Catholicity and Confusion
By Phillis R. Brown
Professor in Department of English at ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ
Catholicity and Confusion
I donât remember now why I signed up in fall 2020 for the ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ Seminar on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, or what I hoped to gain from participation. I learned about Catholic intellectual traditions as part of my doctoral investigation of an Old English poem about St. GuĂ°lac, and subsequently from my research on medieval women writers such as Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, Hildegard of Bingen, and Abbess HĂ©loĂŻse. I participated for many years in ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœâs Ignatian Faculty Forum, I journeyed to El Salvador with a group of faculty and staff to deepen my understanding of Jesuit social justice and ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœâs mission, vision, and goals, and my teaching invited my students and me to read medieval Christian texts carefully and thoughtfully. Danteâs Commedia is a guide to my thinking about Catholicism. I was also married to a former Jesuit and fellow medievalist for more than 40 years.
But our reading for the second session of the seminar set my mind on fire. Specifically, John Haugheyâs chapter âCatholicity: Its Scope and Contentsâ in Where is Knowledge Going? The Horizons of the Knowing Subject, which opened my mind to new ways to think about Catholicism, teaching, learning, and education more broadly. As the seminar progressed and summer allowed more time to reflect on the readings and discussions, I have achieved what I think is a glimmer of clarity in a morass of confusion about learning and understanding.
My confusion exists against the backdrop of fraught political, social, and health situations throughout the world, but more specifically relates to University decisions and communications. Colleagues I respect and trust hold diametrically opposed positions related to recent events and situations, evoking in me the following questions:
- Why has the ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ administration advocated a union vote that would count non-votes as opposition to unionization?
- Does the recent report of findings related to financial management during the pandemic sidestep the issues of concern?
- Does Acting President Lisa Kloppenbergâs official update on the 2020 campus incident1 involving my English department colleague indicate that the administration has returned to an insensitivity to racial inequities on our campus?
Yesi Magdaleno-Solis, CorazĂłn, 2021.
In brief, ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ Campus Safety officers confronted the brother of a faculty member who was sitting on campus to work while visiting his sister. They followed him to his sisterâs home and then challenged her assertion that the house, owned by ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ, was her home. Neighbors alleged that this challenge would not have happened if the faculty member and her brother were white. However, the Equity Hearing Panel that adjudicated the incident found no evidence that the Campus Safety Officers were motivated âby racial animus or bias.â Each of these questions involves a larger question about administrative attitudes toward faculty, which, in my view, invites parallel questions about faculty attitudes toward students and the administration, which all contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how a university can best achieve its mission and goals. Haughey writes:
As catholic, a Catholic university inevitably houses many worldviews. It can do this in several ways. One is simply to make room for those who hold these plural worldviews. This is a negligent or, at best, a merely tolerant hospitality. A second way a university can house plural worldviews is by hearing them, taking them seriously, engaging them.
This second form of hospitality can lead to a real growth in understanding on the part of both hosts and guests. (p. 37) This second form of hospitality is also much more challenging. Can an administrative leader possibly engage with every perspective for every decision? Can a faculty member take the time to engage with every studentâs views on the subject matter of the class? Are all views equal in value? When is the value of silence on an issue greater than the value of transparency?
