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 The Mission
Fr. Dennis Gallagher, A.A. '69, Vice President for Mission
Learning in All the Right Places (Spring 2006)
The following is a “week in the life” of Assumption College during the spring semester.
MONDAY NOON The first of three groups, this one comprised of faculty and staff, meets to begin discussing Pope Benedict’s encyclical letter, Deus Caritas Est. MONDAY 3:30 p.m. Professor Daniel Mahoney gives the first of this semester’s Ernest Fortin lectures, on the writer’s vocation in Alexander Solzenitsyn’s Nobel Lecture. MONDAY 7:00 p.m. Motivational speaker Danny Duval speaks on substance abuse, fall and recovery. TUESDAY 7:30 a.m. A meeting of the second group of faculty and staff convene to discuss the Pope’s encyclical letter. TUESDAY 6:30–8:30 p.m. Students and Campus Ministry staff come together for a weekly dinner and discussion. This week’s topic is “God's Love: Our Response.” TUESDAY 8:30 p.m. A student discussion of Deus Caritas Est is held. WEDNESDAY 4:30 p.m. The d’Alzon faculty reading group, comprised of first and second-year tenure track faculty across the disciplines meets for its monthly discussion. This time the reading is a text from the Italian Enlightenment thinker, Giambattista Vico. THURSDAY 4:00 p.m. At the invitation of Professor Marc LePain ’65, a number of faculty gather for the first of four conversations on Islam based on the classic autobiography of Ghazali. THURSDAY 4:30 p.m. Sponsored by the History Department Honor Society, Professor Lance Lazar gives a presentation on his latest book, Working in the Vineyard of the Lord: Jesuit Confraternities in Early Modern Italy. THURSDAY 5:30 p.m. At the monthly Food for Thought program, a discussion on the topic “Race: What role does it play on college campuses?” FRIDAY 6:30 p.m. A screening of the film Emmanuel’s Gift, the story of a Ghanaian man “who defeated stereotypical viewpoints on disabilities.” FRIDAY 7:00 p.m. Two local poets, Carle Johnson and Frank Miller, read their poetry as part of the Emmanuel d’Alzon Arts Series. In addition, weekly gatherings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings of the Philosophy Club, Theology Club, and Fr. Barry Bercier’s A.A. ’67 discussion group respectively, and meetings, surely, of other departmental clubs of which I am not aware.
Even the most loyal participant in the College’s extracurricular intellectual life is confronted by hard choices during this particular week. Although Al-Ghazali and Danny Duval may appeal to quite distinct interests, the number and variety of opportunities for engaging one’s mind over the span of five days is rather staggering. So is it reasonable, then, to fret over the lowering of the intellectual tone on campus? Of course it is, but a week such as this, not so atypical after all, suggests something irrepressible about the desire to understand and to seek communion with others founded on that desire. Needless to say, the vitality of a college’s intellectual life is measured not only by what takes place in the classroom, but by the extension of what happens there into the residence halls and the dining halls and to every other place on campus congenial to the search for truth. In this way, a liberal arts education can still offer effective resistance to a culture grown increasingly crass and mindless. |
