They Finally Won: Background on Ken Howell’s Firing
My last post on this topic provided my thoughts about it. However, I thought that a little background as to how this came about might be of interest to some. I think it helpful to go back to the beginning of the association between the Institute of Catholic Thought (ICT), of which Ken Howell was the director, and the University of Illinois in terms of credit classes.
The ICT had its predecessor in a cooperative arrangement between the Spaulding Guild (the original instantiation of what is now St. John’s Catholic Newman Center, the parent organization of the ICT) and the University of Illinois. The director of the Spaulding Guild, Fr. John A. O’Brien, joined with nine other campus ministry organizations to petition the University to accept for credit in the university, some courses the student centers would teach in their respective institutions.
On December 9th 1919 the faculty Senate and the Board of Trustees approved an arrangement with these centers. This allowed the Guild to teach Catholic courses for university credit under the supervision of a university appointed committee. The stipulations for this arrangement required that the Guild follow certain guidelines. These included that it incorporate, submit their proposed courses to the university for approval, provide instructors with a Ph.D. or equivalent education, provide their own facilities, and limit enrollment in the courses to students of sophomore standing or higher.
In the 1970s, controversy erupted over the credit course system that had been created by these campus ministers in 1919. The controversy began developing in the late 1950s. At that time, credit course enrollment had been integrated into the university’s registration process and the committee which had supervised the courses had been abolished (though their supervision was transferred to another body). These changes angered a small but powerful group of faculty members from the philosophy and sociology departments. These faculty were members of the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and through the AAUP began making formal assaults on the credit course system, pressing for its discontinuance.
The ministers of the campus ministries, organized through the Religious Worker’s Association (RWA), fought the attack throughout the 1960s. As the decade wore on, however, the heads of several foundations backed down, fearing that unless they compromised, they would have no voice in future decisions. By the late 1960s, Fr. Duncan (the director [1943-1997] of what was now the Newman Foundation), was waging an increasingly lonely battle to keep the credit-course system intact, arguing that theology, which was the heart of religion, should be taught as an academic subject only by those trained in it. To the surprise of many, on May 17, 1972, the Trustees voted six to two to keep the credit courses (the above two paragraphs are from an unpublished history assembled by a friend of mine).
In 2000 the issue erupted again in which the Program for the Study of Religion again tried to eliminate the courses being offered in the Newman Foundation. By this time, the Foundation, thanks to Msgr. Duncan’s influence , was the only remaining campus ministry center to be teaching these credit courses. The director of the Foundation was now Msgr. Stuart Swetland who continued the battle with the same vigor.
The compromise he was to reach now included the discontinuation of teaching the courses as theology courses in the Newman Foundatoin. The arrangement was modified in 2001 with the Program for the Study of Religion within the Liberal Arts School, subsuming these courses into its program and appointing two Newman Foundation professors as adjuncts within the Program. These faculty would not receive any compensation from the University. The courses were now taught as religious studies courses. They were taught from an interior perspective, but they did not presume or expect faith on the part of the students. These course turned out to be some of the most popular courses offered by the Program for the Study of Religion. All of the classes offered by Msgr. Swetland and Ken Howell were regularly full and the instructors were ranked as excellent by their students almost every semester.
When Msgr. Swetland was reassigned in the spring of 2006, the battle erupted again. The plan was for me to replace Msgr. Swetland in his classes. Ken Howell notified the Program of this desired change. The director was Robert McKim (the same person who “fired” Ken Howell earlier this year). He was of course quite cool to the idea. This stage of the controversy began with an invitation from the Program for me to meet with the faculty so “we could get to know one another.”
The meeting turned out to be something of an inquisition for which I was unprepared. Three days after hearing that I would be taking Msgr. Swetland’s courses over, I was asked to cite the books I would use, layout on the fly a syllabus for these courses and answer specific questions about the topics posed by each of the faculty members. Perhaps I should have expected this, but of course I was unprepared as I had not taught the courses before.
