Engaging the Catholic Intellectual Tradition

Dear Colleagues, 

The core of a Catholic university is its intellectual and faith life. However, Catholic colleges and universities, today, face vexing challenges: a growing secularism and careerism among students, an increasing number of students who identify as “nones”, a “hyper-specialization” among faculty and an epistemology of relativism within disciplinary thought, and a diminishing focus on mission and Catholic identity. Faced with these challenges, Catholic colleges and universities wrestle with the question of how to maintain a robust and distinct Catholic identity that will prevail across the institution. The Catholic intellectual tradition can serve as a creative guide for transforming Catholic higher education. This tradition is not a museum piece. As Monika Hellwig describes the tradition, it is both a rich treasury of works as well as a way of doing things. It is a tradition characterized by rigorous intellectual inquiry, with rich roots in the past, animating an ongoing conversation in the present and looking to the future.

We seek papers that respond to any of the questions below:

• How can the writers, thinkers, and artists of the CIT from the early past speak to contemporary concerns?
• What is the Catholic intellectual tradition in the global, pluralistic 21st century?
• How are new voices, especially women or other previous marginalized groups, developing the conversation of the CIT?
• How can topics and issues of gender, sexuality, and multi-culturalism shape the conversation of the CIT?
• How do we bring this intellectual tradition and its ongoing conversation to every discipline, major, and professional program?
• How can we use curriculum and pedagogy that show students how this tradition relates to their lives and their contemporary world?
• How can the CIT help bridge disciplines within the liberal arts?
• How can the CIT make a difference in the professional health, business, law, or nursing programs beyond the inclusion of ethics?
• How can the CIT inform or shape the work of primary or secondary education?
• How does this tradition inform and shape the mission of a Catholic university?
• How can Mission utilize the CIT help shape the overall intellectual culture of the university?
• How does the CIT shape the university’s commitment to social justice and service to the local and global community?
• How can the CIT become part of student life and student conversations outside the classroom?
• How can the CIT engage non-Catholic, non-Christian, or “Nones” in meaningful conversation? What kinds of programs, events, curriculum could be developed?

Prof. Dr. Michelle Loris
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• catholic intellectual tradition
• mission and catholic identity
• catholic higher education