2008 Woodie Awards
AC's Catholic values challenged
Kate Czaplinski
Issue date: 9/15/04 Section: Lead Stories
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If you are one of over 2,000 undergraduate students enrolled here at Assumption, you are working towards receiving a Bachelor of the Arts, or BA, degree. This seems to be an obvious statement because any student who has chosen Assumption College for their undergraduate studies is aware that they are paying money to become part of a small Catholic liberal arts learning environment. What is not always clear to many students upon entering Assumption College is what exactly a Catholic liberal arts education entails.
Do the words Catholic and liberal go hand-in-hand in today's world? Can you receive a liberal arts education at a school in which the motto is "Until Christ be formed in you"? Can an institution of learning live up to Catholic standards in a changing world, or do we need to separate the Catholic from the education?
The June 2004 issue of the Catholic Crisis Magazine featured an article entitled "The Enemy Inside the Gates: The Surrender of Catholic Education," in which many Catholic liberal arts colleges and universities, including Assumption, were accused of having abandoned Catholic views. Author of the article, Patrick Reilly, argues that the foundation of Catholic education has become unstable, writing, "When Catholic institutions embrace a severely distorted notion of academic freedom at the expense of fundamental Catholic teaching, something is seriously wrong."
Many private schools, such as College of the Holy Cross, Boston College, and St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, are singled out for running programs that go against the Catholic beliefs and standards. These schools and many others are criticized for hosting pro-choice politicians, allowing performances such as the sexually charged "Vagina Monologues," conducting research that goes against Catholic Church views, and several other programs not condoned by the Church.
Assumption College is criticized for engaging in embryonic stem-cell and human cloning research. Last spring, Assumption hosted a prominent speaker supporting stem-cell research. Science has historically challenged Catholicism and vice versa.
Dr. Owen Sholes, Chairperson of the Department of Natural Sciences, has been working at Assumption for 25 years and has never felt limited by the fact that he teaches at a Catholic school. He contends that all professors are aware of the views of the college and understand that advocating any personal beliefs is not part of being a professor at Assumption.