The Pope Blog

Pope Francis: Regina coeli (full text)

2013-04-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

2013-04-01 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis prayed the Regina coeli with pilgrims gathered in St Peter's Square on Monday. The focus of his remarks before the traditional Eastertide prayer of Marian devotion was twofold: the reality of the resurrection and of Christ's grace; the need for us to cooperate with that grace so that it can become effective in our lives and in the world. Below, please find Vatican Radio's English language translation.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Happy Easter to you all! Thank you for coming today, in such large numbers, to share the joy of Easter, the central mystery of our faith. Let us pray that the power of the resurrection of Christ might reach everyone - especially those who suffer - and every place that is in need of trust and hope.

Christ has conquered evil fully and finally, but it is up to us, to people in every age, to embrace this victory in our lives and in the realities of history and society. For this reason it seems important to point out that today we ask God in the liturgy: “O God, who give constant increase to your Church by new offspring, grant that your servants may hold fast in their lives to the Sacrament they have received in faith.” (Collect for Monday in the Octave of Easter).

Indeed, the Baptism that makes us children of God, and the Eucharist that unites us to Christ, must become life. That is to say: they must be reflected in attitudes, behaviors, actions and choices. The grace contained in the Easter Sacraments is an enormous source of strength for renewal in personal and family life, as well as for social relations. Nevertheless, everything passes through the human heart: if I allow myself to be reached by the grace of the risen Christ, if I let that grace change for the better whatever is not good in me, [to change whatever] might do harm to me and to others, then I allow the victory of Christ to affirm itself in in my life, to broaden its beneficial action. This is the power of grace! Without grace we can do nothing – without grace we can do nothing! And with the grace of Baptism and Holy Communion, we can become an instrument of God's mercy – that beautiful mercy of God.

To Express in our lives the sacrament we have received: behold, dear brothers and sisters, our daily work – and, I would say, our daily joy! The joy of being instruments of the grace of Christ, as branches of the vine which is Christ himself, inspired by the sustaining presence of His Spirit! We pray together, in the name of the dead and risen Lord, and through the intercession of Mary Most Holy, that the Paschal mystery might work deeply in us and in our time, in order that hatred give way to love, lies to the truth, revenge to forgiveness, sadness to joy.

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A simple and moving telephone call

2013-04-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

2013-04-02 L’Osservatore Romano

A simple, moving gesture: last Monday, at 6:30 p.m., the telephone rang at Ca’ Maitino di Sotto il Monte, John XXIII's summer residence, where today Archbishop Loris Francesco Capovilla lives and where the Suore Poverelle cherish memories of Pope John. As usual Capovilla answered himself. It was Pope Francis who was calling him because, among the many messages of good wishes, he had received directly an Easter message written in the light of the Second Vatican Council, edited by Pope Roncalli's former Secretary, subtitled: “With Pope Francis we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pacem in Terris on 11 April 2013 and on 3 June 2013 of the passing of John XXIII: a detailed agenda. With the Bishop of Rome who greets the Secretary who was the companion at arms of the Pope of the Council and says to him “I see him with the eyes of my heart”, Capovilla told us. “It was a very great surprise and I like to consider this telephone call made to this place where John XXIII was born rather than to me myself: as a tribute to him and to his roots”. Capovilla, who will be ninety in October, mentioned that the Pope had stressed certain parts of the message he had sent him: a few pages together with a few pictures (of Manzù's medal for the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Francis on the Loggia the evening of his election; Francis and Benedict XVI from behind, kneeling in prayer together at Castel Gandolfo; a portrait of John XXIII by Hans-Jürgen Kallmann), and some very short texts “as precious as a homily”, as Francis described them. In their brief conversation the Pope asked Capovilla “to pray John XXIII to help the Pope and everyone to be better people”, Archbishop Capovilla continued: “I also reminded him of my age and he remarked that the spirit counts more. I told him that I have both Christian and non-Christian friends and that to this day the Lord has accompanied me”. And he added that he had “humbly asked His Holiness for a blessing for the inhabitants of Sotto il Monte, for his parish community, for the relatives of the Pope of the Council”, and for “all those who work with me together with the Bishop of Bergamo”.

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Pope: Christ is Risen, Peace to this our Earth!

2013-04-03T07:26:00.000-07:00

2013-04-01 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) “Christ is our peace, and through him we implore peace for all the world”: Peace for the people of Syria, torn apart by bloodshed, for the Middle East and Iraq; Peace in Africa, for Mali, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic; Peace in Asia, above all on the Korean Peninsula .Emer McCarthy reports Listen:

In the first Urbi et Orbi message of his pontificate this Easter Sunday, Pope Francis invited people of all ages, from all walks of life to “ask the risen Jesus, who turns death into life, to change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace”.

Sunday morning St Peter’s Square was transformed into an open air garden by a multitude of flowers and a mercifully warm sun after a night of storms. Despite the threat of more rain, the people came in their tens of thousands filling the square and the long boulevard that leads to Bernini’s columns to take part in Pope Francis’ first celebration of Easter Mass.

The mood was of solemn participation until the end of the celebration when the Holy Father made a brief tour of the square, and the multitude exploded in a unanimous cheer. Suddenly the flags of the world were unfurled and banners from parishes and catholic associations greeting the Pope were held on high.

The tour was brief, as the Holy Father entered the basilica to make his way to the central loggia of the hall of blessings from where he delivered his first ever message as Pope to the city of Rome and to the world.

And Pope Francis implored God for Peace.
“Peace for the Middle East, and particularly between Israelis and Palestinians, who struggle to find the road of agreement, that they may willingly and courageously resume negotiations to end a conflict that has lasted all too long. Peace in Iraq, that every act of violence may end, and above all for dear Syria, for its people torn by conflict and for the many refugees who await help and comfort. How much blood has been shed! And how much suffering must there still be before a political solution to the crisis will be found?

Peace for Africa, still the scene of violent conflicts. In Mali, may unity and stability be restored; in Nigeria, where attacks sadly continue, gravely threatening the lives of many innocent people, and where great numbers of persons, including children, are held hostage by terrorist groups. Peace in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in the Central African Republic, where many have been forced to leave their homes and continue to live in fear.

Peace in Asia, above all on the Korean peninsula: may disagreements be overcome and a renewed spirit of reconciliation grow.

Peace in the whole world, still divided by greed looking for easy gain, wounded by the selfishness which threatens human life and the family, selfishness that continues in human trafficking, the most extensive form of slavery in this twenty-first century. Peace to the whole world, torn apart by violence linked to drug trafficking and by the iniquitous exploitation of natural resources! Peace to this our Earth! Made the risen Jesus bring comfort to the victims of natural disasters and make us responsible guardians of creation”.

The transforming power of the Easter message was also the focus of Pope Francis homily for the Great Easter Vigil, Saturday night. He had appealed to people not to be closed to the newness that God wants to bring into our lives, through Christ’s resurrection.

As the Exultet or Easter Proclamation, broke through the silence of Holy Saturday and the Paschal candle which he blessed and carried illuminated the dark of St Peter’s basilica, the Holy Father invited men and women, believers and those who have fallen away from the to welcome " God’s surprises" in our lives and not be afraid".

Reflecting on the fear of the women who found the empty tomb and the amazement of Peter on hearing the news as recounted in the Gospel, he noted “Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness... and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive!”. He said “Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive if only we open ourselves to him".

