10 Ways to Strengthen Athletics in Catholic Education (Bonus: Anticipated Questions One Might Encounter)

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  1. Develop and display an athletics mission statement which affirms that athletics complement and extend your institution’s faith-based mission.
  2. Prioritize academic and religious programs over athletics in resource and marketing initiatives. The institution’s primary public identity and pride should be situated in its academic and religious identity.
  3. Hold athletes to the same standards of academic performance, morality and decorum as other students, to avoid two categories of students.
  4. Create opportunities for all students to participate in sports at various levels (intramural, pick-up and informal) to benefit from their formative value.
  5. Establish professional development programs and policies for athletics personnel to develop the spiritual, emotional, social and moral dimensions of student-athletes. Teach a spirituality of athletics with presentations by theologians on Christian anthropology, the role of sport in human wellbeing and sports as a tool of evangelization and virtue development.
  6. Adopt high standards for hiring and evaluating coaches who are role models for Christian virtue and maturity and who avoid humiliation, degradation or disrespect of student-athletes.
  7. Make public prayer part of each home pre-game program and encourage post-game team prayers. Designate a program or team chaplain to schedule and lead team Masses, retreats and service projects.
  8. Keep Sundays free to allow for proper celebration of the Lord’s Day. If Sunday is a day of travel, make sure students can attend Mass.
  9. Maintain the athletics program’s mission and ensure student safety, fair play and justice, by determining participation on sex-specific teams by a student’s biological sex, not gender expression or self-proclaimed gender identity. Consider invoking opt-out provisions when offered by a league or athletic association that permits transgendered athletes or otherwise compromises the integrity of athletics and risks scandal to students.
  10. Keep in mind that the goal of athletics in a Catholic worldview is about the harmonious and integrated formation of student-athletes in mind, body and soul… and have fun in the process!

This list is drawn from The Cardinal Newman Society’s new “Policy Standards on Formation of the Human Person in Catholic School and College Sports”.

 

Possible Questions

Question: Could we just let sport be sport, run a competitive program like our peers, and leave the rest to theology class or Sunday school?

Response: Catholic schools and colleges are educational evangelical communities of faith. Sports in our communities are a part of something much bigger than simply competition and athletic glory. Because Catholic education is different, with a more comprehensive integrated approach to student formation, our sports programs are different. They are orientated to integral formation of mind, body and spirit within a Catholic understanding of the human person.

Question: Isn’t it a violation of good taste and religious freedom to offer a specifically Christian or Catholic prayer before a game? Is that proselytizing? Shouldn’t we choose the most generic and universal sentiments to avoid offending others?

Response: In athletic events, the home team is responsible for the pre-game program. When we invite guests into our “home,” it is a Catholic home. We have a chance to show our guests who we are: a community of faith and part of the Catholic Church, and in this instance the Church at play and prayer. While we respect our guests and should never choose a Catholic prayer that might lead to confusion, we also respect them enough to assume they are capable of the virtue of tolerance and respect incumbent upon guests in another person’s home or Church. We should never shy away from the name of Jesus in any prayer or circumstance out of a false sense of inclusivity or a fear of appearing pious. See John 14:13-14: “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in my name, I will do it.” Also see Matthew 10:33: “But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.”

Question: Don’t laws and athletic associations require a school or college to provide students access to the team of their choice according to their declared sexual identity?

Response: Local, state and federal laws in the United States and athletic association policies are changing rapidly on this subject, and there is no national consensus. A Catholic school or college must carefully review applicable laws and affiliations. Regardless, there is no option for a faithfully Catholic institution to deny or cast doubt upon the God-given biological sex of any person, including students and employees. This would violate the mission of Catholic education to teach and witness to truth. Faced with a legal challenge, a Catholic institution’s best defense may be to assert religious freedom by claiming exemption from the law, seeking relief under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or appealing to the First Amendment or provisions in a state constitution. A school or college has the strongest claim to religious freedom protections if its policies and actions are directly explained by Catholic teachings, consistently faithful and consistently applied over time and across situations.

 

 

Sport Is More Than a Game for Catholic Schools

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In Catholic education, athletes like to win competitions as much as anyone else—but sport has an even higher purpose that should take priority for students and coaches.

Sport done rightly aids the development of character and virtue. Catholic sport allows for the integral formation of body and soul, to work toward the fulfillment of athletic and intellectual prowess and excellence. Sport builds school community, reinforcing bonds among students and between students, faculty and staff. Sport forges bonds among parents and the larger community.

