Belmont Abbey College: “Got Catholic Identity?”
I have been made aware in recent months of
But recently, a reader, who is close to the scene at Belmont Abbey College, sent along an article from CNA reporting on a situation that has caused great turmoil at the college. It seems that the school is being sued by some of the faculty and staff for removing contraception and abortion from their medical benefits. Though it is encouraging that these benefits are being dropped, the reader believes that things are a complete mess at the college. It seems that the faculty is almost uniformly opposed to the administration’s stated desire to stress “Catholic identity.” Though there are only eight signatories to the suit, the faculty is said to be almost entirely in the corner of the signatories. And, I understand, that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to faculty dissent at
I saw a curious post on Catholic Answers as I was looking around to see what others have said about this issue (pasted here for your convenience):
We all like stories where there is a “good guy” and a “bad guy.” Some well-meaning Catholic bloggers seem willing to cast the administration in the white hat, and the lawsuit-threatening faculty members in the black hat. However, the truth is much more complex, and we must wake up to this reality. I caution people to remember that there are always two (or more) sides to a story, and not to jump to conclusions based on the side of the story that comes straight from the college’s highly image-conscious administration.
I certainly applaud President Thierfelder and Abbot Solari for standing firm in the Faith when faced with such strident opposition. Had they been doing their duty, though, they would have noticed this immoral health-care policy years earlier. I also applaud the lone faculty member who had the courage to speak up for the truth and bring this immoral health care coverage to their notice, at the risk of being persecuted by his/her colleagues. This person is unnamed, probably for his/her own protection, but I want him/her to know that some of us recognize the courage it took.
Like many of you, I felt hopeful after Dr. Thierfelder took over at Belmont Abbey – I liked his vision and thought this college might be added to a regrettably small number of truly faithful Catholic colleges. However, shortly after he arrived, serious problems developed between the new administration, faculty and even some students. President Thierfelder and most of the Vice Presidents he’s hired (including the newest VP of Academic Affairs) come from a business background, with little to no understanding of how to run a college. They have implemented a business model, where the CEO (president) makes unilateral decisions and pushes them down to the labor force (faculty and staff), to better serve the clients (students). This is foreign to many in higher ed who are familiar with the “shared governance” model normally used at colleges and universities, but this is exactly what Dr. Thierfelder has done since he first arrived.
As each year passes and more top-down authoritarian decisions are made, it has caused the faculty (including even some of the Catholic members) to feel abandoned and ignored, resulting in a loss of respect and confidence in the administration. (One professor summed up this frustration nicely in an article found at http://crusader.bac.edu/english/crus…n….) After several years of this, the faculty has finally reached a breaking point. Unfortunately, their “line in the sand” was poorly chosen, using the one issue that deals with a higher moral issue.
I’m certainly no fan of some faculty there and I wouldn’t be sorry to see them go. I also agree it is VERY wrong for the 8 complainers and the many others who support them to insist on bringing back immoral and anti-Catholic health benefits. However, to be fair and just, I also understand their growing frustration with the administration’s ill will, incompetence or both. What has surfaced in this controversy is only the tip of an iceberg that has been forming for several years. If President Thierfelder had taken the time in his first year to review all the policies and procedures (including health care) already in place, to learn about higher education processes, to treat the faculty with more respect, and to allow them more input into some of the decisions that affect them, then there might be less hostility today. This is a case where BOTH sides (administration and faculty) share responsibility in the many underlying problems that led up to this controversial “explosion.”
I am grateful that Belmont Abbey students like xsuasox and edward_george have so far not seen the ugliness behind the scenes at the college, and I hope they will keep the fire in their faith as more of this seeps out. However, college-bound students and their parents would do well to look into better alternatives such as
Christendom College ,Franciscan University ,Holy Apostles College , orWyoming Catholic College .