On Easter Sunday he concluded: “Dear brothers and sisters, who have come from all over the world to this Square, the heart of Christianity, and all of you joining us via communications media, I renew my wishes for a Happy Easter! Bring to your families and your nations the message of joy of hope and peace that each year is powerfully renewed on this day. May the Risen Lord, who defeated sin and death, support us all especially the weakest and those most in need. Thank you for your presence and the witness of your faith. A thought and a particular thanks for the gift of these beautiful flowers from the Netherlands. I affectionately repeat to all of you: May the Risen Christ guide you and all humanity on the paths of justice, love and peace!”
And then to the delight of those gathered he imparted his Apostolic Blessing and wished a Happy Easter to all!

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Remembering Blessed John Paul II

2013-04-03T00:32:00.000-07:00

2013-04-02 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) To mark eight years since the death of Blessed John Paul II on April 2nd 2005, we bring you Vatican Radio archive recordings of his words in English focusing on prayer and priestly life, as well as the testimony of some of those who witnessed this first-hand.
Among them, the late Carmelite Father, Redemptus Valabek, former postulator of the causes of the saints of his Order, who explains why many used to describe John Paul II as being a Carmelite at heart. Also, Nigerian Cardinal, Francis Arinze, head of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious dialogue at the time of the remarkable prayer gathering in Assisi. He points to how this Polish Pontiff's call for all to pray was addressed not just to Christians but to non-Christians as well.
In this programme in which you can hear Blessed John Paul II reciting the 'Our Father', we also highlight how this Pope's 's prayer life was inseparable from his priestly vocation. How he often told his friends: "I am first and foremost a priest", reminding them how privileged he was to have this vocation because it allowed him to preside at the Church's most important prayer of all: the Celebration of the Eucharist .
Listen to this programme presented and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick:

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Vatican: Authentic solidarity for Autistic people and their families

2013-04-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

2013-04-02 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The following is a message from the President of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, marking the Sixth World Autism Awareness Day on April 2nd 2013.

"Dearest brothers and sisters,

On the occasion of the Sixth World Autism Awareness Day, which this year takes place during the liturgical period of the Easter festivities, the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers intends to express the solicitude of the Church for autistic people and their families, inviting Christian communities and people of good will to express authentic solidarity towards them.

I would like to take as a point of departure for my reflections the approach of Jesus who drew near to, and walked with, the disciples on the way to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35). The look marked by loss, and even more by amazement, that shaped the steps of Cleopas and Simon could be a similar expression to – and equally similarly be found within – that which marks the faces and the hearts of parents who have a son or a daughter with autism.

Autism: this is a word that still generates fear today even though in very many cultures which traditionally excluded handicaps the ‘diversely able’ have begun to be accepted socially, and many of the prejudices that have surrounded people with disabilities and even their parents have begun to be dismantled. To define someone as autistic seems automatically to involve a negative judgement about those who are afflicted by it, and, implicitly, a sentence involving a definitive distancing from society. On the other hand, the person concerned seems to be unable to communicate in a productive way with other people, at times as though shut up in a ‘glass bell’, in his or her impenetrable, but for us wonderful, interior universe.

This is a ‘typical and stereotyped’ image of the autistic child which requires profound revision. Ever since her birth, as a guiding theme, the Church has always expressed her care for this aspect of medicine through practical testimonies at a universal level. Above all else, this is witness to Love beyond stigma, that social stigma that isolates a sick person and makes him or her feel an extraneous body. I am referring to that sense of loneliness that is often narrated within modern society but which becomes even more present in modern health care which is perfect in its ‘technical aspects’ but increasingly deprived of, and not attentive to, that affective dimension which should, instead, be the defining aspect of every therapeutic act or pathway.

Faced with the problems and the difficulties that these children and their parents encounter, the Church with humility proposes the way of service to the suffering brother, accompanying him with compassion and tenderness on his tortuous human and psycho-relational journey, and taking advantage of the help of parishes, of associations, of Church movements and of men and women of good will.

Dear brothers and sisters, setting oneself to listen must necessarily be accompanied by an authentic fraternal solidarity. There should never fail to be global care for the ‘frail’ person, as a person with autism can be: this takes concrete form with that sense of nearness that every worker, each according to his or her role, must know how to transmit to the sick person and his or her family, not making that person feel a number but making real the situation of a shared journey that is made up of deeds, of attitudes and of words – perhaps not dramatic ones but ones that suggest a daily life that is nearer to normality. This means listening to the imperious exhortation that we should not lose sight of the person in his or her totality: no procedure, however perfect it may be, can be ‘effective’ if it is deprived of the ‘salt’ of Love, of that Love that each one of these sick people, if looked at in their eyes, asks of you. Their smile, the serenity of a family that sees its loved one at the centre of the complex organisation that each one of us, by our specific tasks, is called to manage for his or her life, and perceived and achieved sharing: this is the best ‘outcome’ that will enrich us.

In practice, this is a matter of welcoming autistic children in the various sectors of social, educational, catechistic and liturgical activity in a way that corresponds and is proportionate to their capacity for relationships. Such solidarity, for those who have received the gift of Faith, becomes a loving presence and compassionate nearness for those who suffer, following the example and in imitation of Jesus Christ, the Good Samaritan who by his passion, death and resurrection redeemed humanity.

The Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, during the Year of Faith, wishes to share with people who suffer because of autism the hope and certainty that adherence to Love enables us to recognise the Risen Christ every time that he makes himself our neighbour on the journey of life. Let what John Paul II, in whose intercession we trust and the eighth anniversary of whose return to the house of the Father we remember specifically today, be a reference point for us: ‘The quality of life in a community is measured largely by its commitment to assist the weaker and needier members with respect for their dignity as men and women. The world of rights cannot only be the prerogative of the healthy. People with disabilities must also be enabled to participate in social life as far as they can, and helped to fulfil all their physical, psychological and spiritual potential. Only by recognizing the rights of its weakest members can a society claim to be founded on law and justice’ (John Paul II, Message on the Occasion of the International Symposium on the Dignity and Rights of the Mentally Disabled Person, 7-9 January 2004, n. 3).

May what the Holy Father Francis observed during the first days of his papacy – expressing his nearness to the sick and the suffering – be constant light: ‘we must keep the thirst for the absolute alive in the world, not allowing a one-dimensional vision of the human person to prevail, according to which man is reduced to what he produces and to what he consumes: this is one of the most dangerous snares of our time’!

While I hope for the cooperation of everyone in a choral and compassionate answer to the numerous needs that come to us from our brothers and sisters with autism and their families, I entrust the sufferings, the joys and the hopes of these people to the mediation of Mary, Mother of Christ and ‘Health of the Sick’ who, at the foot of the Cross, taught us to pause beside all the crosses of contemporary Man (cf. Salvifici Doloris, n. 31).

To people with autism, to their families and to all those who are involved in their service, while confirming my nearness and prayer, I send my personal and affectionate best wishes for a serene and joyous Easter with the Risen Lord."

The Vatican, 2 April 2013
Zygmunt Zimowski

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To the roots of the Roman Pontificate

2013-04-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

2013-04-02 L’Osservatore Romano

Pope Francis had a great desire: to visit the Vatican Necropolis. He mentioned it a little before Easter. He especially wished to see the tomb of the Apostle Peter, the place in which the Christians of Rome laid the crucified body of the first Pope to rest after his martyrdom in the Circus of Nero in the year 67 after Christ.

The Pope thus wished to go to the origin of the Roman Pontificate, a succession into which Providence today has ordained to add his person.

Monday afternoon, 1 April, we had the joy and the honour of accompanying Pope Francis along this unique path. From the level of the Vatican Grottos we descended to the necropolis: a jump back 1,800 years. Up until 1939-40, this site was buried because the architects working for Constantine, in 320, in order to fashion a level floor of the first basilica, filled in the sloping land of the Vatican Hill. Today, after excavations, everything has prodigiously re-emerged.