While the answers to my questions here are noâ because no one can engage with every perspective and opinionâHaughey helps me toward understanding where my questions can lead me. For example, fundamental to his discussion of where knowing is going is acknowledgement that knowing is not going toward certainty about human endeavors. Rather, it is going toward increasing awareness of complexity. Thus, in the first paragraph of the chapter âCatholicity: Its Scope and Contents,â he writes:
Education must be something of great value, since everyone wants to âgetâ one. Superficially, what people want is the knowledge and skills to make a living. More trenchantly, what people want, I believe, is a deeper grasp of what is so and what isnât so. But the more informed one becomes about the âis so,â the more complex matters get. (p. 40)
Hence, openness to multiple worldviewsâ hospitality that is more than tolerantâis not easy. Nevertheless, even though open attention to complexity for students, faculty, and staff often is frustrating and confusing, the results can be gratifying if we are willing to persist. Haughey argues, âTogether with the classical notions of being and value, the notion of catholicity can help us to bring into focus what otherwise can be so disparate as to verge on the incoherentâ (p. 54). He goes on to describe catholicity as âa heuristic that pushes for a further whole, a connectedness between knowns that are also known to be partialâ (p. 59). In a later chapter, âWhere is Knowing Going,â Haughey cites Johannes Metz on the character of our eschatological knowledge: ââWhat distinguishes the Christian and the secular ideologies of the future from one another is not that the Christians know more, but that they know less about the sought-after future of humanity and that they face up to the poverty of their knowledgeââ (p. 118). These observations encourage me to step back from deciding who is right and who is wrong in administrative decisions to take what may be a more fruitful stance: considering how partial elements of what âis soâ and âis not soâ can help me better understand how I can contribute to the greater good of the University and help students lean into the âpoverty of their knowledge.â
To ground my thinking in the particular, I will return to one of the questions I pose above as contributing to my confusion about Acting President Kloppenbergâs email update on the 2020 campus incident. Two particularly detailed written responses to the report draw on disciplinary expertise. The first, written collaboratively by the English departmentâs incoming chair and six other faculty, alleges distortions in the email reportâs statement that a panelâs âadjudication in accordance with the Universityâs Interim Policy on Discrimination, Harassment and Sexual Misconductâ found âno evidence of racial animus or biasââin addition to the implication that the panelâs findings align with the findings of the independent audit of Campus Safety2 conducted this past year by LaDoris Cordell, a retired judge of the Superior Court of California. The English departmentâs response also calls Kloppenbergâs choice to welcome the four Campus Safety officers and our colleague and her family back to campus in a single sentence, specifying that the past year has been âa particularly difficult timeâ for âall parties,â an âequivocation.â The English departmentâs response:
- deplores the lost âopportunity for the administration to acknowledge the harms doneâ to our colleague and her family âand affirm[s] the universityâs stated goal of building a community committed to anti-racismâ
- cites the independent audit of Campus Safety conducted by LaDoris Cordell, which found a âracial disconnectâ because âmany, if not most [Campus Safety leadership and personnel] operate with a color-blind, âI never see a personâs colorâ mindsetâ
- concludes with a call to specific actions from the ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ administration
Shortly after the English department message was posted, Kloppenbergâs email update was reposted, with no acknowledgement of faculty response. Following the second posting of the email update, the chair of the history department posted a statement signed by 11 department members. After naming three areas of concern, similar to those in the message from the English department, the history departmentâs message concludes:
As historians we believe it is critical for the administration to be proactive in creating a new culture of collective responsibility for learning about and fighting the malignancy of white supremacy. It is vital that faculty, staff, and students of color feel seen and heard when they talk about their experiences of microaggressions, discrimination, covert, and overt hostility in our community. We must do more. The university leadership must take affirmative short-term steps to enact the changes recommended by the CSS audit as a way to begin rebuilding trust in the institution.
In this instance, as well as in the other two instances listed above, the ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ administration positions itself as committed to âthe fundamental values woven into all we do as a university in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition, and our expressed values of community and diversity.â Implicit in the administrative positions is responsibility related to confidentiality of some reports and outcomes. For example, specific details of penalties for actions that violate University policy are not publicly reported. Furthermore, briefer reports are generally preferable to longer, more detailed reports. But the administrative positions fall short of the catholicity Haughey advocates, giving the impression of an easy version of what âis soâ rather than acknowledging the complexity. Rather than positioning the decisions in a continuum of the Universityâs ongoing efforts to grasp what is so and what isnât so, the decisions were presented as authoritative and final judgments. Official communications related to the three issues I name above likely would result in less confusion if administrative leaders were willing to respond directly and publicly to questions and allegations of errors of fact raised by faculty (also by students and staff). The absence of that response gives the impression of authoritarian Catholic hierarchy and tradition rather than the catholicity Haughey writes about as essential to where knowing is going.
The impression of authoritarian Catholic hierarchy may also have contributed to two University decisions that limit discussion. The Faculty Senate Council has excluded administrators above the level of department chair from meetings, except if they are explicitly invited to attend. Similarly, the ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ Racial Justice Group excludes administrators above the level of chair from participation. The reason for the exclusion is a belief that administrative presence will intimidate faculty and staff and impede discussion. In other words, both the Faculty Senate Council and the ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ Racial Justice Group value open discussion among faculty, or faculty and staff, over discussion with administrators. Hence, while I am aware of many ongoing discussions, the discussions may fall short of the openness and hospitality fundamental, in Haugheyâs view, to progress toward a university guided by catholicity.