Sport in Catholic education is not only for the physically talented. Because it has so much to offer the human person, all capable students should have the benefit of participating in athletics and sporting competitions. What student hasn’t missed catching or hitting a ball? It’s not only about learning handeye coordination, but also about how to emotionally respond and behave in a way that leads to virtue formation.

ALL CAPABLE STUDENTS SHOULD HAVE THE BENEFIT OF PARTICIPATING IN ATHLETICS.

As stated in The Cardinal Newman Society’s new standards on sports in Catholic education, a Catholic institution should be concerned not only with “physical skills and strength” but also developing social skills and “Christian character and virtue.” The standards discuss the outlook of Pope St. John Paul II, who spoke of the importance of sport in the development of the human person as well as the danger if sport is simply “reduced to mere effort and to a questionable, soulless demonstration of physical strength.”

Sport can help students recognize their physical and mental capacities and limitations. For some, it’s the acceptance of their skill; for others, it’s the determination to improve, which motivates them to understand who they are or who they are called to be.

Some believe gender is a social construct, and that athletic policies should invite students who express a gender different from their biological sex (“transgendered athletes”) to compete alongside or against athletes of a different biological sex. But science tells us there are chromosomes within each human person that exist at conception defining one’s sex as either male or female. The Church teaches that the human person grows as a unified body and soul, not as “two natures united, but a single nature” as male or female. As our standards explain, “Through integral and holistic Catholic education, student-athletes will Sport Is More than a Game for Catholic Students NEWMAN SOCIETY EDITORIAL come to understand who they are as unified persons of body and soul [and] as sons and daughters of God.” Sport can be important to upholding the perennial teachings of the Church and the mission of the Catholic school or college.

Catholic institutions of integrity will recognize natural law and Catholic teaching, refusing to capitulate to contemporary ideologies that negate the basic binary principle of human sexuality. Faithful Catholic institutions will participate in like-minded athletic associations or sports leagues that do not usurp the rights of students to compete with students of the same biological sex. This is a matter of justice. Our standards state, “By nature, men are typically bigger, faster and stronger than women and so should not play against them in competitive interschool athletics.” Any athletic competition should protect the safety and dignity of all participants.

It is important that educators ensure that students are not degraded by unsportsmanlike behavior, such as name-calling or hazing, and “coaching that is physically, emotionally or spiritually abusive, harmful or degrading.”

Sport in a Catholic school is the extension of the school’s academic and religious mission—to transform students into persons who will live their earthly and eternal lives as humble servants of God. It should be seen as an evangelical and formative program.

 

 

Catholic Educators Rise to Defend Women’s Sports

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In December 2021, the witness of faithful Catholic educators helped persuade the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to include broad protection for the mission of religious colleges in the Association’s new constitution.

Although the NCAA also took new steps to embrace gender ideology, the accommodation to religious colleges was a surprising concession showing the great importance of Catholics standing firm against gender ideology and in defense of women’s sports.

Awareness is growing in American society about the errors of gender ideology, originally embraced out of compassion for a very few people who are born with ambiguous sexuality. Now the false ideology threatens to erase gains made in recent decades for women’s athletics and protection from sexual assault. Men declaring themselves female and choosing to compete in women’s sports or use women’s private facilities is corrupting sports at all academic and professional levels, from high school swimming to Olympic events

Faithful Catholic education respects not only the biological sex of students but also Catholic teaching which affirms God’s creation of humans as male and female. Catholic schools and colleges, then, must firmly resist demands that they admit biological men to women’s sports and should set an important example as faithful witnesses to the truth.

Catholics challenge the NCAA

In December, I went public at the National Catholic Register with concerns raised by leaders of several faithful Catholic colleges that we recommend in our Newman Guide, and which participate in Division II or III of the NCAA. The presidents of Belmont Abbey College, Catholic University of America, University of Dallas, University of Mary, University of St. Thomas (Tex.) and Walsh University had been fighting proposed changes to the NCAA constitution that seemed intended to push out religious colleges with traditional views of sexuality and gender.

By adding deliberately pointed language to its constitution—that colleges must “comply with federal and state laws and local ordinances, including respect to gender equity, diversity and inclusion”— the NCAA appeared to be stacking the deck against religious colleges. The language seemed designed to ban Catholic colleges from membership in the NCAA, if at any point they go to court to assert exemption from state and federal laws and to defend their mission.