His first stop was before the Egyptian Mausoleum (which dates back to the 2nd century). In this mausoleum amid many pagan tombs there is also a Christian tomb. Christianity in fact, like yeast, was penetrating the pagan world. The Pope exclaimed in admiration: “It's like this today, too!”.

We then made a second stop before the funerary stele of a man called Istatilio. He was certainly Christian: on his grave is the monogram xp of Christ. On the stele is inscribed: “He was at peace with everyone and never caused strife”. The Pope, after reading the phrase, looked at us and said: “that is a beautiful programme of life”. When we had reached at the place of the tomb of the Apostle Peter I saw the Holy Father transfixed, visibly moved, before the white wall covered with graffiti, testimonies to us even today of devotion to the Apostle Peter.

Climbing back up the stairs and having reached the Clementine Chapel, Pope Francis became absorbed in prayer and repeated with a loud voice the three professions of Peter: “Lord, You are the Christ, Son of the Living God”; “Lord, to whom do we go? You have the words of eternal life”; “Lord, You know all things! You know that I love you!”. At that moment, we had the distinct impression that the life of Peter rose out of centuries past and became present and living in the current Successor of the Apostle Peter.

With me were: Bishop Vittorio Lanzani, delegate of the Fabric of St Peter's, Mons. Alfred Xuereb and those responsible for the necropolis, Pietro Zander and Mario Bosco. When we took our leave of the Holy Father we thought that he returned to his residence comforted by the echo of Jesus' words: “You are Peter, the rock on whom I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.

Angelo Comastri, Cardinal-Archpriest of St Peter's Basilica

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Pope: Urbi et Orbi Message, Easter, 2013 [Full text]

2013-04-01T03:50:00.000-07:00

2013-03-31 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) Below we publish the full text of the Holy Father’s Urbi et Orbi Message, Easter 2013.

Dear brothers and sisters in Rome and throughout the world, Happy Easter!

What a joy it is for me to announce this message: Christ is risen! I would like it to go out to every house and every family, especially where the suffering is greatest, in hospitals, in prisons …

Most of all, I would like it to enter every heart, for it is there that God wants to sow this Good News: Jesus is risen, there is hope for you, you are no longer in the power of sin, of evil! Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious!

We too, like the women who were Jesus’ disciples, who went to the tomb and found it empty, may wonder what this event means (cf. Lk 24:4). What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom.

This same love for which the Son of God became man and followed the way of humility and self-giving to the very end, down to hell - to the abyss of separation from God - this same merciful love has flooded with light the dead body of Jesus and transfigured it, has made it pass into eternal life. Jesus did not return to his former life, to earthly life, but entered into the glorious life of God and he entered there with our humanity, opening us to a future of hope.

This is what Easter is: it is the exodus, the passage of human beings from slavery to sin and evil to the freedom of love and goodness. Because God is life, life alone, and his glory is the living man (cf. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 4,20,5-7).

Dear brothers and sisters, Christ died and rose once for all, and for everyone, but the power of the Resurrection, this passover from slavery to evil to the freedom of goodness, must be accomplished in every age, in our concrete existence, in our everyday lives. How many deserts, even today, do human beings need to cross! Above all, the desert within, when we have no love for God or neighbour, when we fail to realize that we are guardians of all that the Creator has given us and continues to give us. God’s mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, can restore life to dry bones (cf. Ez 37:1-14).

So this is the invitation which I address to everyone: Let us accept the grace of Christ’s Resurrection! Let us be renewed by God’s mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation and make justice and peace flourish.

And so we ask the risen Jesus, who turns death into life, to change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace. Yes, Christ is our peace, and through him we implore peace for all the world.

Peace for the Middle East, and particularly between Israelis and Palestinians, who struggle to find the road of agreement, that they may willingly and courageously resume negotiations to end a conflict that has lasted all too long. Peace in Iraq, that every act of violence may end, and above all for dear Syria, for its people torn by conflict and for the many refugees who await help and comfort. How much blood has been shed! And how much suffering must there still be before a political solution to the crisis will be found?

Peace in Asia, above all on the Korean peninsula: may disagreements be overcome and a renewed spirit of reconciliation grow.

Dear brothers and sisters, to all of you who are listening to me, from Rome and from all over of the world, I address the invitation of the Psalm: “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever. Let Israel say: ‘His steadfast love endures for ever’” (Ps 117:1-2).

Dear brothers and sisters, who have come from all over the world to this Square, the heart of Christianity, and all of you joining us via communications media, I renew my wishes for a Happy Easter! Bring to your families and your nations the message of joy of hope and peace that each year is powerfully renewed on this day. May the Risen Lord, who defeated sin and death, support us all especially the weakest and those most in need. Thank you for your presence and the witness of your faith. A thought and a particular thanks for the gift of these beautiful flowers from the Netherlands. I affectionately repeat to all of you: May the Risen Christ guide you and all humanity on the paths of justice, love and peace!

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Pope: Easter Vigil Homily [Full text]

2013-03-31T21:27:00.000-07:00

2013-03-31 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) Below we publish the definitive text of Pope’ Francis’ Easter Vigil Homily, March 30th, 2013:

Dear Brothers and Sisters, In the Gospel of this radiant night of the Easter Vigil, we first meet the women who go the tomb of Jesus with spices to anoint his body (cf. Lk 24:1-3). They go to perform an act of compassion, a traditional act of affection and love for a dear departed person, just as we would. They had followed Jesus, they had listened to his words, they had felt understood by him in their dignity and they had accompanied him to the very end, to Calvary and to the moment when he was taken down from the cross. We can imagine their feelings as they make their way to the tomb: a certain sadness, sorrow that Jesus had left them, he had died, his life had come to an end. Life would now go on as before. Yet the women continued to feel love, the love for Jesus which now led them to his tomb. But at this point, something completely new and unexpected happens, something which upsets their hearts and their plans, something which will upset their whole life: they see the stone removed from before the tomb, they draw near and they do not find the Lord’s body. It is an event which leaves them perplexed, hesitant, full of questions: “What happened?”, “What is the meaning of all this?” (cf. Lk 24:4). Doesn’t the same thing also happen to us when something completely new occurs in our everyday life? We stop short, we don’t understand, we don’t know what to do. Newness often makes us fearful, including the newness which God brings us, the newness which God asks of us. We are like the Apostles in the Gospel: often we would prefer to hold on to our own security, to stand in front of a tomb, to think about someone who has died, someone who ultimately lives on only as a memory, like the great historical figures from the past. We are afraid of God’s surprises; we are afraid of God’s surprises! He always surprises us!

Dear brothers and sisters, let us not be closed to the newness that God wants to bring into our lives! Are we often weary, disheartened and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive if only we open ourselves to him.

2. But let us return to the Gospel, to the women, and take one step further. They find the tomb empty, the body of Jesus is not there, something new has happened, but all this still doesn’t tell them anything certain: it raises questions; it leaves them confused, without offering an answer. And suddenly there are two men in dazzling clothes who say: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; but has risen” (Lk 24:5-6). What was a simple act, done surely out of love – going to the tomb – has now turned into an event, a truly life-changing event. Nothing remains as it was before, not only in the lives of those women, but also in our own lives and in the history of mankind. Jesus is not dead, he has risen, he is alive! He does not simply return to life; rather, he is life itself, because he is the Son of God, the living God (cf. Num 14:21-28; Deut 5:26; Josh 3:10). Jesus no longer belongs to the past, but lives in the present and is projected towards the future; he is the everlasting “today” of God. This is how the newness of God appears to the women, the disciples and all of us: as victory over sin, evil and death, over everything that crushes life and makes it seem less human. And this is a message meant for me and for you, dear sister, dear brother. How often does Love have to tell us: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness... and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive! Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life! If up till now you have kept him at a distance, step forward. He will receive you with open arms. If you have been indifferent, take a risk: you won’t be disappointed. If following him seems difficult, don’t be afraid, trust him, be confident that he is close to you, he is with you and he will give you the peace you are looking for and the strength to live as he would have you do.

