Center to advance Catholic higher ed expands Cardinal Newman Society’s mission

Mar 15, 2010 / 22:28 pm

The Cardinal Newman Society, a group dedicated to strengthening Catholic identity in Catholic higher education, is furthering its efforts with the expansion and re-launch of its Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education.
 
The Center, previously named Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education, has a new head in Dr. David House, a press release form the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) says. He is a former 12-year president of St. Joseph’s College in Maine and also a former official at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Southern California and Bellarmine University.

“For 17 years, The Cardinal Newman Society has primarily served Catholic families seeking faithful Catholic education, but college leaders and bishops also need support,” Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society, commented in a press release. “With Dr. House and the expanded Center, we have an exciting opportunity to usher in an era of genuine renewal by providing much-needed policy analysis, research and opportunities for collaboration.”

The renamed center, the former research division of the Cardinal Newman Society, is now “a full-scale effort to share and study best practices at Catholic colleges and universities.” It aims to help like-minded college leaders collaborate in strengthening their institutions. Its work helps college leaders and Catholic bishops with higher education issues like institutional mission, academic quality and student life.

Its 2010 work includes measures for assessing Catholic identity; the implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae; defenses against government threats to religious liberty; core curricula at Catholic colleges; and student spirituality and sexual morals on Catholic campuses.

The Center has announced four 2010 fellows to advance its mission. They are Fr. Richard Duffield, Actor for the Cause of the Canonization of John Henry Cardinal Newman and Provost of the Birmingham Oratory; Dr. Anne Hendershott, former chairwoman of the University of San Diego sociology department and author of “Status Envy: The Politics of Catholic Higher Education”; Dr. Kimberly Shankman, Dean of the College at Benedictine College; and Rev. D. Paul Sullins, a sociology professor at Catholic University of America.

Advisors to the Center include Archbishop Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, and John Hittinger, philosophy professor and director of the Pope John Paul II Forum for the Church in the Modern World at the University of St. Thomas, Houston.

The center has also launched a blog titled “Renovo” about issues of Catholic identity. It publishes daily posts by more than a dozen leading experts from Catholic academia.

Its website is www.CatholicHigherEd.org.