This amendment to the NCAA constitution was the result of lobbying by activists including the anti-Catholic Human Rights Campaign. It would have set up a legal showdown between the NCAA and faithful Catholic colleges that refuse to accept biological males on women’s teams.

“The Catholic attempt to use sport toward the integral formation of the human person and to give praise and honor to the Creator is subverted by competing ideologies in the common culture, especially gender ideology,” warns The Cardinal Newman Society in our new standards for sports at Catholic schools and colleges. “The issue is bigger than just sexual politics; Catholic educators must resist gender theories that aim to annihilate the concept of nature and our understanding of who we are and how we exist in the world.”

GENDER IDEOLOGY THREATENS TO ERASE GAINS MADE FOR WOMEN’S ATHLETICS AND PROTECTION FROM SEXUAL ASSAULT.

Thankfully, the faithful Newman Guide colleges joined many other religious colleges in urging the NCAA to add another provision to its constitution, ensuring their rights to uphold their religious missions. The Cardinal Newman Society made the issue public and endorsed the new language, “Consistent with the principle of institutional control, no provision in this Constitution should be construed to restrict or limit colleges and universities, public or private, from adopting or maintaining missions and policies consistent with their legal rights or obligations as institutions of high learning.”

My column in the National Catholic Register was widely distributed on social media, and it was cited by Catholic and other Christian media. A few days later, the NCAA added new language to its constitution recognizing the mission priorities of religious colleges. Apparently, the NCAA governors decided losing Catholic and Christian colleges as members would harm the association and would be patently unfair to student-athletes.

Faithful Catholic education is worth fighting for, and it was the smaller but most faithful colleges that helped achieve this valuable protection, even while large institutions like Georgetown University instead advocated the “woke” agenda of gender ideology.

Tough road ahead

The added language to the NCAA constitution does not mean religious colleges will not face difficulties in the future. The association has signaled acceptance of gender ideology, allowing each sport’s national governing body to determine its own approach to competition by students who claim an opposite gender, subject to review by an NCAA committee. It remains to be seen whether the NCAA will honor its statement of respect for religious education.

In college sports generally, the challenge of gender ideology faces women in multiple sports. University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male who is undergoing hormone therapy, has made headlines by setting pool records in the Ivy league swimming championship.

The problems are also reaching into high school athletics. The fastest female runner in Connecticut high schools was forced to file a lawsuit in 2020, together with other student-athletes, because of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s decision to allow biological males to race against girls. The lawsuit was deemed moot by a federal court last year, since the girls had graduated, and it was dismissed—but the girls have appealed the ruling.

Often Catholic schools and colleges belong to such athletic associations, and these are likely to continue presenting challenges for Catholic educators. Whether on gender identity, prayer before games or other concerns of Catholic institutions, secular society is increasingly unwilling to respect the needs of Catholic education. But compromising on fundamental truths of human nature and a school or college’s mission is not an option.

On the other hand, witnessing to the truth is itself a valuable education for students—not only when we win, but also when we lose. Ultimately, we can trust in the Holy Spirit to protect the Church and open new doors to Catholic formation if we only stay faithful.

 

Univ of Mary Athletics

Catholic School Sports Should Encourage Prayer

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Imagine losing your job, simply because you prayed after a sporting event.

That’s exactly what happened to Joseph Kennedy in Washington State—and it’s yet another example of hostility to Christianity in public schools.

Back in 2015, Kennedy lost his head football coaching job at Bremerton High School, because he refused to stop praying at the 50-yard line after games. Kennedy began the practice by offering a brief prayer of thanksgiving, and he was later voluntarily joined by players from both teams.

To defend his right “to act in accordance with his sincerely held religious beliefs,” Coach Kennedy has had to take his case all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which will hear his arguments in April. He has the support of the U.S. Catholic bishops, because his plight resembles the growing threats to the religious freedom of all Catholics and other religious believers who run afoul of secularism.

But while Kennedy is surely right to defend his job, there is a larger issue here: the inadequacy and growing danger of secular public education for Catholic families. With regard to school sports in particular, Catholic kids need and deserve the kind of athletic formation that upholds the dignity of the human person and gives glory to God. Public schools are by definition secular, therefore lacking complete understanding of education—and today, they are increasingly hostile to prayer and the truths of our Catholic faith.

