KEEPING THE FAITH ON CAMPUS : Not just how, but who.

While public attention and debate have focused on Ex corde ecclesiae, a major change in Catholic higher education drifts along with little comment. The religious congregations that founded, shaped, staffed, and still sponsor the majority of U.S. Catholic colleges and universities are aging and contracting. As a result, these congregation-sponsored colleges and universities (202 of the 230 Catholic colleges in the United States) are facing serious questions of identity and governance.

In a recent study we conducted about the relationship between religious congregations and colleges, Relationship Revisited (Association of Governing Boards, 2000), college presidents and sponsoring congregations identified important trends in governance and sponsorship at their institutions. Ninety-eight percent reported the disappearance of founding congregation members from campuses. The presidents and congregation leaders spoke of the key role religious had once played in instilling and nourishing the particular culture and spirit of their colleges. Both worried that the religious cultures of these institutions are now at risk. These leaders hope that the laity are prepared to fill the role the religious once played in sustaining the unique religious cultures of these institutions. Their hope may be misplaced.

In terms of identity, the future without congregational sponsorship will likely take one of three paths. Some colleges will become secular. A few may find ways to protect the particular spirit of the founding congregation. Most colleges, however, will likely become more universally Catholic. That is, they will shed the particular spirituality and culture that were characteristic of the founding congregation, and will adopt a more broadly based Catholic character. Private, secular: The possibility of secularization was mentioned by only 4 of the 175 colleges responding to the survey. They saw the possibility as undesirable but real. Most will not choose to take this path. A likely scenario, however, is that a number of colleges will simply drift further and further away from the founding congregation, eventually becoming secular institutions whose only ties to congregation and church are historic and nostalgic.

Catholic, congregational: A number of colleges and universities may retain a strong congregationally specific identity. At such institutions, however, the mere memory of the founding religious will not be sufficient to sustain this identity. The lay professionals who staff the college will need to internalize the spirituality and culture of the founding community. They will also need to become the bearers who nurture, sustain, and pass on the tradition. Therefore, the extent to which the congregation's charism is hospitable to the lay academic life will be an important factor in determining whether or not the transfer of this aspect of institutional culture is successful. Congregational traditions that are more amenable to and consonant with lay experience will have an advantage. (The Franciscan charism, for example, has always been attractive to laity, and many lay organizations steeped in these traditions have developed and flourished over the years.) The final arbiters of whether a particular congregation's spirituality is appropriate for laity will be, of course, the laity themselves.

Catholic, noncongregational: Several respondents indicated their colleges are planning to become more universally Catholic, as a response to the aging of the religious congregation.

Many, if not most, congregation-sponsored colleges will follow this path. It is simply unlikely that the broad panoply of Catholic subcultures--Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Basilians, Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary, Xaverians, Apostles of the Sacred Heart, Dominican Sisters of Hope, Marianites of the Holy Cross, Salesians, and many others--can continue without the presence of the religious themselves. A generation hence, both the religious and those who knew them will be gone, and the culture will then be based upon second- and third-hand stories. Memory alone cannot sustain a culture.

For some colleges, the process of becoming more "universally Catholic" has already begun. One institution's president described the college's congregational identity. "Our unique characteristics or attributes are the following: (1) warm, personal friendships between priests and religious and lay faculty and staff; (2) exceptional quality of liturgical life on campus; (3) diversity among members of the religious communities working at the college; and (4) the education of the heart as well as the enlightening of the mind." Such characteristics are broadly Catholic. They could as easily apply to a diocesan-founded Catholic college as to a congregation-founded one.

Mergers and strategic partnerships taking hold in higher education will also drive this trend toward broad-based Catholicism. When merging, Catholic colleges with differing congregational heritages either must find common ground or allow one heritage to dominate the other. Colleges that choose to find common ground among different religious heritages will be forced to adopt a more universal Catholic culture and spirituality.

The task ahead for those colleges that wish to sustain a congregational culture, or even a more broadly Catholic one, is enormous. With the exception of the tenured faculty, university education has a high turnover of staff, administrators, and, increasingly, nontenure-track faculty. It is unrealistic for colleges or congregations to rely on these lay professionals to embrace and then advocate a religious culture when their future in the institution is tenuous. Why should lay employees make a life-altering philosophical and religious commitment if the college is not willing to make a commitment to them? Some nontenured faculty may have real connections to the mission, but more often they are institutional transients. The ability to root a self-sustaining congregational culture at colleges and universities may well depend on the colleges' willingness to provide more job security among nontenured faculty and staff.

Tenured faculty are a more stable community, but one cannot presume they are necessarily disposed toward sustaining institutional Catholic culture. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, with a core group of congregation members highly visible and involved in campus life, tenure-track faculty were recruited to bring a breadth and depth of diversity to campus life. Thirty years later the same faculty members still represent diverse intellectual and faith perspectives, but the counterbalancing core of religious on campus has all but disappeared. Since they were hired to enhance diversity rather than sustain congregational Catholicity, tenured faculty are less than likely to be key players in establishing a self-sustaining Catholic and congregational culture.

