The Catholic and Jesuit Mission of Canisius College: a Primer

1 The Catholic and Jesuit Mission of Canisius College: A Primer John J. Hurley President, Canisius College This whitepaper has been prepared as a background document for the Canisius College Board of Trustees meeting on February 26, 2018 at which the board will discuss the Catholic and Jesuit mission of Canisius, the mission and identity challenges before the college and the board, and the board’s readiness to play an active role in addressing these challenges going forward. The Context for Our Discussion of Mission and Identity The mission statement of Canisius College contained in the college’s strategic plan, Canisius 150: Excellence, Service, Jesuit, states: Canisius College, a Catholic and Jesuit university, offers outstanding undergraduate, graduate and professional programs distinguished by transformative learning experiences that engage students in the classroom and beyond. We foster in our students a commitment to excellence, service and leadership in a global society. The mission statement prioritizes the college’s status as a Catholic and Jesuit university. The plan includes an explanatory note which states what it means for Canisius to be Catholic and Jesuit: Canisius is an open, welcoming university where our Catholic, Jesuit mission and identity are vitally present and operative. It is rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition’s unity of knowledge and the dialogue of faith and reason. Founded by the Society of Jesus as a manifestation of its charism1, Canisius espouses the Jesuit principles of human 1 When we speak of “charism” or Ignatian or Jesuit charism, we mean a unique spiritual gift from the Holy Spirit that animates a person’s or group’s work. In this case, charism means the essential inspiration of the Jesuits. 2 excellence, care for the whole person, social justice, and interreligious dialogue. Jesuit spirituality calls us to seek God in all things and Jesuit education aims to form students who become men and women for and with others. Prior to 1968, there was no question that Canisius was Catholic and Jesuit. Founded originally by a German province of the Society of Jesus, the college employed dozens of Jesuits and was governed by a small Jesuit-only board of trustees. The president of the college served in the dual role of rector of the Jesuit community and president of the college and as such, was appointed to his office by the Superior General of the Society. The college offered a curriculum rich in Catholic theology and philosophy. The students were overwhelmingly Catholic and Catholic sacramental and devotional life were present on the campus and were mostly mandatory for students. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Canisius and most other Catholic universities enjoyed a “time of harmonious integration of faith and intellectual life, a “Catholic” revival to lead the ever-present battle against secularism.”2 In the 1960’s, however, this period of harmonious integration began to fray. The impetus was the Second Vatican Council and its emphasis on an increasing role for the laity in the Church. Additionally, Catholic universities increasingly became “Americanized,” in the sense that the principles of academic freedom and of the free and open pursuit of truth became priorities. These priorities could cause conflicts with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Catholic universities looked at prominent universities in the United States - places like the Ivy League schools, the University of Chicago and some of the great state universities - and asked themselves how they could continue to compete for the best faculty and students. The funding of American higher education was changing as well and issues were raised as to qualification of faith-based institutions and their students for federal and state aid. 2 See, Gallin, Negotiating Identity: Catholic Higher Education Since 1960 (2000), p. 54. 3 Land O’Lakes and New Thinking about American Catholic Universities In 1967, leaders in American Catholic higher education gathered at a University of Notre Dame retreat center in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin to discuss the new role and identity of American Catholic higher education. The meeting produced the now-famous document “The Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University” which has been acclaimed as a statement of independence from the Church by American Catholic colleges and universities.3 It represented an attempt by leaders in Catholic higher education to place their universities in the mainstream of American higher education. Its opening statement reads: “To perform its teaching and research functions effectively the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself.” To some, the statement was seen as a necessary claim if Catholic colleges and universities were to become great academic institutions. To others, it signaled the beginning of the end of Catholic higher education and an inevitable road to secularization.4 But according to Alice Gallin in Negotiating Identity, both sides failed to read the second paragraph of the statement: “Distinctively, then, a Catholic university must be an institution, a community of learners or a community of scholars, in which Catholicism is perceptibly present and effectively operative.”5 Much has been written about Land O’Lakes and the myriad issues it raised. It is not possible in this short whitepaper to explore all of the issues involved, nor to address in detail the corollary issues involving the intersection of canon law and civil law. The bibliography to this whitepaper contains some additional reading on these topics. Instead, this whitepaper will focus on the situation at Canisius and what has happened over the past 50 years with respect to our status as an American, Catholic, Jesuit university. 3 Gallin, Negotiating Identity, 56. 4 Gallin, Negotiating Identity, 56. 5 Gallin, Negotiating Identity, 56. 4 Canisius College and the Transition to Lay Control In the late 1960s, American Catholic universities began the process of moving from exclusively religious boards of trustees to lay boards of trustees. This was driven at first by a desire of Catholic schools – Canisius included - to qualify for state and federal aid, but this also represented a move toward increased independence of the universities from their founding congregations and the institutional Church. In 1968, Canisius president Fr. James Demske and his administration, working in concert with the Jesuit province, began the process of moving the college from a board comprised solely of Jesuits to a larger lay-controlled board. This move was driven by the college’s desire to qualify for state and federal aid to the extent possible.6 Its charter was amended to increase the size of the board to 25 members and Jesuit members were limited to one less than one-third, to prevent the Jesuits from having an effective veto power over significant corporate actions requiring a two-thirds majority. The following year, Judge Charles S. Desmond ‘17, the Chief Judge of the State of New York, was elected as the first lay chair of the college’s board of trustees. The move to a lay-controlled board did not change the corporate status of the college. The assets of the college remained in The Canisius College of Buffalo, NY, Inc., a New York not for profit educational corporation. What had changed was the Jesuit’s relationship to that corporation. They no longer controlled the board and by extension, the assets and operations of the school corporation. 6 The Canisius initiative was part of an effort in New York State to qualify private institutions for state aid. In 1967, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller appointed a Select Commission on the Future of Private and Independent Higher Education, chaired by McGeorge Bundy, whose name became associated with the direct aid program that was developed as a result of the Commission’s work. When this move was challenged as a violation of the Blaine Amendment in the New York State Constitution (the amendment which prohibits any public funds going for sectarian (i.e. religious) purposes), Canisius decided to change its governance structure consistent with what other Catholic universities in the United States were doing. See, Gallin, Negotiating Identity, p. 54 5 The Jesuit community still resided on the campus, so as part of this transition, it separately incorporated as the Canisius Jesuit Community and took legal title to the Loyola Hall residence on the campus. It executed a number of agreements and easements with the college to insure parking, access, etc., given that the building was surrounded by college property. Canisius was not alone in structuring its approach this way. Most of the other 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States did something similar although a minority implemented a two-tier board structure in which a “board of members,” consisting solely of Jesuits, retained certain critical corporate powers (disposition of property, fundamental corporate changes, and the appointment of the president, among others) and existed over the board of trustees, which was responsible for the day-to-day governance of the institution. The transfer of control of the college to a lay board introduced a new era of lay-Jesuit collaboration at Canisius. In the intervening 50 years, the college has seen only two presidential transitions: in 1993, the transition from Fr. James Demske to Fr. Vincent Cooke, and in 2010, the transition from Fr. Cooke to John Hurley. In both of these transitions, a search committee appointed by the board conducted the search and presented the eventual candidate to the board for approval. In each case, there was substantial consultation with the provincial of the Jesuits’ New York Province.7 The relationship between the college’s board of trustees and the Province requires a short explanation. As a New York not for profit corporation, the college is governed by its board which selects the chief executive officer.

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