June 11-19, 2023
The sixth summer workshop sponsored by the Center for Vocation and Servant Leadership and the Center for Catholic Studies of Seton Hall University took place in Paray-le-Monial the week of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The continued the curricular theme of the previous academic year, Educating for Cosmopolis: Solutions, through which professors seek processes that support healing and creating and the development of fruitful courses of action. Participants explored how these pathways are the result of the dynamic intersection of GEM and the presence of God’s Spirit dwelling in our interiority. The program was enriched with the participation of several colleagues from Boston College (Massachusetts) and St. Mary’s University (Texas).
At Seton Hall, since 2013, nearly 100 faculty and administrators have participated in the ongoing interdisciplinary learning community that is the Praxis Program. They have aimed to appropriate and integrate the meaning of the Catholic mission of the university into their disciplines and areas of responsibility, using the philosophical thought of Bernard Lonergan, SJ, especially the Generalized Empirical Method (GEM). Through learning about GEM, the program has explored how the disciplines connect to each other, to an integrated understanding of knowledge, and to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. Additionally, a practical project or application is required, Applying the Method (ATM).
Over the past ten years, assessment has found that the Praxis Program meets the need to provide a method (GEM) to analyze the mission, and to encourage a process (self-appropriation) and a means (ATM) by which faculty and administrators have the opportunity to develop themselves and their teaching, while living the university’s Catholic mission more fully through research and teaching in each of the participants’ respective academic disciplines.
“We appreciate all the detailed effort and planning you put into this joint endeavor and are so grateful for the wonderful experience that it was for all the participants! Thank you for your excellent presentations … they were so informative and beautifully tied to the composition of place! Thank you for sharing the richness of the tapestry of life in Paray-le-Monial! We are ever grateful!” – Linda Garofalo, Center for Vocation and Servant Leadership Seton Hall University (New Jersey).
“The summer workshop I attended included faculty from three different U.S. Catholic Institutions. Paray-le-monial is a beautiful town in Burgundy and a center of active Catholicism in France. Our conference lodging, amazing food, pedestrian-friendly town and excursions were perfect for any small-ish size higher education group whose work relates to Catholic education and/or the Catholic intellectual tradition.” - Karen Arnold, Professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College (Massachusetts).
“I was unaware of the excellence and touch of class that Robert White’s Academie Cor Iesu brings to the workshops before travel. Let it be said, the accommodation, the food, the activities, the location, the hospitality, etc. were all first class. The opportunity to be welcomed by the mayor of Paray-le-Monial and then by the bishop was, in many ways, an affirmation of both the Lonergan-based work of integration and restoration of the Catholic university and of our partnership with Academie Cor Iesu. Indeed, Academie Cor Iesu provided a genuinely inspiring setting which made it easier for each of us to rise to the challenge of giving our best to the work of the workshop. Needless to say, St. Mary’s will be looking forward to our collaboration again in the future.” – James Greenaway, San José-Lonergan Chair in Catholic Philosophy, St. Mary's University (Texas)