3. There is one last little element that I would like to emphasize in the Gospel for this Easter Vigil. The women encounter the newness of God. Jesus has risen, he is alive! But faced with empty tomb and the two men in brilliant clothes, their first reaction is one of fear: “they were terrified and bowed their faced to the ground”, Saint Luke tells us – they didn’t even have courage to look. But when they hear the message of the Resurrection, they accept it in faith. And the two men in dazzling clothes tell them something of crucial importance: “Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee… And they remembered his words” (Lk 24:6,8). They are asked to remember their encounter with Jesus, to remember his words, his actions, his life; and it is precisely this loving remembrance of their experience with the Master that enables the women to master their fear and to bring the message of the Resurrection to the Apostles and all the others (cf. Lk 24:9). To remember what God has done and continues to do for me, for us, to remember the road we have travelled; this is what opens our hearts to hope for the future. May we learn to remember everything that God has done in our lives.

On this radiant night, let us invoke the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who treasured all these events in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19,51) and ask the Lord to give us a share in his Resurrection. May he open us to the newness that transforms. May he make us men and women capable of remembering all that he has done in our own lives and in the history of our world. May he help us to feel his presence as the one who is alive and at work in our midst. And may he teach us each day not to look among the dead for the Living One. Amen.

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Pope: Mass of Our Lord's Supper [Full text]

2013-03-31T16:33:00.000-07:00

2013-03-28 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) The Washing of the Feet, or Mandatum, is an integral part of the Holy Thursday liturgy, the Missa in Coena Domini, or Mass of Our Lord’s Supper, which opens the East erTriduum

The Washing of the Feet is a sign of service. Or as Pope Francis told about 40 young detainees gathered around him for Mass in an inner city detention center, it is “Christ’s caress, because Jesus came just for this, to serve us, to help us”. Emer McCarthy reports:

On Thursday evening as the sun set over a rain washed Rome, Pope Francis crossed the Tiber River bound for the city’s juvenile prison, Casal del Marmo, which roughly translated into English reads, ‘Marble Home’.

There in a tiny simple chapel among the young offenders, he celebrated Mass of Our Lords Supper and the beginning of the Easter Triduum. Two young men read the first reading and the responsorial psalm, a female volunteer read the second reading while the prison chaplain recited the Gospel, John Chapter 13.

Without any pause for introduction, Pope Francis immediately picked up from the very last words of the passage that recounts the Mandatum or Washing of the Feet.

Below we publish a Vatican Radio transcript and translation of the Holy Father’s unscripted homily, at Mass for Our Lord’s Supper, Casal del Marmo, Holy Thursday 28th March 2013.

“This is moving, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. Peter understands nothing. He refuses but Jesus explains to him. Jesus, God did this, and He Himself explains it to the disciples.. ‘Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do’.

It is the example set by Our Lord, it’s important for Him to wash their feet, because among us the one who is highest up must be at the service of others. This is a symbol, it is a sign – washing your feet means I am at your service. And we are too, among each other, but we don’t have to wash each other’s feet each day. So what does this mean? That we have to help each other…sometimes I would get angry with one someone, but we must let it go and if they ask a favor of do it!

Help one another. This is what Jesus teaches us. This is what I do. And I do it with my heart. I do this with my heart because it is my duty, as a priest and bishop I must be at your service. But it is a duty that comes from my heart and a duty I love. I love doing it because this is what the Lord has taught me. But you too must help us and help each other, always. And thus in helping each other we will do good for each other.

Now we will perform the ceremony of the Washing of the Feet and we must each one of us think, Am I really willing to help others? Just think of that. Think that this sign is Christ’s caress, because Jesus came just for this, to serve us, to help us”.

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Young Lebanese Catholics write Via Crucis meditations

2013-03-31T11:09:00.000-07:00

2013-03-29 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) The meditations for the Via Crucis on Good Friday at Rome’s Colosseum have been written by a group of young Catholics from Lebanon. The meditations were written under the guidance of the Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Rai, who was invited to write them following Pope Benedict’s pastoral visit to Lebanon last year.

Vatican Radio's Susy Hodges spoke to two Lebanese Catholics who were involved in this project.
Listen to the extended interview with Lebanese Catholics Tony El Chayeb and Firas Wehbe:

Many of the themes touched on during the meditations take their inspiration from the plight of the minority Christian communities living in the Middle East. Tony El Chayeb wrote the meditation for the 10th Station of the Cross and says he was "very excited and grateful" for this opportunity. He went on to explain how his meditation for the 10th Station talks about how "Jesus Christ is "giving us new hope" and is "helping us to understand better our mission in the Middle East."

He believes that young Lebanese Catholics like himself are "more and more attached" to their homeland and to their faith." This Way of the Cross, Tony continues, "is for every Christian" because without the Cross "there is no Resurrection." He says there are many difficulties facing Christians today in Lebanon including "the temptation" to emigrate to other countries but despite these challenges there are many young Catholics living "with joy" their faith in Christ.

Another young Lebanese man who was involved in the project was Firas Wehbe who spoke of his happiness about "the honour" it represented. Like Tony, he believes "it is a sign from God" to continue their "mission" living in the Middle East as Christians. Firas says the meditations talk about "our fear, our pain" amid the many difficulties facing Christians in Lebanon and other countries of the Middle East.

Asked whether he fears for the future given the civil war in neighbouring Syria and the turmoil in so many countries of the Middle East, Firas says they are "optimistic despite the war" and believes Lebanon should be "an example" for all countries (of co-existence between people of different faiths). Our main "challenge," he continues, is to continue existing as a living community at a time when so many Christians are emigrating from this area.

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Pope: Homily for Chrism Mass [full text]

2013-03-31T05:22:00.000-07:00

2013-03-28 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) Below please find the official text of Pope Francis’ Homily for Chrism Mass, Holy Thursday 2013:

Dear Brothers and Sisters, This morning I have the joy of celebrating my first Chrism Mass as the Bishop of Rome. I greet all of you with affection, especially you, dear priests, who, like myself, today recall the day of your ordination.

The readings of our Mass speak of God’s “anointed ones”: the suffering Servant of Isaiah, King David and Jesus our Lord. All three have this in common: the anointing that they receive is meant in turn to anoint God’s faithful people, whose servants they are; they are anointed for the poor, for prisoners, for the oppressed… A fine image of this “being for” others can be found in the Psalm: “It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down upon the collar of his robe” (Ps 133:2). The image of spreading oil, flowing down from the beard of Aaron upon the collar of his sacred robe, is an image of the priestly anointing which, through Christ, the Anointed One, reaches the ends of the earth, represented by the robe.