Catholic schools and colleges should “ensure that public prayer is a part of each home pre-game program and encourage post-game team prayers as well,” explains The Cardinal Newman Society’s recently published “Policy Standards on Formation of the Human Person in Catholic School and College Sports.” By doing this, Catholic education not only differentiates itself from the myriad young people fleeing the praying field but also upholds its mission of seeking and teaching truth to its students. While academics is the primary means to achieve this, extracurricular programs are critically important for rounding out a students’ formation and instilling a Catholic worldview.

The standards anticipate objections and questions about the practices of Catholic school teams, quite similar to the concerns raised against Coach Kennedy. “Isn’t it a violation of good taste and religious freedom to offer a specifically Catholic prayer before a game? Shouldn’t we choose the most generic and universal sentiments to avoid offending others?”

Not at all! That’s what faithful Catholic educators should say. The home team plans its pre-game and post-game events, inviting others into its “home.” At a Catholic school or college, that’s a “Catholic home.” “We have a chance to show our guests who we are: a community of faith and part of the Catholic Church, and in this instance the Church at play and prayer,” explain The Cardinal Newman Society standards.

Moreover, “We should never shy away from the name of Jesus in any prayer or circumstance out of a false sense of inclusivity or a fear of appearing pious.”

Coach Kennedy, not a Catholic but a lover of Christ, gives us a model of fortitude in an age of weakness. His strength is no less important to sports than physical strength. He was not afraid of offering a public prayer of thanksgiving following a football game, even though it ultimately cost him his job.

Likewise, coaches at Catholic schools and colleges should not hesitate to offer prayers before or after sporting events. Neither should students. They should never shy away from showing their firm belief in Jesus Christ, knowing that their example on and off the field is welcomed and celebrated—part of Catholic education’s key role in the Church’s mission of evangelization.

This article first appeared at the National Catholic Register.

Down to the Buzzer, Religious Colleges Score with NCAA

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Here’s some great news, just in time for the holy feast of Christmas: At the last moment before approving its new revised constitution, the governing board of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) added broad protection for Catholic and other religious colleges to continue participating in the college association.

The NCAA constitution still needs to be ratified by the membership on Jan. 20, but the draft they will be considering is much improved.

Just last week, with the desperate hope that sunlight might help disinfect the NCAA’s diseased constitutional revision process, I went public at the National Catholic Register with concerns raised by faithful Catholic and other Christian colleges. They have been struggling valiantly to defend against an earlier amendment to the NCAA constitution that seemed intended to push out religious colleges with traditional (i.e., truthful and rational) views of sexuality and gender.

By adding deliberately pointed language to its constitution — that colleges must “comply with federal and state laws and local ordinances, including respect to gender equity, diversity and inclusion” — the NCAA appeared to be stacking the deck against religious colleges, at least those colleges that have remained faithful to Christian tradition and have refused to violate the integrity of women’s sports and the sanctity of marriage and sexuality.

This was the result of lobbying by activists including the anti-Catholic Human Rights Campaign, which last month sent a letter to NCAA governors complaining that drafts of the constitution did not explicitly embrace gender ideology. Although the HRC complained about a few state and local laws that prevent biological men from competing in women’s sports, drafters of the NCAA constitution cleverly latched onto the much more extensive push by many states, counties, cities, and even the federal government to force gender ideology on schools and colleges.

Such efforts, of course, violate the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause if they interfere with religious colleges’ ability to conform to their religious beliefs, and colleges are likely to prevail in court when they contest violations of their religious freedom. Nevertheless, last week’s draft of the NCAA constitution could have allowed the association to ban Catholic colleges from participation even while they fight in court to preserve their mission.

“The Catholic attempt to use sport toward the integral formation of the human person and to give praise and honor to the Creator is subverted by competing ideologies in the common culture, especially gender ideology,” warns the Cardinal Newman Society’s standards for athletics policies at Catholic schools and colleges. “The issue is bigger than just about sexual politics; Catholic educators must resist gender theories that aim to annihilate the concept of nature and our understanding of who we are and how we exist in the world.”

Faithful Newman Guide colleges including Benedictine College, The Catholic University of America, the University of Mary and Walsh University joined many other religious colleges in urging the NCAA to add another provision to its constitution, ensuring their rights to uphold their religious missions. The effort succeeded, just as the NCAA governors approved the final constitution.

The proposed language from the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities said, “Consistent with the principles of institutional control, nothing herein should be construed to restrict or limit private religious institutions from adopting or maintaining policies consistent with their legal rights as private religious institutions.”