William Carter
Carter complains about the new administration, though recognizing the goodness of the administration’s actions to eliminate the offending health-care policy. He argues that the school president and his staff have been running things in an autocratic manner in opposition to the secular academic model, which demands running a college in a democratic way, that is, with the input of the faculty. In asserting that the President should have reviewed the policies in place when he took over, one might read him as implying that the policy implementing the democratic model should have been removed years earlier. If that is his intent, then I would wholly assent to that notion (I would hope that he is not advocating for the “democratic” model). The fact that it was not leads one to ask if this was negligence on the part of the administration or a necessity in their strategy to reform the college. Certainly the offending health care offerings should have been eliminated years ago. But, given what we have been hearing about the faculty, it is obvious that they would never have cooperatively allowed the elimination of these “health care” options.
Perhaps it is, in the end, a hopeful sign that only a handful of faculty has signed the lawsuit. However, the evidence suggests that the school’s administration still has a long way to go before they are able to bring
On a related note, one may wonder about the condition of Belmont Abbey itself. After all, Benedictine colleges are generally closely connected to the monastic houses that founded them. And the ad campaign plays up the presence of monks on the campus. Unfortunately, our aforementioned “reader-on-the-scene” informs us,
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I trying to figure out where to go to get a Catholic education, one can check to see which institutions have a mandatum.
Belmont Abbey does.
And, in no Catholic college that I know of, that has existed since the Council, do all of the faculty approve of it’s Catholic Identity–usually a fairly large portion of them want it to be done away with.
A sign of the Antichrist, perhaps.
Comment by I.R. — February 24, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
Running a college with the input of the faculty is not only a *secular* academic model, and calling it a “democratic” model is a misnomer, unless you intend to call most higher education since the middle ages democratic. It is not traditional in Catholic education to run academic institutions according to a modern business model. IF that is what is being attempted at BAC, then I am not optimistic about the long-term success of that effort, regardless of the good intentions of the ones making the attempt. Obviously it is good that the administration is taking this stand against those faculty who have chosen an evil position on this health care issue, but unfortunately that does not mean the general approach of the administration has been either right or effective, and an account like this must raise some doubts on that point. In relation to the question of whether BAC is a good choice for Catholic parents, I would point out one other thing: it seems to me that, at all levels of education, teachers teach. It is all very well to have a good (or at least well-intentioned) administration, but apart from whether it is right or advisable for an administration to push things on the faculty, it is simply impossible beyond a certain point. The professors are the ones who will teach your children.
Comment by Darcy — February 25, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
Has the poster ever considered how any Catholic college not founded in the last ten years is likely to have *become* faithful in the first place? The post quoted expresses a kind of stasis - thinking that because some places have finished building & becoming their identity, no other places need start.
The quoted post references Franciscan, so consider the observations in this piece by someone who knows both institutions:
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=26877
Better to light a torch than curse darkness.
Comment by Riviera — February 27, 2008 @ 9:55 pm
I second the words of Riviera here. I am currently a Theology student at Belmont Abbey college, and I am somewhat taken aback by the author’s post here. True, Belmont Abbey Monastery does not have quite the numbers that it once did–but there are very few monasteries or convents that still do, and Belmont is growing. At least three or four new monks are expected to enter within the next year. Two of the already present monks just professed solemn vows (at a beautiful Mass that I had the great privilege to serve at).
I feel that the post here is a bit unbalanced, looking at it from the side of one poster on a forum out there, a poster who may have an axe to grind. Someone on one forum suggested that to see the truth about the situation surrounding Belmont Abbey, one should look to Google searches. How about taking it from a current member of the Abbey community? I see no evidence that a “business model” is being used to run Belmont Abbey College. That accusation gets tossed around because President Thierfelder hails from a business background. However, if you sit down and talk with the man for just five minutes about the way he seeks to run the school, he is very straightforward, very forthright. No “marketing rhetoric,” as I’ve heard it called–he is simply trying to help Belmont Abbey return to its roots as a Catholic Benedictine institution. If one doubts Dr. Thierfelder on his intentions, perhaps it would be helpful to examine how he came to be at Belmont Abbey. He was once a company president, making what I am sure was a rather comfortable living for himself and his (large) family. He discerned that perhaps God was calling him to something different, and uprooted his wife and (at the time) 8 children to move to North Carolina and take a sizable pay cut. Hardly what the average businessman would do, I would think.