Joanne H. Lee
A significant example relates to the email update on the events of 2020. I infer from details in the aforementioned independent audit of Campus Safety Services (CSS) that the email update attempts to respond to the feelings of Campus Safety officers who reported that messages from then President OâBrien had resulted in widespread antipathy toward them, i.e., had metaphorically thrown them under the bus (XIX.A.(2)). The 21 officers who participated in conversations in the audit âwere unanimous that they were not racist and that they perform their work in a color-blind manner (XIX.A.(3)). Indeed, the independent audit of CSS provides ample evidence that the behavior of Campus Safety officers had been encouraged by policy and practices of the campus unit. That helps me posit an understanding of the seeming contradiction in the email update: allegations of animus or racial bias were not confirmed but three officers had interacted with our colleague in a way that was ââmisdirected and unnecessaryâ and âviolated University Policy (Campus Safety Policy Manual 413.4) by their actions.ââ
Significantly, the audit introduces its findings with an important statement: âCSS leadership sends a mixed message to its own personnel and to the ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ community. To the community, CSS purports to be the âDepartment of YES,â committed to âcustomer service.â However, CSSâs training, verbiage, and activities also sends a message that it is primarily law enforcement focusedâ (XXII.(1)). The audit then draws on social psychologist Jennifer Eberhardtâs Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think and Do to contextualize the evidence that most CSS staff âoperate with a color-blind, âI never see a personâs colorâ mindset,ââ which, according to Eberhardt, âcan actually impede our move toward equality.â This section of the audit goes on to report that âeven after undergoing implicit bias training presented by members of Dr. Eberhardtâs team, several CSS officers continued to assert that they were color-blindâ (XXII.(2)). These details suggest to me that the law enforcement focus of CSS combined with leadership and hiring practices to encourage and reward are impediments to ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœâs goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Moving CSS leadership from University Operations to the Office for Student Life is likely to result in clearer understanding of a CSS mission and goals shared by the campus community and CSS staff, but in the meantime, it is understandable that CSS officers feel betrayed by ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ leadership. The audit suggests the sense of betrayal is shared by University Operations and perceived as a betrayal by then University President Kevin OâBrien, S.J. Although Kloppenberg refers to the audit, she does not point to any of the reasons why she presents the CSS officers as victims to be welcomed back to campus with the member of the English department and her family. I believe neither she nor administrative leaders of CSS or campus operations have accepted responsibility for harm done to any of the people involved beyond mention of an upcoming report that will update the campus community on efforts to reimagine policies and procedures that guide the work of CSS. Her goal may be to undo harm resulting from Fr. OâBrienâs apologies to the campus community for racist underpinnings of campus policies and practices and promises to bring about change, which some perceived as pointing a finger of blame at individuals who were enacting what their training had encouraged.
Close examination of what is so and what is not so in this example doesnât result in comforting conclusions about what is right and what is wrong. Instead, it can encourage attention to the idea Haughey attributes to Fr. Michael Himes: âmaybe a Catholic education is at its essence a training in beholdingâ (p. 1). Himes introduced Haughey to the idea while teaching âHurrahing in Harvest,â a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins, in which the speaker marks a turn in the final six lines, saying, âThese things, these things were here and but the beholder/ Wantingâ (lines 11â12). In the poem, the âthingsâ are elements of beauty the beholder had failed to see. Haughey asks his readers whether they are willing to apply this poetic insight to thinking about ways we need a training in beholding to better understand where knowing is going and what we can aim to behold in our work.
I see failures of beholding in myself resulting from acculturation that privileges white people and encourages unquestioning respect for authority, whether they are administrative leaders or teachers. That acculturation is a reality faculty encounter as we aim for anti-racist and anti-misogynist thinking and behavior in our classroomsâand a reality administrative leaders encounter as ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ works toward our goal of diversity, equity, and inclusion in all of our practices and policies. But I also see evidence of progress toward a greater good. For example, I observed a first-year writing class taught by my colleague Robin Tremblay-McGaw in which students were given time to âlook atâ details first in a visual text and then in a reading assignment, after which they shared what they saw by calling out their observations rather than by sharing in a discussion. Robin explained to me that she had drawn on Verlyn Klinkenborgâs Several Short Sentences About Writing when she designed the class exercise. Klinkenborg writes:
The central fact of your education is this:
Youâve been taught to believe that what you discover by thinking,
By examining your own thoughts and perceptions,
Is unimportant and unauthorized.
As a result, you fear thinking,
And you donât believe your thoughts are interesting,
Because you havenât learned to be interested in them.
But everything you notice is important.
Let me say it a different way:
If you notice something, itâs because itâs important.
But what you notice depends on what you allow yourself to notice.