No one in the NCAA should have had a problem with that language. But the “woke” agenda prevented its inclusion in the final draft constitution that was presented to the NCAA governors last week, before the governors apparently decided that losing Catholic colleges as members would be a harmful to the association and patently unfair to religious institutions.

In a surprising and exciting turnaround, the constitution approved by the governors on Thurs., Dec. 16, is very similar to what the religious colleges wanted and should be helpful in protecting their distinctive missions. It includes the language: “Consistent with the principle of institutional control, no provision in this Constitution should be construed to restrict or limit colleges and universities, public or private, from adopting or maintaining missions and policies consistent with their legal rights or obligations as institutions of high learning.”

Deo gratias! We shall see whether the constitution is approved on Jan. 20. But already religious colleges have taken an important step forward, and by their witness they have shown the importance of never giving in to the worst elements of our culture. Faithful Catholic education is worth fighting for, and it was the smaller but most faithful colleges that helped achieve this valuable protection.

This article first appeared at the National Catholic Register.

Pope Saint John Paul II

John Paul II Was Right: Catholic Athletes Must Be Champions of Virtue

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Twelve-year-old me looked forward to one thing every day: swim practice. Every day, five days a week, I was in the pool churning out laps for at least an hour. And I did not want to be anywhere else.

Between dreams and aspirations of one day living Michael Phelpsian Olympic glory in the water, that hour a day was an important part of my daily Catholic education.

My mother, in her highly-structured homeschool curriculum, was adamant that physical activity was as important to my education as was the time I spent learning about the sacraments, the saints, the American Revolution, fractions and coefficients, and everything else a 12-year-old kid learns in school.

For centuries, it was commonly understood that an education, fully realized, included athletic practice and competition, and the practice of such things nurtured greater virtue and intelligence. The classically educated person nourished mind, body and soul.

Today, athletic competition is no less formative. It has the potential to impress and the potential to depress — to inspire celebration or disgust. And as such, it embraces the human experience, with all its highs, lows, twists and turns.

Continue reading at National Catholic Register…

Track and field

Catholic School Athletics Must Be Truthful

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Gender ideology has created huge inequities in the world of sports, with men competing on women’s teams and sometimes taking top honors away from outstanding female athletes.

Add to this many other controversies in sports, including players refusing to respect the national anthem, cheating and betting scandals, sexual abuse and harassment, and more.

Catholics are forced to ask some important questions: Is there a Catholic approach to athletics, especially in Catholic schools and colleges? Should we simply embrace the norms of secular schools and athletic associations in order to have opportunities to compete against them?

The Church has not shied away from these questions, but rather has been outspoken about the role of sports. Pope St. John Paul II especially focused on athletics in many homilies, messages and speeches.

“Sport… is an activity that involves more than the movement of the body; it demands the use of intelligence and the disciplining of the will,” he told athletes in 1987.

“It reveals, in other words, the wonderful structure of the human person created by God as spiritual being, a unity of body and spirit,” he said.

What a wonderful message! But sadly today, “body” and “spirit” are being divided in sport because of gender ideology.

Some girls have had enough of it, and Alliance Defending Freedom is representing them in a lawsuit against a Connecticut athletic conference that allows biological boys to defeat biological girls in high school track competitions. Catholic schools and colleges, too, should stand their ground and uphold truth.

“Given the incompatibility of gender ideology and a Catholic worldview, Catholic educational institutions cannot simply look the other way or surrender their vision of man and reality. Too much is at stake,” writes Dr. Dan Guernsey, senior fellow of The Cardinal Newman Society, in a draft set of standards for Catholic school and college athletics.

The standards are being circulated among experts in Catholic education, sports and theology to find common ground and help educators avoid the errors of their secular counterparts.

Athletics can be important to student development, explains Guernsey. “It can affect their understanding of themselves and their relationship with God in profound ways.”

According to the Vatican, the mission of Catholic education is about the “integral formation of the human person.” Athletics can support this mission by helping students “develop virtue and harmonize mind, body and will,” Guernsey writes.

But respecting the sex of athletes, he argues, is necessary to ensure player safety, fair play and social justice. It’s crucial for Catholic schools and colleges to develop clear position statements and policies to ensure that “athletics is not coopted to work against the mission of Catholic education.”

Ultimately, sports at Catholic schools and colleges should bear witness to the Truth. And in a culture that’s increasingly relativistic, Catholic athletics must go against the tide.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

University of Mary hockey team

University of Mary: Scholar-Athletes Formed ‘For the Whole of Life’

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This year, the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D., which is recommended in The Newman Guide for its strong Catholic identity, unveiled a “Greatness through Virtue” strategic plan for the University’s athletic programs. Through the plan, the University aims to “develop each athlete into becoming who God created them.”