In any event, as regards the issue of the insurance policy, Dr. Thierfelder has said time and time again that any faculty are welcome to come talk to him about anything. He makes himself very accessible not just to faculty and staff, but to students as well–it’s not hard to get onto his calendar, and even if you don’t his door’s almost always open. He is doing great things for this school, and the bottom line is that a great many people–students, faculty, and alumni alike–don’t like it because he’s taking the college in a more Catholic, indeed a more Christocentric direction. Hence the insurance policy was altered; a truly Catholic college faithful to its mission should not subsidize the Culture of Death, and Dr. Thierfelder and Abbot Placid should be lauded for their refusal to bend on this. Some say that this should have been caught years ago, that if Dr. Thierfelder had been doing his job it would have been. He has already said that it wasn’t caught years ago, and he and the rest of the administration are sorry for that. Why it was in there to begin with–before he even came along–would be the better question, but I digress.
Some accuse him and the rest of the administration of “foisting things on the faculty.” I answer this by saying that no more is being foisted on them than the reasonable expectation that if one takes a job at a Catholic college, he will be working in a Catholic environment and just might have to adapt to some things he doesn’t like. If one truly does not wish to have the doctrines of Catholicism be an integral part of the mission of his workplace, then he should not seek employment there. It’s common sense. We are a Catholic institution, and we do Catholic things.
In short, I think that the author(s) of this blog need to examine the issue from both sides, as the forum post that is referenced here is one from a more unilateral source. The situation here is honestly not quite as bad as its made out to be, and most of the grumbling stems from either a dislike of Dr. Thierfelder, or else dissent against the college’s Catholic mission. Belmont Abbey is in a time of renewal, of returning to its Catholic roots. These are the times now of growing pains–the college will not be where it needs to be by the time I don the cap and gown (2010, Deo Volente), nor will it be there in five years, nor in ten years. The problems that came out of the degradation of Catholic identity in education in the 1960s and 70s will take a while to reverse, and I am most blessed to be at a place where steps are being taken to return to where we need to be.
Comment by ACEGC — February 27, 2008 @ 10:35 pm
Darcy - Either you know more of what is going on at the school than the reader to whom I reference or you misconstrue my remarks. I said nothing negative about consulting faculty, though I admitted in this case it would be a waste of time. As I understand it, the faculty at Belmont is indeed used to making decisions about the direction of the school in a democratic manner through a faculty senate. They are rejecting its move back to a Catholic identity and are outraged that the Monastery and administration can do so without their approval. I am removed from the situation but I do trust the information I am getting. If you have better information about this school in particular, please share it.
Riveria / ACEGC - In reading your comments, it appears to me that you are conflating my post with the long quote which I posted and/or have not read my post very carefully. Neither comments seem to have understood the point that I am making. In short, there seems to be a revolt of the faculty against the administration and the school’s return to a Catholic identity. I say that this is a quandary for parents who would want to support a school that is trying to do that but in doing so, subjecting their children to a faculty that is hostile to all things Catholic. Please reread carefully my post if that is what you are commenting upon; if you are commenting on the quoted post, something with which I take issue, please do not ascribe those comments to my views. Thanks.
Comment by David — February 28, 2008 @ 8:20 am
I understand the point you are trying to make. However, one of the points that Dr. Thierfelder made when this all came to light was that it is not “the faculty” as a whole that is doing this, it is this group of 8. They have their supporters and detractors among the 8, however, I wouldn’t characterize the faculty as revolting against the administration, nor would I say that what is going on here is any reason why a parent should shy away from Belmont Abbey College when looking at where to send his child.
Comment by ACEGC — February 28, 2008 @ 11:24 am
I think I made the same point about it only being 8 members in my post as well. Recall that it was primarily from my reader who has direct contact with the faculty where I present the assertion that one can say in general that the faculty is in revolt. It was not due to the faculty revolt that I suggested that it was an issue. The reason is that one is paying to have their children formed in the Catholic intellectual tradition and growth in their faith but with a small number of faculty at best supporting this mission, the parents/children not only will not get what they are paying for the average college aged student, this experience could in fact damage their faith. This is the quandary.
Comment by David — February 28, 2008 @ 1:20 pm