And that depends on what you feel authorized, permitted to notice
In a world where weâre trained to disregard our perceptions.
Robin could have used the verb âbeholdâ in place of âlook at.â Her goal is similar to Haugheyâs: to encourage the willingness and confidence to behold what has gone unnoticed or not been trusted because unauthorized.
Robinâs âlook atâ exercise leads to close reading of texts, compelling discussions, and thoughtful essays about challenging topics, an outcome beneficial in many undergraduate classes. The exercise provides practice related to ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœâs goals for undergraduates,3 especially the overarching institutional commitment: âĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ will transform studentsâ lives through a personalized Jesuit education that integrates rigorous study with high-impact experiential learning and fosters critical, creative, and reflective thinking; complex problem-solving; excellent communication skills; and the application of knowledge for the betterment of society.â Faculty and administrators are also encouraged to âlook atâ or âbeholdâ in workshops and discussion groups, many of which have focused in the past two years on ways to move toward greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in University policies and practices, as well as in our own classrooms. For those of us who care passionately about where knowing and learning are going, it may be easier to see lack of progress than progress. Hence the many emails from faculty drawing attention to continuing problems. I certainly donât advocate ignoring the problems, pretending they have gone away. But I do think attention to the good is equally important. Humans are more willing to change if the change builds on something positive. Therefore, many faculty begin a response to student writing by articulating the strengths before focusing on select areas for improvement, rather than attempting to draw attention to every error or infelicity. Some administrative leaders have adopted this practice.
Haugheyâs book emphasizes the importance and value of openness and hospitality to the goals of education generally, but especially Catholic education. That openness requires dialogue with what has been called âeloquentâ listening. A 2014 article in The Atlantic on the occasion of American politician Howard Bakerâs death reports that Baker attributed his political success to being an eloquent listener:
âI increasingly believe that the essence of leadership, the essence of good Senate service, is the ability to be an eloquent listener, to hear and understand what your colleagues have to say, what your party has to say, what the country has to say ... and try to translate that into effective policy,â he said in 2011 in an interview with the Bipartisan Policy Center. He loved that phrase âeloquent listener,â explaining, âThere is a difference between hearing and understanding what people say. You donât have to agree, but you have to hear what theyâve got to say. And if you do, the chances are much better youâll be able to translate that into a useful position and even useful leadership.â
I believe many on campus are working hard to be eloquent listeners, listening to students, faculty, staff, and administrators. Haugheyâs book encourages us to continue listening eloquently as often as possible and continue working to translate what we hearâand beholdâinto useful change, moving closer to being the best university we can be, knowing that each improvement will result in new questions and clearer understanding of what else needs our attention. The vision Cardinal Joseph Bernardin offered in his 1996 address âFaithful and Hopeful: The Catholic Common Ground Projectâ inspires me now: âa vision of church that trusts in the power of the spirit so much that it can risk authentic dialogue.â More recently, in a Commonweal article about preparation for the October 2021 âSynod on Synodality,â Austen Ivereigh writes, âSynodality requires us to understand that we do not possess the truth, but that sometimes, when we put aside our emotions and agendas, it possesses us, overflowing the narrow channels of our thinking.â I believe the educational mission of ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ positions faculty, staff, students, and administration to lead by accepting the risks of authentic dialogue. As Acting President Kloppenberg wrote in her September 17 email, âOne of the hallmarks of ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ has always been that our community is relationship-basedâunited in our mission on behalf of students, committed to shared values, and willing to do the work of listening and understanding to solve difficulties.â That requires working with the confusion resulting from fraught political, social, and health situations throughout the world, including confusion related to University decisions and communications.
Phyllis R. Brown, a professor in the Department of English, received her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1979 and has been teaching at ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœ since 1982. Between 2008 and 2015, Brown served as director of the Core Curriculum and Associate Provost for Undergraduate Studies. In 2015 Brown returned to full-time teaching, scholarship, and department leadership. Her publications include essays on Beowulf, writings by Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, Heloiseâs letters to Abelard, Guillaume de Machautâs lyric poetry, Louise Labeâs poetry, and issues in higher education. Current research and writing address Catholic identity in higher education and transformative learning.
Notes
1 scu.edu/lk/update-on-2020-incident-0817/
2 âAudit of Campus Safety Services, ĂÛÌÒ”Œșœâ (scu.edu/campus-safety-audit-report/?r=report/&g=)
3 Undergraduate Learning Goals (scu.edu/provost/institutional- effectiveness/assessment/undergraduate-student-learning-goals/)