The Newman Society recently asked Jerome Richter, executive vice president at the University of Mary, to discuss “Greatness through Virtue” and what makes it attractive for prospective Catholic students and families.

Newman Society: What does “Greatness through Virtue” mean, and how does it make the University of Mary stand out from other college options?

Jerome Richter: The University of Mary believes that scholar-athletes possess an inherent desire — a burning passion to achieve greatness. They are willing to take on rigorous and disciplined training schedules coupled with full-time academic work in order to pursue excellence in their sports.

“Greatness through Virtue” is the University of Mary’s plan to take advantage of this opportunity to develop each athlete into becoming who God created them to be, through the practice of virtue and the formation of authentic friendships. It means the University is taking strategic and practical steps to infuse its athletic programs with the virtues of magnanimity, humility, prudence, courage, justice and temperance to teach its athletes to pursue greatness in every arena of their lives — athletic, spiritual, personal, and scholastic.

This by no means lessens the commitment to striving to win on the field or court, rather it provides an important distinction between the University of Mary and other intercollegiate athletic programs. While many school athletic programs are aimed at solely at winning records, at the University of Mary, students, including our scholar-athletes, are formed by an education “for the whole of life.”

University of Mary basketball team
Members of the men’s basketball team at the University of Mary cheer on their teammates.

Newman Society: What is involved in the “Greatness through Virtue” plan?

Jerome Richter: The Greatness through Virtue plan is intentionally integrated into athletics in every facet from coaching and recruiting to developing leadership, personal development, academics, safety, health and well-being, and community integration. The university will be tracking this plan through a follow-up evaluation process and will reach out to share this vision of “greatness through virtue” by hosting institutes with other schools.

The University has placed Father Craig Vasek, a multi-sport athlete in high school and a graduate of the Pontifical North American College in Rome, among its athletes as the full-time chaplain for the University of Mary athletic department, guiding our athletes as they develop lifelong lessons of friendship, teamwork and values.

For Catholic families who want the assurance that their student will have access to genuinely faith-based higher education, one that brings virtue into every aspect of their university experience, including athletics, the University of Mary’s foundational faithfulness, academic excellence and genuine affordability makes it the best choice.

Newman Society: How do you expect “Greatness through Virtue” to impact areas of your campus beyond athletics?

Jerome Richter: Greatness through Virtue is not a thing apart from the life of the campus; as our scholar-athletes strive for greatness, they will undoubtably influence their friends and those around them. As “iron sharpens iron,” so too will these students further shape the culture of the campus into one where all members of the student body are fully integrated into the mission of the University of Mary.

The “Greatness through Virtue Athletic Strategic Plan” also includes core strategies for facilities and assessment to ensure its campus meets the needs for every team to excel and for every member in the athletic department to be properly assessed. Through this strategic plan, which is just a part of the University of Mary’s overall Vision 2030 Strategic Plan, there will not be any areas of campus not impacted by the university’s commitment to excellence.

Our hashtag #lifeatmary spreads the word through social media that if you want more out of an education – that dimension of eternal meaning – the University of Mary is the right fit for you.

Newman Society: How are faith-based values incorporated into some of the University of Mary’s most popular academic programs, including nursing?

Jerome Richter: The University of Mary is a campus with a rich sacramental life that includes daily Mass, adoration and prayer. Our programs in bioethics, Catholic philanthropy, Catholic Studies and programs for Catholic educators are cutting edge and faithful to the teachings of the Church. The university’s Christian, Catholic, and Benedictine values are infused throughout the curriculum, and a strong emphasis on “servant leadership” is placed in all programs.

University of Mary nursing
Nursing students in the St. Gianna School of Health Sciences.

Recently, Saint Gianna Beretta Molla’s family gave the university permission to name our School of Health Sciences after her to signal our commitment to providing exceptional health sciences education and our profound respect for the dignity of every human person. Under this newly named school, our stellar nursing program has been ranked #1 in the nation for its quality of instruction and caliber of graduates.

Our programs in business feature lessons and classes on Alexandre Havard’s Virtuous Leadership, which is meant to bring traditional views on excellence into the workplace.

Each faculty member is “hired for mission” and pledges to support the vision of educating leaders of moral courage in the pursuit of Truth.