The faculty deemed me not competent to teach and declined to allow me to replace Msgr. Swetland. This was at the end of the academic year in the spring of 2006. Over the summer Ken pushed Robert McKim on the issue. McKim agreed that it was probably an unfair evaluation and that things likely would have gone differently if I had been given a chance to prepare for the meeting. Much to the chagrin of the faculty, McKim relented and gave me a one year visiting appointment. I have to admit that McKim did recognize he would take a lot of heat for this but decided to do the right thing. Generally, I think McKim tried to be fair, even if his heart is with those who wanted to see us gone…or else his penchant for getting along weighed in our favor. Nevertheless, he was always quite candid about his distaste for the current arrangement and his desire for a Catholic Chair whom the department would select (given they took to inviting “Charlie” Curran and Elizabeth Fiorenza as their guest lecturers one can see whom they would want to be the Catholic Chair).
However, during the fall semester of 2006 I was informed that the faculty had decided to begin a program to evaluate their adjuncts just in time for my inaugural semester. I do not know if any others ever were evaluated, but McKim admitted that this was something new. I had two faculty members sit in on two of my classes. One of these members, one of them very hostile about Christian beliefs.
Of the two classes evaluated, one was on Vatican I and the Church’s response to Liberalism. The other was on the background leading up to the calling of the Second Vatican Council. While I think I was fair, I clearly laid these issues out from an interior Catholic perspective trying to explain the Catholic worldview and how this led to the events we were studying. A few days later, I was called in to Robert McKim’s office. He informed me that the “star chamber” had decided that I was not appropriate to teach within the Program. He said that he could not share with me their deliberations and that the decision was final. He did indicate to me that in general, the feeling was that I came across too much as though I believed what I was teaching. McKim is one (perhaps the only one in what is now a Department) who thinks that students should not know what the professor thinks about what he teaches, presuming that this is the only way to be “objective.”
With my departure, this left finding a way to eliminate Ken Howell as the final step in a battle that had begun nearly 60 years prior, that is to eliminate people of faith from teaching subjects having to do with their faith. To be fair, there are others who practice their faith who teach about their faith. Conspicuously missing are those of the Judeo-Christian traditions.
It seems to me that this prejudice against people of faith is predicated upon a secular presupposition that there is an inherent conflict between faith and reason. This premise is likely a vestige of the presumption that any kind of faith demands fideism which has permeated much of the Protestant religious experience in the United States. While this fideism has its most obvious manifestation in Fundamentalism, it has its roots in the Reformed and Lutheran schools who adopted Ockham’s Voluntarist Nominalism. Nevertheless, this premise is simply a rationalization as I see it. My experience was that there seems to be almost a fear of engagement with Catholic thought among many of these academics. The U of I Department of Religion (it transitioned from a Program to a Department in 2007 or 2008) represents a gamut of responses to Catholic thought: from hostile ad hominem attacks, to snobbish dismissal, to fearful avoidance of any discussion. This is not all of the faculty, but it describes at least the vocal leaders.
Ken’s firing was made easy by the 2001 arrangement. Adjuncts have no rights and I suspect that this was foreseen. Even though the arrangment was supposed to continue into the indefinite future, an almost century old agreement, the stipulations of the agreement made it only a matter of time before the desires of the hostile faculty members would prevail. In some ways, it is amazing that they did not find a reason to get rid of Ken earlier. I suspect that because he always had full classes, no complaints, and was rated excellent by his students for at least 10 consecutive semesters, and they were not paying for his services they found it very difficult to justify.
It is easy to see that they needed something like this sensitive, politically correct scheme to complete their nearly 6 decade-long effort to expunge people of particular faith perspectives from the classroom. One even wonders if this might have been a set up. Based upon Ken’s description of the events and an evaluation of the two documents upon which the U of I seems to have made its decision (Ken’s e-mail to his students and the anonymous complaint by an ostensible friend of one of Ken’s students), it seems that the “star chamber” decision was simply a calculation that they could get away with it this time. I suspect they thought no one would be able to defend Ken’s e-mail because they have never seriously engaged with Catholic thought. For the time being any way, they seem to have won…
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Dr. Delaney:
I’ve posted this over on the Facebook page after Jerry sent it to me (the group’s gotten a bit too large for me to be able to handle easily); thought I should let you know.
Comment by Trisha Tan — July 18, 2010 @ 4:50 PM
If and only if these people succeed in abrogating a reasonable arrangement, then I think that the Newman Center and the Holy Roman Catholic Church should prominently distant them selves from the University of Illinois and from any future part in the curricula of the College. These professors seem so Anti-Catholic as to almost become anti-Christs. I had to let a rabidly anti-Catholic friend go, because of the same religious bigotry.