A Catholic culture requires a core group of witnesses at the center of the organization whose palpable belief makes it possible for others to feel free to explore their own religious convictions. If the college desires a Catholic culture, then it must look to create that core group within the organization. Knowledge of Catholicism is not enough. Quiet conviction is not enough. (There are Catholics of strong religious conviction teaching in state colleges, and that does not make those colleges Catholic.) Only a core of visible believers can leaven the culture of an organization.

The spirituality of lay faculty is crucial. Not all faculty at Catholic colleges and universities are Catholic. Those who are usually seek their spiritual nourishment in diocesan-based Catholic parishes, rather than from a particular spiritual subculture. It is hard to imagine that any Catholic college or university could attract and retain a majority of Catholic faculty members who have personally adopted the spirituality of the founders. Consequently, tethering a college to a congregation's particular spirituality may only weaken its chances of maintaining any religious character. If these institutions want a nonsecular future, they must construct serious and sustained formative experiences for their lay faculty, staff, and administrators.

This task may be complex given two trends our study observed around issues of governance. The first is paralysis: 59 percent of leaders surveyed report that their institution has no plans to address the problems stemming from the disappearance of religious on campus. The fact that 98 percent of leaders identify this disappearance as a problem but fewer than half offer policies or programs to address it is curious indeed. Certainly the waning of religious is not new and the contribution of religious is not an ill-prized legacy. What then is causing this policy paralysis? Some can be attributed to denial, but responses to the study suggest that complex interorganizational ties, commitment to an outdated model, and lack of confidence in the laity are keeping congregations and colleges from moving forward effectively.

Second, governance structures are changing in a way that may make the formation of lay leadership more difficult. Congregations are accepting changes that replace broad influence with narrow control exercised at an ever-greater distance. These new organizational structures are designed for congregational reaction rather than action in board and administrative initiatives (the most common being investing congregations with the power to approve or veto an initiative). Congregation members now have final authority over some specifically defined issues, but little power to initiate, influence, or otherwise actively infuse the campus community with their spirit. And the desire of many congregations for veto power itself reflects a lack of conviction about how well-prepared their lay colleagues are to steward the mission and religious character of the institutions.

For a better understanding of this renegotiation of governance structures, a little history is in order. In the late 1960s, most Catholic colleges became organizations independent from, yet structurally related to the religious congregations that founded them. Separate civil incorporation was sought for the colleges. Bylaws and statutes were written to create structures of shared governance, whereby the religious congregation maintained a percentage membership of the board and reserved some decisions to itself. Most important of all, congregations turned over civil control of colleges to predominantly lay boards of trustees.

The shared-governance model is shifting as congregation membership declines. All told, 25 percent of colleges we surveyed reported that they had changed their governance structures in the last five years; an additional 56 percent said they are currently in the process of changing them, or will be within the next year. In what way are they changing? Seven of the colleges we surveyed had shifted from a one-tier board (a majority lay board with roughly 25 percent congregational representation) to a two-tier model in which a lay-staffed board is overseen by a second, all-congregational one, usually composed of the congregation's provincial leadership. This type of change responds to the decline of congregational members, and ensures that congregational input depends less on the views of individual members and more on the congregation's overall provincial values. On the other hand, congregational leaders can be far removed from colleges and have little or no experience in higher education.

A more pervasive and controversial change reflects the congregation's desire to increase its so-called "reserved powers." Reserved powers guarantee authority and control to congregations by reserving certain decisions solely to members of the congregation. At present, 72 percent of Catholic colleges assign reserve powers. Most commonly, congregations reserve decisions on amending governing documents (69 percent), purchase and sale of property (67 percent), dissolution of the corporation (55 percent), mission and identity (53 percent). Provincials favor increasing reserved powers for two purposes: to establish more control over campus life as the direct influence of members decreases; and to make clear that reserved powers belong to the congregation and not to individual congregational members. Presidents, on the other hand, eschew congregational control in favor of congregational influence. As a result they recommend against the expansion of reserved powers.

There are numerous efforts currently underway to impart a college's religious heritage to lay trustees, faculty, and staff. These include orientation for new board members and employees; visits to the site of the congregation's founding and other places associated with its particular charism; endowed professorships in fields related to the congregational mission or identity; convocations, congregational award ceremonies, founders' days, etc. Consortia of colleges with similar charisms have been formed to undertake these initiatives together. Efforts and initiatives such as these are widespread. Whether activities that primarily inform and teach about legacy can on their own form a self-sustaining Catholic culture seems unlikely. Certainly the research indicates that the outcome remains elusive.

If Catholic colleges and universities want their religious culture to continue into the future, they must construct serious and sustained formative experiences for the lay people who will be in charge of them. More important, they must create conditions under which lay people are both willing and able to embrace this process. Any real solution to the problem must operate on the level of building and sustaining a vibrant culture without the direct involvement of religious congregations. As congregations continue to wane, they will be less able to exercise the control structures to which they are now turning. The current effort to renegotiate and revise governance structures is, at best, a stopgap measure, and at worst, a diversion from the real task at hand.

Melanie M. Morey is senior associate at Leadership and Legacy Associates, Belmont, Massachusetts. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., is executive vice president of Niagara University. They are the authors of Relationship Revisited, available from the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities, Washington, D.C.