The sacred robes of the High Priest are rich in symbolism. One such symbol is that the names of the children of Israel were engraved on the onyx stones mounted on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod, the ancestor of our present-day chasuble: six on the stone of the right shoulder-piece and six on that of the left (cf. Ex 28:6-14). The names of the twelve tribes of Israel were also engraved on the breastplate (cf. Es 28:21). This means that the priest celebrates by carrying on his shoulders the people entrusted to his care and bearing their names written in his heart. When we put on our simple chasuble, it might well make us feel, upon our shoulders and in our hearts, the burdens and the faces of our faithful people, our saints and martyrs of whom there are many in these times…

From the beauty of all these liturgical things, which is not so much about trappings and fine fabrics than about the glory of our God resplendent in his people, alive and strengthened, we turn to a consideration of activity, action. The precious oil which anoints the head of Aaron does more than simply lend fragrance to his person; it overflows down to “the edges”. The Lord will say this clearly: his anointing is meant for the poor, prisoners and the sick, for those who are sorrowing and alone. The ointment is not intended just to make us fragrant, much less to be kept in a jar, for then it would become rancid … and the heart bitter.

A good priest can be recognized by the way his people are anointed. This is a clear test. When our people are anointed with the oil of gladness, it is obvious: for example, when they leave Mass looking as if they have heard good news. Our people like to hear the Gospel preached with “unction”, they like it when the Gospel we preach touches their daily lives, when it runs down like the oil of Aaron to the edges of reality, when it brings light to moments of extreme darkness, to the “outskirts” where people of faith are most exposed to the onslaught of those who want to tear down their faith. People thank us because they feel that we have prayed over the realities of their everyday lives, their troubles, their joys, their burdens and their hopes. And when they feel that the fragrance of the Anointed One, of Christ, has come to them through us, they feel encouraged to entrust to us everything they want to bring before the Lord: “Pray for me, Father, because I have this problem”, “Bless me”, “Pray for me” – these words are the sign that the anointing has flowed down to the edges of the robe, for it has turned into prayer. The prayers of the people of God. When we have this relationship with God and with his people, and grace passes through us, then we are priests, mediators between God and men. What I want to emphasize is that we need constantly to stir up God’s grace and perceive in every request, even those requests that are inconvenient and at times purely material or downright banal – but only apparently so – the desire of our people to be anointed with fragrant oil, since they know that we have it. To perceive and to sense, even as the Lord sensed the hope-filled anguish of the woman suffering from hemorrhages when she touched the hem of his garment. At that moment, Jesus, surrounded by people on every side, embodies all the beauty of Aaron vested in priestly raiment, with the oil running down upon his robes. It is a hidden beauty, one which shines forth only for those faith-filled eyes of the woman troubled with an issue of blood. But not even the disciples – future priests – see or understand: on the “existential outskirts”, they see only what is on the surface: the crowd pressing in on Jesus from all sides (cf. Lk 8:42). The Lord, on the other hand, feels the power of the divine anointing which runs down to the edge of his cloak.

We need to “go out”, then, in order to experience our own anointing, its power and its redemptive efficacy: to the “outskirts” where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters. It is not in soul-searching or constant introspection that we encounter the Lord: self-help courses can be useful in life, but to live by going from one course to another, from one method to another, leads us to become pelagians and to minimize the power of grace, which comes alive and flourishes to the extent that we, in faith, go out and give ourselves and the Gospel to others, giving what little ointment we have to those who have nothing, nothing at all.

A priest who seldom goes out of himself, who anoints little – I won’t say “not at all” because, thank God, our people take our oil from us anyway – misses out on the best of our people, on what can stir the depths of his priestly heart. Those who do not go out of themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries, managers. We know the difference: the intermediary, the manager, “has already received his reward”, and since he doesn’t put his own skin and his own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks. This is precisely the reason why some priests grow dissatisfied, become sad priests, lose heart and become in some sense collectors of antiques or novelties – instead of being shepherds living with “the smell of the sheep”, shepherds in the midst of their flock, fishers of men. True enough, the so-called crisis of priestly identity threatens us all and adds to the broader cultural crisis; but if we can resist its onslaught, we will be able to put out in the name of the Lord and cast our nets. It is not a bad thing that reality itself forces us to “put out into the deep”, where what we are by grace is clearly seen as pure grace, out into the deep of the contemporary world, where the only thing that counts is “unction” – not function – and the nets which overflow with fish are those cast solely in the name of the One in whom we have put our trust: Jesus.

Dear lay faithful, be close to your priests with affection and with your prayers, that they may always be shepherds according to God’s heart.

Dear priests, may God the Father renew in us the Spirit of holiness with whom we have been anointed. May he renew his Spirit in our hearts, that this anointing may spread to everyone, even to those “outskirts” where our faithful people most look for it and most appreciate it. May our people sense that we are the Lord’s disciples; may they feel that their names are written upon our priestly vestments and that we seek no other identity; and may they receive through our words and deeds the oil of gladness which Jesus, the Anointed One, came to bring us. Amen.

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Pope:"I join all of you gathered before the Holy Shroud"

2013-03-31T01:13:00.000-07:00

Vatican City, 30 March 2013 (VIS) – From 5:15pm until 6:40 this afternoon, there will be an extraordinary exposition of the Holy Shroud in the Cathedral of Turin, Italy. The initiative is part of the Year of Faith that was proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI and will be broadcast by the Italian television channel, RAI1.For the occasion, Pope Francis recorded a video message, the text of which we offer below.I join all of you gathered before the Holy Shroud, and I thank the Lord who, through modern technology, offers us this possibility.”“Even if it takes place in this way, our gaze is not a mere 'observing', but rather a veneration. It is a prayerful gaze. I would go further: It is a letting ourselves be looked upon. This Face has eyes that are closed. It is the face of one who is dead and yet, mysteriously, He is watching us and in silence He speaks to us. How is this possible? How is it that the faithful, like you, pause before this Icon of a man who has been scourged and crucified? It is because the Man of the Shroud invites us to contemplate Jesus of Nazareth. This image, impressed upon the cloth, speaks to our hearts and moves us to climb the hill of Calvary, to look upon the wood of the Cross, and to immerse ourselves in the eloquent silence of love.”“Let us therefore allow ourselves to be reached by this gaze, which is directed not to our eyes but to our hearts. In silence, let us listen to what He has to say to us from beyond death itself. By means of the Holy Shroud, the unique and supreme Word of God comes to us: Love made man, incarnate in our history; the merciful Love of God who has taken upon himself all the evil of the world in order to free us from its power. This disfigured Face resembles all those faces of men and women marred by a life that does not respect their dignity, by war and the violence that afflict the weakest… And yet, the Face of the Shroud conveys a great peace. This tortured body expresses a sovereign majesty. It is as if it let a restrained but powerful energy within it shine through, as if to tell us: have faith; do not lose hope; the power of God's love, the power of the Risen One, conquers all.”“So, looking upon the Man of the Shroud, I make Saint Francis of Assisi's prayer before the Crucifix my own: 'Most High and glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart, and grant me true faith, certain hope, and perfect charity, sense and understanding, Lord, so that I may carry out your holy and true command. Amen.'”

