Job wanted: Catholic colleges & the hiring dilemma.

In the fall of 1994, I reached a milestone of sorts. After a long job search, I landed my first tenure-track academic post. I found myself reflecting on the process, beginning with the essay I wrote in my last year of college to accompany my graduate school applications. A professor I consulted looked over my first draft and recommended a rewrite: As it stood, he said, what I had to say about my goals and interests sounded too narrowly Catholic.

It was realistic advice: Why talk Greek to people who speak nothing but Latin? I took it, and it seemed to work, which is to say that my applications drew fellowship offers from some good schools. Still, what the original version of the essay said about the interface between my Catholicism and my approach to academic work was important. I wanted to be an academic economist because I wanted to think, teach, and write about issues like poverty and discrimination; more broadly, to deal with real-world problems in the light of Catholic faith, as a means of following Christ.

As I completed my dissertation and began looking for a job, it was natural for me to want a post at a Catholic university. My undergraduate years at a Catholic college offered the opportunity to develop an integrated, holistic, and critical vision of the world, in a way that my graduate work at a large state school did not. Parish life during my graduate years was enriching, but I wanted work in a university community that would provide a more explicit connection between my work and my faith.

As it happened, my job search came at a time when there seemed to be a renewal of interest in and concern about the quality of Catholic higher education. I followed the discussion in Commonweal, America, and elsewhere, and I attended the first Collegium Summer Institute on Faith and Intellectual Life (an effort by Catholic colleges to develop faculty who will enrich the Catholic intellectual tradition at their institutions). Interesting stuff, even inspiring; but I found that things looked rather different in the trenches--that is, at the interview table, where the thorny issues of faculty recruitment by Catholic colleges and universities get played out. Ultimately, I accepted a position not at a Catholic school but at a state university.

Because the academic job market was weak in the period of my job search, I didn't apply only to Catholic institutions, and in fact applied for any post that seemed even remotely related to my fields of expertise. Still, I focused strongly on Catholic colleges and universities, stressing always that I sought them out precisely because they were Catholic. That didn't seem to ring any bells; in later contacts, I found that my interest in Catholic higher education was of no great interest to the faculty recruiters with whom I was talking. Most schools mentioned their religious affiliation in their job postings but never again during the recruiting process. Friends who interviewed with Catholic institutions had similar experiences. One of them was told by an interviewer from a Catholic university that the religious affiliation of the university need have no effect on the experience of working there. No recruiters from Catholic schools said this to me personally, but one interviewer at a Protestant school said essentially the same thing.

Since there isn't much agreement, in general or on particular campuses, about what "Catholic identity" means or ought to mean in higher education, I suppose it isn't surprising that members of recruiting committees devote little or no time to the topic. Even if some degree of consensus existed, recruiters would face the task of describing that vision while also making clear that they were interested in non-Catholic as well as Catholic applicants: not an easily achieved balance. Moreover, there will always be job candidates who will expect an institution's religious affiliation to be only a burden and a limitation. But if my experience was typical, the current assumption seems to be that all candidates feel that way.

By way of qualification, I should note that in most of my contacts with Catholic institutions I didn't get very far into the process; it could be that the Catholic identity of the schools came to play a greater role as the pool of candidates was narrowed. I should also note that, having been on the job market twice (once before and once after taking a post-doctoral position), I have seen indications that administrators and hiring committees are becoming more open in discussing the Catholic vision of their schools with job candidates. Some schools now send prospective candidates mission statements describing what the Catholic character of the schools might mean for a faculty member. Some also now ask candidates, even in their initial cover letters, how their work would complement the Catholic character of the school.

Good question: Given my original preference for working on a Catholic campus, why am I now at a state school? Certainly, the lack of a good match between my expertise and the needs of most of the Catholic schools I contacted played a large role (or so the rejection letters said). But I did not choose my current position simply by default. Rather, I have come to believe that certain core values that can be present in academic departments in all types of schools can be more important than church affiliation. These values relate both to what we study and teach and to how we study and teach.

