About The Newman Guide: The Newman Guide is a program of The Cardinal Newman Society that recommends Catholic colleges and universities for their faithful Catholic identity. It is updated annually online, and some years is printed in a book. The Guide helps Catholic families—both parents and students—identify the faithful Catholic higher education institution that is right for them. All eligible Catholic colleges and universities are welcome to request inclusion in the Guide (read about eligibility below).
Benefits: The colleges recommended in the Guide experience several benefits: 1) Free promotion to hundreds of thousands of Catholic families through The Newman Guide website, social media pages, email newsletter, and member mailings; 2) Access to private working groups for Catholic university administrators in support of best practices and policies to enhance Catholic identity on campus; and 3) Endorsement to tens of thousands of juniors and seniors at the faithful Catholic high schools participating in the Newman Society’s Catholic Education Honor Roll; and 4) thousands of pre-qualified leads to high school students who have self-identified as looking for a faithful Catholic college through our Recruit Me program.
Who Is Eligible to Apply? To be eligible to apply for The Newman Guide, the institution in question must: 1) Be a Catholic higher education institution recognized as such by its Catholic ordinary; 2) Offer for-credit courses to lay undergraduate students; 3) Be dedicated to ensuring that its policies are in accord with the apostolic constitution Ex corde Ecclesiae and the U.S. bishops’ Application for Ex corde Ecclesiae in the United States; and 4) Be dedicated to ensuring that its policies foster and support Catholic moral teachings.
Additionally, if the primary language at the institution is not English, it must: 1) Offer a first year of coursework in English; and 2) Provide relevant language instruction to enable students to continue with courses beyond the first year.
Process to Be Considered for Inclusion:
1 – Request and fill out questionnaire: The Society requires each institution in the Guide to answer and annually update a set of several dozen questions derived from and inspired by Church documents concerning Catholic higher education. To get started, send us a message and we will send you the questions to complete [You are here in the process]. Answering all of the questions may require some collaboration with various offices at your university (e.g., residence life, campus ministry, admissions).
Please return your answers along with a signed letter from your president acknowledging that he or she has reviewed the document and wants your institution to be included in the Guide. Please send both the letter and completed questionnaire to newmanguide@cardinalnewmansociety.org. We will review the returned answers and may respond with some follow up questions.
2 – Phone interviews with key university officials: After reviewing the answers to the questionnaire, the Society will conduct telephone interviews with key people at the institution, such as the president, academic dean, chaplain, theology chair, residence life officer, and others. The point of this stage is for the Society to ask follow-up questions and gain a more complete understanding of the character of the institution, especially regarding its Catholic identity.
3 – Campus visit and meetings: The Society reviews the combined information gathered thus far in the process. If the decision is made to proceed, we will ask the institution to cover travel and accommodation expenses for one or two of our representatives to visit the campus. While there, we will meet with university officials, faculty members, and students to learn more about your institution. We will sit in on classes, attend Mass, and visit other important locations on campus.
4 – Final review: At the end of the process, the Society carefully compiles and evaluates the information about your institution in order to make a final decision about inclusion in The Newman Guide. We may contact you again to fill in gaps with additional information. When this process is complete, we will inform your institution’s president of our final decision.