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Pope Francis at the Via Crucis: Full Text

2013-03-30T18:55:00.000-07:00

2013-03-30 Vatican Radio
On Friday night, Pope Francis led a celebration of the Via Crucis at Rome’s Colosseum. The meditations were been written by a group of young Catholics from Lebanon. At the end of the celebration, Pope Francis briefly addressed the thousands of people who attended the event.
Below is the full text of his address:
Dear Brother and Sisters,
Thank you for having taken part in these moments of deep prayer. I also thank those who have accompanied us through the media, especially the sick and elderly.
I do not wish to add too many words. One word should suffice this evening, that is the Cross itself. The Cross is the word through which God has responded to evil in the world. Sometimes it may seem as though God does not react to evil, as if he is silent. And yet, God has spoken, he has replied, and his answer is the Cross of Christ: a word which is love, mercy, forgiveness. It is also reveals a judgment, namely that God, in judging us, loves us. Remember this: God, in judging us, loves us. If I embrace his love then I am saved, if I refuse it, then I am condemned, not by him, but my own self, because God never condemns, he only loves and saves.
Dear brothers and sisters, the word of the Cross is also the answer which Christians offer in the face of evil, the evil that continues to work in us and around us. Christians must respond to evil with good, taking the Cross upon themselves as Jesus did. This evening we have heard the witness given by our Lebanese brothers and sisters: they composed these beautiful prayers and meditations. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to them for this work and for the witness they offer. We were able to see this when Pope Benedict visited Lebanon: we saw the beauty and the strong bond of communion joining Christians together in that land and the friendship of our Muslim brothers and sisters and so many others. That occasion was a sign to the Middle East and to the whole world: a sign of hope.
We now continue this Via Crucis in our daily lives. Let us walk together along the Way of the Cross and let us do so carrying in our hearts this word of love and forgiveness. Let us go forward waiting for the Resurrection of Jesus, who loves us so much. He is all love.

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Vatican: Passion of Our Lord Sermon [Full text]

2013-03-30T14:20:00.001-07:00

2013-03-29 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) In silent procession, wearing red vestments, Pope Francis made his way down the nave of St Peter’s basilica as the sunset over the dome on Friday evening. There before the High Altar, he lay prostrate in prayer. This was the opening act of the liturgy of Our Lord’s Passion, the central commemoration of Good Friday, the memorial of Christ’s suffering and death for the salvation of mankind.

Emer McCarthy reports:

The Holy Father stood as three deacons, two Franciscans and a Dominican, chanted the account of the Passion according to St. John. As is tradition, the papal preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, delivered the Good Friday Sermon, this year titled "Justified as a Gift through Faith in the Blood of Christ".

He began by describing the Easter Triduum as the ‘high point’ of the current Year of Faith: “Today we can make the most important decision in our lives: to believe… that Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our justification”. Unlike Adam and Eve, he added, we must not hide from the presence of God, because of our sin. Instead we must recognize our need to be justified; that we cannot justify ourselves.

Fr. Cantalamessa continued that faith in the Risen Christ, like satellite images and infrared photography, helps us see world in new light. It helps us to see beyond misery, injustice; because we know “in Christ dead and risen, the world has reached its final destination” a new heavens, a new earth have begun

The Papal preacher then turned his attention to the Cross as a powerful tool for Evangelization.

He noted that while the Cross sometimes separates unbelievers from believers, seen as madness by some and the ultimate symbol of love by others, “in a deeper sense it unites all men”, because “Christ died for everyone”. Thus, evangelization is a mystical gift that comes from the cross of Christ. It is not a conquest, not propaganda; it is sharing gift of God to world through Christ.

Citing Kafka, Fr. Cantalamessa said we must do everything to prevent Church from becoming a structure that impedes the Gospel message with dividing walls, ‘starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris’.

The Franciscan Friar concluded: “We must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. This was the mission that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church".
Below we publish the official text of the 2013 Good Friday Sermon in St. Peter's Basilica, preached by Capuchin Friar Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher of the Papal Household:

JUSTIFIED AS A GIFT THROUGH FAITH IN THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith in his blood. He did this to show his righteousness [...] to prove at the present time that he is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus”(Rom 3:23-26).
We have reached the summit of the Year of Faith and its decisive moment. This is the faith that saves, "faith that overcomes the world" (1 Jn 5:5)! Faith – the appropriation by which we make ours the salvation worked by Christ, by which we put on the mantle of his righteousness. On the one hand there is the outstretched hand of God offering man His grace; on the other hand, the hand of man reaching out to receive it through faith. The "new and everlasting Covenant" is sealed with a handclasp between God and man.
We have the opportunity to make, on this day, the most important decision of our lives, one that opens wide before us the doors of eternity: to believe! To believe that "Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our justification" (Rom 4:25)! In an Easter homily of the 4th century, the bishop pronounced these extraordinarily modern, and one could say existentialist, words: “For every man, the beginning of life is when Christ was immolated for him. However, Christ is immolated for him at the moment he recognizes the grace and becomes conscious of the life procured for him by that immolation” (The Paschal Homily of the Year 387 : SCh, 36 p. 59f.).

What an extraordinary thing! This Good Friday celebrated in the Year of Faith and in the presence of the new successor of Peter, could be, if we wish, the principle of a new kind of existence. Bishop Hilary of Poitiers, converted to Christianity as an adult, looking back on his past life, said, "before meeting you, I did not exist".
What is required is only that we do not hide from the presence of God, as Adam and Eve did after their sin, that we recognize our need to be justified; that we cannot justify ourselves. The publican of the parable came to the temple and made a short prayer: "O God, have mercy on me a sinner". And Jesus says that the man returned to his home "justified", that is, made right before him, forgiven, made a new creature, I think singing joyfully in his heart (Lk 18:14). What had he done that was so extraordinary? Nothing, he had put himself in the truth before God, and it is the only thing that God needs in order to act.
* * *
Like he who, in climbing a mountain wall, having overcome a dangerous step, stops for a moment to catch his breath and admire the new landscape that has opened up before him, so does the Apostle Paul at the beginning of Chapter 5 of the letter to the Romans, after having proclaimed justification by faith:
“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we
boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
And not only that, but we
also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5: 1-5).
Today, from artificial satellites infrared photographs of whole regions of the Earth and of the whole planet are taken. How different the landscape looks when seen from up there, in the light of those rays, compared to what we see in natural light and from down here! I remember one of the first satellite pictures published in the world; it reproduced the entire Sinai Peninsula. The colors were different, the reliefs and depressions were more noticeable. It is a symbol. Even human life, seen in the infrared rays of faith, from atop Calvary, looks different from what you see "with the naked eye".

"The same fate”, said the wise man of the Old Testament, “comes to all, to the righteous and to the wicked...I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there as well"(Ecc 3:16; 9:2). And in fact at all times man has witnessed iniquity triumphant and innocence humiliated. But so that people do not believe that there is something fixed and sure in the world, behold, Bossuet notes, sometimes you see the opposite, namely, innocence on the throne and lawlessness on the scaffold. But what did Qoheleth conclude from all this? " I said in my heart: God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for everything" (Ecc 3:17). He found the vantage point that puts the soul in peace.
What Qoheleth could not know and that we do know is that this judgement has already happened: "Now”, Jesus says when beginning his passion, “is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people
to myself"(Jn 12:31-32).
In Christ dead and risen, the world has reached its final destination. Human progress is advancing today at a dizzying pace and humanity sees new and unexpected horizons unfolding before it, the result of its discoveries. Still, it can be said that the end of time has already come, because in Christ, who ascended to the right hand of the Father, humanity has reached its ultimate goal. The new heavens and new Earth have already begun.
Despite all the misery, injustice, the monstrosities present on Earth, he has already inaugurated the final order in the world. What we see with our own eyes may suggest otherwise, but in reality evil and death have been defeated forever. Their sources are dry; the reality is that Jesus is the Lord of the world. Evil has been radically defeated by redemption which he operated. The new world has already begun.
One thing above all appears different, seen with the eyes of faith: death! Christ entered death as we enter a dark prison; but he came out of it from the opposite wall. He did not return from whence he came, as Lazarus did who returned to life to die again. He has opened a breach towards life that no one can ever close, and through which everyone can follow him. Death is no longer a wall against which every human hope is shattered; it has become a bridge to eternity. A "bridge of sighs", perhaps because no one likes to die, but a bridge, no longer a bottomless pit that swallows everything. "Love is strong as death", says the song of songs (Sgs 8:6). In Christ it was stronger than death!