First, concern for the conditions faced by real people should be at the center of one's teaching and research. Much currently published work in my field, economics, has more to do with displaying a set of technical skills than with investigating, let alone improving, the conditions of people's lives. Many economists of all types, but particularly those who want to connect our work with our moral and religious values, find this frustrating. Of course, focusing on technical issues or other hot topics unrelated to social needs and ethical standards may be a more direct route to fame (and grants, and tenure). But, as Brian Daley argued in his talk at Collegium's first symposium (America, September 11, 1993), Catholic intellectual life should not be driven by a yearning for fame and prestige but should mirror Christ's attitude of self-effacing service, even if this means pursuing topics other than those in favor with the current hot shots in the profession. It is easier to work on what is in fashion, better to focus on work that may help people. Sometimes the two can be combined, but sometimes not. Second, academic work should be marked by openness to a variety of views, to a broad and respectful discourse. Catholic social thought, to my mind, does not champion a particular economic system or set of policies but rather stresses a primary commitment to treating hurrian beings with dignity. Toward that end, it encourages us to listen seriously to a broad range of ideas. This value of openness is not really that common in universities these days. Anyone who has spent time in academic seminars knows that the debate is often unfriendly-to-hostile, marked by sneering and one-upsmanship rather than by respectful disagreement. Catholic intellectual life should be characterized by mutual respect and open dialogue across schools of thought.

Through the recruiting process, it became clear to me that these core values (though, of course, without the specific religious emphasis I have given them) are present in my new department to a greater degree than in most others. That means I can continue to view and carry out my work as a vocation.

There will be limitations. Working on a Catholic campus, I could more easily develop course material and programs explicitly connected to Catholic social thought and the moral dimensions of the economy. I could more openly encourage students to make their own connections between faith and their academic work. And I will continue to miss the kind of unifying vision that I found as an undergraduate at a Catholic school.

Nevertheless, I believe that my desire for an academic career connected to my most basic beliefs and values has been realized, at least in significant measure. The very process of searching for a job has taught me a lot about how to make that connection effectively. Along the way I found that there are many young academics, currently looking for their first tenure-track positions, who want that same kind of integration. I hope that faculty and administration at Catholic schools will bring more open discussion of Catholic intellectual life into the faculty recruiting process in the future. Perhaps to their surprise, they will find a group of candidates who are eager and receptive.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Protestant Precedent

So far as the future is concerned, the most crucial area where these issues [of diversity] lay themselves out is in faculty hiring. Once a church-related institution adopts the policy that it will hire simply "the best qualified candidates," it is simply a matter of time until its faculty will have an ideological profile essentially like that of the faculty at every other mainstream university. The first loyalties of faculty members will be to the national cultures of the professions rather than to any local or ecclesiastical traditions. Faculty members become essentially interchangeable parts in a standardized national system. At first, when schools move in the direction of open hiring, they can count on some continuity with their traditions based on informal ties and self-selection of those congenial to their heritage. Within a generation, however, there is bound to be a shift to a majority for whom national professional loyalties are primary. Since departmental faculties typically have virtual autonomy in hiring, it becomes impossible to reverse the trend and the church tradition becomes vestigial. The Protestant experience thus suggests that once a school begins to move away from the religious heritage as a factor in hiring, the pressures become increasingly greater to continue to move in that direction.

Such a conclusion becomes particularly perplexing if one weighs it against the good reasons that schools may have for increasing faculty diversity, Some of the stricter religious schools may exclude valuable faculty perspectives or they may unduly inhibit academic freedom and creative scholarship. Or a strong case might be made that they would better fulfill their Christian missions by serving broader constituencies. Yet, despite the merits of these concerns, both the historical precedents and analysis of the forces that drive historical change suggest that opening the doors for such valuable and refreshing breezes soon lets in gale-force winds that drive out the religious heritage altogether.

From "What Can Catholic Universities Learn from Protestant Examples?" in The Challenge and Promise of a Catholic University, ed. Theodore M. Hesburgh (University of Notre Dame Press, 1995).

Thomas N. Maloney is an assistant professor in the department Of economics at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.