Comment by Don D. Snow — July 19, 2010 @ 4:50 PM
Dr. Delaney,
I saw this posted on the facebook page and just read it. Thank you for posting this and explaining the background – I think this is important to know about.
Also, as a former student of yours and Dr. Howell’s, I want to express how much I truly enjoyed your classes and how I felt so intellectually stimulated by attending your classes each day. It is such a shame that two excellent professors have been removed from this university over the years.
But, I do hope you have been well since leaving U of I! God’s peace to you & your wife.
Comment by Sara Maletta — July 19, 2010 @ 9:20 PM
Dr. Delaney,
I’m a reporter with WCIA News in Champaign. Wondering if I could catch up with you about this article.
Please call the newsroom at 217-373-3650.
Thanks!
Comment by Marissa Torres — July 20, 2010 @ 12:18 PM
You start by explaining that this arrangement between the university and explicitly religious organizations has been an accommodation offered exclusively to Catholics for over a decade. You end by asserting that “To be fair, there are others who practice their faith who teach about their faith. Conspicuously missing are those of the Judeo-Christian traditions.”
Makes no sense.
Comment by BobN — July 20, 2010 @ 2:33 PM
Thank you Sara for you very kind comments. God has been very good to us for sure. I wish you all the best.
Comment by David — July 20, 2010 @ 7:39 PM
BobN,
Perhaps you might go back a reread it more closely. I think that it does follow quite logically if you follow the chronology closely. I think your characterization is a bit biased. It was not an accommodation “offered exclusively” but rather an almost century old agreement amongst a plurality of faith traditions, all of whom relinquished their part in the agreement save one. It was not obligatory on any of the parties to end the agreement because others had pulled out.
Comment by David — July 20, 2010 @ 8:31 PM
BobN, I believe he is saying that the Catholics were the only ones remaining in the cooperative credit program, but there are other instructors within the University that teach about the faith they practice. That is, the cooperative credit program was not the only way that religion was being taught at UI; they also had regular religion courses taught by professors employed by the University. Among the non-Judeo-Christian courses are those taught by practitioners of the religion they teach.
Comment by Greg — July 21, 2010 @ 11:56 AM
In a very extensive article in Inside Higher Education, entitled “The Real Scandal at Illinois?,” http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/19/illinois , the reporter (from 1999-2003, he was editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education) spoke to the current President of the American Academy of Religion and other prominent figures, concerning what is clearly a unique relationship between the university and the Newman Center.
It is clear, based on his research and interviews, that NO OTHER public university in the United States allows a religious group to select faculty and offer credit. This is quite simply an obvious infringement of the constitutional separation between religion and state institutions. If Catholics can select their own faculty and give credit, why not Protestants, Buddhists, Muslims and Witches, for that matter? Indeed, this is a moral and legal thicket. The “relationship” should have been ended back in 1970, when faculty for the first time tried to do so; they’ve tried repeatedly ever since, only to be block by trustees and others who apply political pressure. What a pathetic and indefensible situation.
Comment by Concerned in Illinois — July 22, 2010 @ 12:16 AM
I find Concerned in Illinois’ comment unfounded as far as separation of church and state. There is no Article, Paragraph nor Amendment in our Constitution which declares separation of church and state. This urban legend is sparked by a private letter of Thomas Jefferson, and is actually merely his opinion.
And, anyway, UI is neither a state nor government, but rather an educational facility.
Therefore, there’s nothing wrong with the Newman Center/UI relationship. Except for anonymous and concerned interference.
Comment by Don D. Snow — July 22, 2010 @ 3:28 PM
That private letter of Thomas Jefferson was to a Protestant pastor in CT, actually, who was concerned about the new government’s potential for state interference in church affairs… the modern interpretation of “separation of chursh and state” turns Jefferson’s original intent on its head…. which makes me scratch mine every time.
Comment by Anne Camille — July 22, 2010 @ 6:17 PM
Thank you, Ms. Camille,
For clarifying the precise source.
I scratch my head, too. The way I read that establishment clause, is that the establishment of government (Congress) shall pass no laws regarding the establishment (both an adjective referring to an extant institution and an [adverb?] referring to starting a religion) of religion.
ie, government is to keep hands off of religion.
