Philadelphia, Pa.—A religiously affiliated university trying to be diplomatic may be in danger of becoming Catholic in Name Only (CINO). The university already seems to be heading in that direction.
“St. Thomas is the largest Catholic college in the Midwest,” says Padmaja N. Challakere, who teaches there. “The mission statement of St. Thomas has gone through a couple of changes since the school’s founding in 1885.”
“It has gone from a ‘Catholic liberal arts college’ to a ‘comprehensive liberal arts university in the Catholic tradition.’” Dr. Challakere, a very outspoken critic of her Minnesota employer, wonders how comprehensively St. Thomas undergrads are educated.
“I heard a recently graduated student ask a woman from Lebanon, ‘Where is Lebanon?’” Dr. Challakere recounted. She spoke at the 2006 annual convention of the Modern Language Association here.
In her remarks she made clear that while her place of employment may have a Catholic affiliation, she does not. “I am going to be speaking of a university where there is a dread and terror of democracy,” she announced. “I am speaking of Catholic universities.”
“There is a discursive coherence in the influence of the Catholic Church on Catholic universities,” she said, employing the favorite adjective in use at last year’s MLA meeting.
The English professor participated in a panel discussion sponsored by the MLA Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession. “The university issued its most prejudicial travel regulation when it forbade unmarried couples to travel together on university trips,” she opined. “This came about because students objected when a choir director wanted to take her same-sex partner on such a trip.”
“The school offered to pay her way on a separate trip,” Dr. Challakere said. “She refused.”
“The institutionalization of religion and elimination of politics could be the new racism,” Dr. Challakere notes. It is worth noting that officials at this Catholic school did not act spontaneously when they issued the St. Thomas travel edict.
Students trying to maintain a semblance of orthodoxy forced the hand of college bureaucrats. At that, administrators tried to split the difference between Catholic tradition and secular progressive orthodoxy that permeates academia.
As we can see, the school’s fathers did not satisfy the adherents of either school of thought. Communicants everywhere might question the wisdom of a Catholic university subsidizing a lesbian at a time when the Mother Church has depleted its savings by making settlements with the families of former altar boys molested by priests.
Dr. Challakere spoke on the MLA panel on “Gender and Race in the Corporate University.” “Business programs in Catholic universities have grown,” she said. “Forty-five percent of the students at St. Thomas are business majors.”
“Tuition is $32,000 a year,” she revealed. “With the increase in tuition, business is the number one choice.” But if the students are seeking a distinctly Catholic experience in college, they may want to get their money back or not spend it at St. Thomas in the first place.
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
