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Patrick J. Howell, S.J., is chairman of the seminar and professor of pastoral theology and rector of the Jesuit community at Seattle University, Seattle, Washington. Steven Mailloux is a professor of rhetoric in the English department at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California. Diana Owen is associate professor in the department of communications, culture and technology at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Stephen C. Rowntree, S.J., secretary to the seminar, is in the philosophy department at Loyola University New Orleans, Louisiana. Alison Russell is associate professor in the English department at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio. Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., editor, is also literary editor of America magazine. Sherilyn G.F. Smith is an associate professor in the biology department at LeMoyne University. William E. Stempsey, S.J., is professor of philosophy at The College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.

A Note to Contributors

HOW TO WRITE FOR CONVERSATIONS Incorporate any references into the text. Don’t capitalize: chairman of the biology department, The goal of the National Seminar on Jesuit Higher names of committees, or administrative titles unless Education and its publication of Conversations is to the title precedes the name: President Woodrow strengthen the Jesuit identity of our 28 colleges and Wilson. We welcome photographs, fully captioned, universities. First, each issue is written to stimulate the preferably of action rather than posed shots. Send by CD campus dialogue — through departmental discussions containing digital images scanned at not less than 300 dpi or faculty symposiums — on the pursuit of various or by online download. Send the ms as a Microsoft ideals. Second, through our various departments — WORD attachment to [email protected]. feature articles, forums, book reviews, reports, and Talking Back — we want to keep the conversation Permission is granted to reprint articles from going to build on the progress we have made. Conversations for any educational purpose, provided credit is given. Archive issues are available at Our ten faculty members, representing various institu- http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/ tions and disciplines, visit three colleges and universi- ties a year and listen to groups of faculty and students COMING UP Issue #44 (August 2013) On Fire at the in order to decide the themes for each issue. Although Frontiers: the Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher most of the articles are commissioned, we welcome Education, we will collaborate with the Creighton unsolicited manuscripts. Ideally they should explore Conference on social justice, August 1-3. an idea that will generate discussion rather than describe a worthy project at an institution.

Writing Guidelines. Please keep the article to fewer than 2000 words. DO NOT include footnotes. Georgetown University Santa Clara University University of Detroit Mercy Seattle University Washington, DC, 1789 Santa Clara, 1851 Detroit, 1877 Seattle, 1891 Saint Louis University Loyola University Maryland Regis University Rockhurst University Saint Louis, 1818 Baltimore, 1852 Denver, 1877 Kansas City, 1910 Spring Hill College University of San Francisco Creighton University Loyola Marymount University Mobile, 1830 San Francisco, 1855 Omaha, 1878 Los Angeles, 1911 Xavier University Boston College Marquette University Loyola University New Orleans Cincinnati, 1831 Boston, 1863 Milwaukee, 1881 New Orleans, 1912 Fordham University Canisius College John Carroll University Fairfield University New York, 1841 Buffalo, 1870 Cleveland, 1886 Fairfield, 1942 College of the Holy Cross Loyola University Chicago Gonzaga University Le Moyne College Worcester, 1843 Chicago, 1870 Spokane, 1887 Syracuse, 1946 Saint Joseph’s University Saint Peter’s University University of Scranton Wheeling Jesuit University Philadelphia, 1851 Jersey City, 1872 Scranton, 1888 Wheeling, 1954

Coming in August 2013: #44 On Fire at the Frontiers: the Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education.