Comment by Don D. Snow — July 22, 2010 @ 7:56 PM
Have you ever considered the fact that the reason you were not allowed to teach was because you were not qualified?
Comment by vincent — July 22, 2010 @ 10:34 PM
Vincent,
Clearly they thought that I was not qualified. The objection is based upon what they consider constitutes non-qualification. In that the Program for the Study of Religion (as it was called at the time) did not evaluate adjunct faculty in the classroom prior to my teaching with them, it would seem that their qualification requirements were minimal. I came to them with the required degree, proven track record of success in the classroom, and strong recommendations from other schools as do most adjuncts.
The reason that the Program/department gave to me for not being qualified (or appropriate I believe was the term) to teach in their program was that I seemed to believe what I was teaching. In what other discipline would this be an issue? Does the engineering professor, the biology professor or the English professor need to maintain distance from his subject in order to teach it adequately? The concern for qualification (as an adjunct any way) should include whether one can be competent with the subject matter, fair to opposing views, and have an ability to capably convey the knowledge to one’s students. None of these was mentioned as a problem in my situation.
If there had been some other, more objective disqualifying criteria it would have been much cleaner for them to have pointed to it. The history amongst many of the more vocal faculty, the history with the Newman Foundation/Center, and my personal experience all add up to an infringement upon authentic academic freedom because of a baseless bias against religion.
The philosophy of the department seems to be that there is a necessary conflict between faith and reason and so if one has faith (though this is usually limited to Christian faith, or orthodox Jewish faith in practice) then one is being irrational. However, they have a predicament with those who taught under the aforementioned agreement, because we did not rely solely upon recourse to divine revelation but we would also explicate the Church’s beliefs with recourse to reason. We never presupposed faith, expected faith, or graded students based upon their faith or lack thereof. In fact, some more pious Catholic students in my classes who did not engaged in rigorous thought but agreed with the Church’s teaching on a particular issue would not receive as high a grade as a well thought out/well articulated argument against the Church’s teaching.
The unwillingness or inability to engage with the complementarity between faith and reason is the hallmark of secular religious studies, and secularism in general. They are simply demonstrating, I suppose, a natural human inclination to demand “orthodoxy” to dogma in the best way they know how. In the case of secularist orthodoxy, it is too often by means of oppression when they have the power because they do not have the strength of argument on their side.
Comment by David — July 23, 2010 @ 10:16 AM
I want to share this paragraph written in 1924 by Karl Adam in his “Spirit of Catholicism”
“It shall be our task to lead into this unknown land those students also who have not been familiar with it from their youth, who have not lived in its sunlight and eaten of its bread. It is unnecessary to say that all controversy and any sort of disparagement of the religious feelings of others shall be scrupulously avoided. On the other hand you should not forget that it is the highest and noblest privilege of a German scholar to be a “professor” and to proclaim the faith that is in him. A scholar cannot but profess that truth which he has discovered in the depths of his own soul by using all the scientific means at his disposal and by practicing an absolute honesty. He must profess the truth which he recognizes as the decisive truth and reality. And so he may not put us off with vague hypotheses, or with undecided alternatives; he must define and he must decide. Such is the spirit in which these lectures were written, and it is in that spirit that I would have you accept them. There is light and guidance for us all in the words of St. John; the truth will make us free.”
(cited in page 12 Spirit of Catholicism, Karl Adam, c/o http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/SPIRCATH.HTM)
Apparently, either this tenet is no longer modern or it applies only to German scholars in Germany.
As for me, I have no problem about any professor, professing and any doctor espousing doctrine. Those are the term’s root words, aren’t they? If one is of “university age” and accepted in the rolls of a university, I would think that one has the academic skills and the intelligence to avoid “indoctrination”.
During my days it was historical determinism and with its final end as being communism, that was in vogue. I read much about it and was bombarded by its “truth” by teachers and fellow students, but still I was not impressed.
Comment by Dodie — July 24, 2010 @ 1:17 AM
If the students are interested – and are willIng to take the
classes “not-for-credit”, why don’t the teachers offer the
courses off campus? I’m not sure who pays the salaries –
but it’s not the U of I.
What is important is not how you reach the students,
but that you DO reach the students.
Comment by Rosie — July 24, 2010 @ 10:41 AM