BY CATHERINE PUNSALAN-MANLIMOS
Chrisopher Kaczor not only names concerns that many committed to Catholic higher education share, but also offers useful categories for understanding the complex challenge of mission drift. I can call to mind specific examples in my experience that instantiate Kaczor’s categories. For these reasons, I find myself sympathetic to much of what he writes. Still, precisely because of my real life experiences, I wonder about some elements of Kaczor’s approach.
For example, when it comes to mission dilution and its remedy, mission depth, I question whether Kaczor ultimately goes deep enough. For him, mission dilution is described as a “flattened out” understanding of mission which emphasizes justice in the curriculum to the exclusion of other mission-related values.
But from another angle, a Jesuit mission that is, in fact, deeply embedded requires that the concerns of justice, equity, and inclusion are not only infused throughout the curriculum, but also throughout the entire institution. True mission depth requires that these concerns are evident in all administrative decisions and structures, not just in the curriculum or any other particular department or area. From the perspective of justice, equity, and inclusion, mission segregation, another of his categories, remains a real problem.
In dealing with the real life situation of faculty, staff, and administrators, I also wonder if there’s more of a bright side than Kaczor recognizes. Even at institutions where the imperatives of “professionalization,” rather than “mission literacy” or “mission fit,” has already determined the makeup of the faculty, staff, and administrators, I would contend that opportunities to encounter and understand mission with greater depth can be a critical first step in remedying mission drift. The solution is not just in hiring people committed to the Catholic tradition (though, I agree, this is important), but in inviting those already among us to make the mission their own.
Here is where our commitment to justice can be of particular help. A shared commitment to justice—however different the definition of this may be—is an invaluable entry point for colleagues to learn more about the Catholic intellectual tradition, specifically Catholic Social Thought.
Further, hiring leaders among faculty, staff, and administrators who bring diverse expertise, lived experiences, and perspectives—people who are open to engaging with the mission, even if it is at first only understood as a commitment to justice—has played a critical role in enabling Jesuit institutions to make real the long-standing goal of the “service of faith and the promotion of justice” in our own changing social contexts. We have seen this play out dramatically in recent years as our institutions have had to contend with the reality of their participation in the systemic exclusion of persons because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation. Look at all the work that has been undertaken, in part due to the commitment of this diverse community of leaders, to articulate and support the AJCU commitment to be anti-racist and thereby to live up to the mission-based call to justice, equity, and inclusion.
As illustrated by the 2016 Mission Day dialogue circle about racial justice among Seattle University colleagues, Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs, professor of Modern Languages and Cultures; Christina Roberts, associate professor of English; Erica Yamamura, professor of Student Development Administration; and Bryan Adamson, then professor of Law and now the David L. and Ann Brennan Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University (above), opportunities to encounter and engage Catholic and Jesuit mission with greater depth can be a critical starting point in mitigating mission drift. Photo courtesy of Seattle University.
In the end, hiring those who understand an institution’s mission simply as commitment to justice only becomes problematic if they are not provided with rich opportunities to learn about the evolution of the understanding of justice in the Jesuit tradition and invited to think critically within the framework of Catholic Social Thought, in which justice is always profoundly linked with faith.
That’s why programs that invite colleagues to bring their disciplinary expertise and lived experience into conversation with Catholic and Jesuit commitment to social justice are so effective. Such programs not only deepen the understanding of mission among colleagues previously unfamiliar with it, but they also provide those already well-versed in the Catholic perspectives with new opportunities to make a greater impact in the world we are called to serve.
Catherine Punsalan-Manlimos, a theologian, is assistant to the president for Mission Integration at University of Detroit Mercy.
The featured cover photo (above) is courtesy of Lenore Hume.