In his "Ecclesiastical History of the English People", the Venerable Bede tells how the Christian faith made its entrance into the North of England. When the missionaries from Rome arrived in Northumberland, the local King summoned a Council of dignitaries to decide whether to allow them, or not, to spread the new message. Some of those present were in favor, others against. It was winter and outside there was a blizzard, but the room was lit and warm. At one point a bird came from a hole in the wall, fluttered a bit, frightened, in the hall, and then disappeared through a hole in the opposite wall.

Then one of those present rose and said: "Sire, our life in this world resembles that bird. We come we know not from where, for a while we enjoy the light and warmth of this world and then we disappear back into the darkness, without knowing where we are going. If these men are capable of revealing to us something of the mystery of our lives, we must listen to them". The Christian faith could return on our continent and in the secularized world for the same reason it made its entrance: as the only message, that is, which has a sure answer to the great questions of life and death.

* * *
The cross separates unbelievers from believers, because for the ones it is scandal and madness, for the others is God's power and wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 1:23-24); but in a deeper sense it unites all men, believers and unbelievers. "Jesus had to die [...] not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God"(cf. Jn 11:51f). The new heavens and the new Earth belong to everyone and are for everyone, because Christ died for everyone.
The urgency that comes from all this is that of evangelizing: "The love of Christ urges us, at the thought that one has died for all" (2 Cor 5:14). It urges us to evangelize! Let us announce to the world the good news that "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the spirit which gives life in Christ Jesus has delivered us from the law of sin and death" (Rom 8:1-2).

There is a short story by Franz Kafka that is a powerful religious symbol and takes on a new meaning, almost prophetic, when heard on Good Friday. It's titled "An Imperial Message". It speaks of a king who, on his deathbed, calls to his side a subject and whispers a message into his ear. So important is that message that he makes the subject repeat it, in turn, into his hear. Then, with a nod, he sends off the messenger, who sets out on his way. But let us hear directly from the author the continuation of this story, characterized by the dreamlike and almost nightmarish tone typical of this writer:
" Now pushing with his right arm, now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters. But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcome hammering of his fists on your door. But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he must next fight his way down the stair; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second outer palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate—but never, never can that happen—the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own sediment. Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself”.
From his deathbed, Christ also confided to his Church a message: "Go throughout the whole world, preach the good news to all creation" (MK 16:15). There are still many men who stand at the window and dream, without knowing it, of a message like his. John, whom we have just heard, says that the soldier pierced the side of Christ on the cross "so that the Scripture may be fulfilled which says 'they shall look on him whom they have pierced"(Jn 19:37). In the Apocalypse he adds: "Behold, he is coming on the clouds, and every eye will see him; they will see him even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the Earth will lament for him "(Rev 1:7).

This prophecy does not annouce the last coming of Christ, when it will no longer be the time of conversion, but of judgment. It describes the reality of the evangelization of the peoples. In it, a mysterious but real coming of the Lord occurs, which brings salvation to them. Theirs won't be a cry of despair, but of repentance and of consolation. This is the meaning of that prophetic passage of Scripture that John sees realized in the piercing of the side of Christ, and that is, the passage of Zechariah 12:10: "I will pour out on the House of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and consolation; they will look to me, to him whom they have pierced".

The evangelization has a mystical origin; it is a gift that comes from the cross of Christ, from that open side, from that blood and from that water. The love of Christ, like that of the Trinity of which it is the historical manifestation, is "diffusivum sui", it tends to expand and reach all creatures, "especially those most needy of thy mercy." Christian evangelization is not a conquest, not propaganda; it is the gift of God to the world in his Son Jesus. It is to give the Head the joy of feeling life flow from his heart towards his body, to the point of vivivfying its most distant limbs.

We must do everything possible so that the Church may never look like that complicated and cluttered castle described by Kafka, and the message may come out of it as free and joyous as when the messenger began his run. We know what the impediments are that can restrain the messenger: dividing walls, starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris.
In Revelation, Jesus says that He stands at the door and knocks (Rev 3:20). Sometimes, as noted by our Pope Francis, he does not knock to enter, but knocks from within to go out. To reach out to the "existential suburbs of sin, suffering, injustice, religious ignorance and indifference, and of all forms of misery."
As happens with certain old buildings. Over the centuries, to adapt to the needs of the moment, they become filled with partitions, staircases, rooms and closets. The time comes when we realize that all these adjustments no longer meet the current needs, but rather are an obstacle, so we must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. This was the mission that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church".
"Who could ever be up to this task?" wondered aghast the Apostle before the superhuman task of being in the world "the fragrance of Christ"; and here is his reply, that still applies today: "We're not ourselves able to think something as if it came from us; our ability comes from God. He has made us to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; because the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life"(2 Cor 2:16; 3:5-6).
May the Holy Spirit, in this moment in which a new time is opening for the Church, full of hope, reawaken in men who are at the window the expectancy of the message, and in the messengers the will to make it reach them, even at the cost of their life.

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The Curious Case of Overseas Campuses

2012-10-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

One of the more mysterious developments in higher education of late is the rise—and, often, fall—of international branch campuses (IBCs). Many universities have created them, but a high percentage have been closed after only a few years. Why the interest and why the closures?

Generally speaking, IBCs are degree-granting institutions located in one country but governed by a primary institution located in a different country. They have garnered many headlines (in Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the New York Times, among others), probably because many prominent colleges, such as Yale, Duke, and Cornell, are founding them, while sometimes facing resistance from faculty, which adds to their news value.

Most IBCs are better thought of as outposts of a university rather than universities unto themselves. Located in places like the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, or China, they usually offer only graduate degrees in one or two in-demand fields like business or engineering. Duke University’s campus in Kunshan, China, set to open in the fall of 2014, will offer two degrees in business management.

To give an idea of how small most of these operations are, there are ten university branch campuses in Education City in Qatar, but only 243 students graduated from those campuses in the 2010-11 academic year.

In a January 2012 report the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, a research group, identified approximately 200 international branch campuses currently existing, with an additional 37 scheduled to open in the next two years. About half of the home universities are in the United States, and they vary in size and stature—among them are City University of Seattle and Texas A&M. The definition of IBCs is somewhat vague. Yale’s new partnership with the National University of Singapore is considered an IBC, even though it gives National University of Singapore degrees, rather than Yale degrees.

So why are they being started?

Many colleges with overseas operations tout trendy concepts such as “globalization” and “interdependence” of the future economy as reasons to start IBCs. For instance, Duke University’s Strategic Plan says:

No longer can we prepare our students as if they are likely to pursue careers based in the United States, without much international contact or experience, and with little contact with colleagues from other nations and cultures.

Duke, at least, seems to be reaching out internationally with a kind of affirmative action, to provide more diverse interaction not just among different races but also among different nationalities.

Another apparent reason behind Duke's starting an IBC is that everyone else is, too. The Duke-Kunshan Planning Guide implies peer pressure with terms such as “our peer institutions are already ahead of Duke” and this is “an opportunity to. . . catch up”:

There are significant opportunity costs to Duke not being in China. As the Education Advisory Board report, “Operations of American Institutions in China”, indicates, many of our peer institutions are already ahead of Duke in establishing operations in China. We believe that our model, both by establishing a joint-venture with Kunshan and Wuhan University and more broadly by envisioning ourselves as a globally-networked university, offers an opportunity to both catch up and become a leader as a 21st century global university.

Duke also wants to enhance its international reputation. According to Duke’s Strategic Plan, Duke-Kunshan will supposedly enhance its research and teaching:

Duke’s international reputation does not yet match its reputation in the United States nor reflect the quality of its teaching and research programs. If we are to meet our ambitious goals in research, teaching and service, this gap must be aggressively closed . . . . Duke will work to attract the best faculty from around the world, both to enhance our teaching and research missions. . . .

Thus, it seems that the IBC phenomenon may be another aspect of the “reputational arms race” that economist Robert Martin identified as a key reason for the constant increase in college spending in a Pope Center paper.

A less-talked about reason that universities start IBCs is financial gain. Some schools hope to make a profit through tuition. Others, while perhaps not expecting to earn a profit, plan on subsidies from host countries.

Few universities ever disclose how much money they take in from the foreign governments, but in many cases the subsidy appears to be substantial—Duke was told that it would not have to pay the construction cost of its Kunshan campus, because the city of Kunshan would pay for it. According to Nora Bynum, Director for Global Strategy at Duke, the city of Kunshan has already spent more than $100 million on construction costs, will continue to pay for ongoing construction, and will even contribute to the campus’s operating costs.

In spite of high hopes and anticipated revenues, many international campuses have been shut down for financial and other reasons. For example, in the 1980s, 20 American schools started IBCs in Japan, and only two of them—Temple University Japan and Lakeland College Japan, a two-year school—remain. Even further back, Harvard opened a medical school in China in 1911 and a business school in Switzerland in 1973. Both have been closed, and Harvard hasn’t participated in the recent expansion.

The recent boom has had its share of casualties, as well. Troy University has shuttered its IBCs in Guam, Sri Lanka, and Germany; George Mason closed a campus in the United Arab Emirates in 2009; Suffolk University closed an IBC in Senegal; Carnegie Mellon shut down a campus in Greece; and Texas Tech closed a campus in Quendlinburg, Germany. Michigan State University tried to start an undergraduate campus in Dubai, but shut it down and is now focusing only on graduate programs.

Many IBCs fail because they don’t attract enough students who are willing to pay. Michigan State’s undergraduate Dubai campus was a case in point. Officials had planned for 100 to 150 students per entering class, but, as MSU president Lou Anna Simon told Inside Higher Ed, only 10 to 20 students enrolled in each of MSU Dubai’s five programs.

Similarly, Duke’s Kunshan campus hasn’t started yet, but has already been scaled back after market research indicated that interest would be lower than first predicted.

Another difficulty is faculty resistance. Nearly all IBCs have faced objections from professors at the main campus. At Duke, one of the most vocal critics has been English professor Thomas Pfau, who criticized the school’s “Kunshan adventure” for taking resources away from Duke’s core academic functions, such as the English department.

Other objections include lack of academic freedom protections in the destination country, as well as a lack of free speech rights or even gay rights. Some Yale professors objected to starting a campus in Singapore because Singapore officially bans homosexuality. On top of that, few professors want to leave their home campus for an international branch, so, in order to get some to move, schools must pay higher salaries.

In short, it appears that college administrators are prone to overestimating the benefits and underestimating the costs of IBCs. On the other hand, at this point IBCs are being built faster than they’re being taken down. Whether the IBC trend continues depends on the broader picture of how higher education develops in the future. If traditional universities begin to face a crisis, as some have predicted, IBCs may be among the first things cut.

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The Graduation Hammer

2012-10-14T18:38:00.000-07:00

There’s an old statement that when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That is, the tool takes over—changing your goal and your mindset to something different from what you originally intended.

Graduation rates are the latest “hammer” in higher education. Some concern about low graduation rates is appropriate, of course. Only about 58 percent of all college freshmen in the country graduate in six years. For a lot of those students, college is a waste of time and money—including taxpayer money.

But once administrators start focusing on a measurement of success such as graduation rates—or the broader term “degree production”—they run into a moral hazard, pressure to game their actions in a way that reduces the validity of the measurement.

For example, one way to boost rates is to make graduation easier. Grade inflation can be the result, and grade inflation already has been documented in North Carolina and elsewhere. Some people believe that it has devalued many college degrees.

Under both the current president, Tom Ross, and his predecessor, Erskine Bowles, the University of North Carolina has been very explicit about increasing “production.” A report to the UNC Board of Governors (Nov. 2010) on a plan to link enrollment funding to performance said, “The national mood for higher education has, as has UNC’s, shifted to student success and degree production along with expanding access. The production of undergraduate degrees will play a larger and larger role as this model is developed and implemented.”

The emphasis on raising graduation rates has caused one positive development. Under UNC president Erskine Bowles, the system began increasing minimum academic standards for entering any UNC school, designed to ensure that students are at least capable of doing academic work. (The minimum SAT score for the fall of 2013 is 800 for critical reading and math combined; unfortunately, this figure is still lower than “college-ready.”)

Other efforts are more worrisome. For example, UNC now sponsors “academic boot camps” at four schools, and a summer program for contingently admitted students at another. And it has beefed up its “academic counseling.” These are essentially remedial or “handholding” programs that attempt to make up for poor preparation or poor work habits.

Remedial classes belong primarily in community colleges, not four-year colleges, where the cost of teaching a student is three times as high. Yet the university shows no intention of reducing its remedial classes.

The latest effort to boost degree production focuses on getting transfer students to obtain a diploma more quickly and on bringing back students who have dropped out of college. Tom Ross recently told the UNC Board of Governors that one of his top priorities is to “increase graduation rates among community college transfers, individuals with some college credit, and those seeking to earn a new or different degree.”

This emphasis on transfers is a mixed bag. Administrators may have been searching for easy fixes, and they learned that transfer students take longer to graduate than those who have persisted at one school. That fact led to a front-page story in the Triangle Business Journal titled “Transfers Tug Down Grad Rates for UNC.”

Specifically, a UNC General Administration report for the Board of Governors in August, which analyzed the records of transfer students, found that only 64 percent of transfer students (who come mostly from community colleges) graduate four years later. This figure is lower than the 88 percent graduation rate for students who are starting their junior year after two years at the same institution.

On the other hand, an administrator at a UNC university has said informally that transfer students are viewed as more serious and more committed students than the average freshman. And former North Carolina Central chancellor Charles Nelms said that he wanted to boost the number of transfer students at NCCU.

Certainly, if students are not fully prepared for the rigors of university academics, starting their college education at a community college is a less costly and less wasteful option.

And improving transfer students’ graduation rates may not be all that difficult. The UNC study showed that the students who have the most trouble finishing quickly are those who haven’t declared a major because they can get sidetracked. Modest improvements in advising could get students to choose majors earlier so that they can keep their eyes on the prize of earning a degree.

The university could also help those students—as well as non-transfers—by making sure that the courses required for their major are taught frequently enough to enable them to progress to a diploma.

Another factor that holds down transfer students’ graduation rate is failure to have an associate’s degree when they start at a UNC school. Thus, more careful admissions standards may be appropriate. Unless a student shows exceptional ability, students transferring from community college should complete the associate’s degree program before moving to UNC. Tougher requirements may fly in the face of the efforts to streamline transfers, but they make sure that students are ready to move to a university.

At the same time, administrators should avoid blind devotion to “the hammer.”

As Pope Center writers have argued before, graduation rates often tell more about students than about the schools themselves. “Whether a student graduates and benefits from the educational experience is up to that individual, not the institution,” wrote George Leef and Duke Cheston last year. Low graduation rates suggest that too many students are unrealistic about their interest in college, and their college probably has been too lenient in letting some of them in.

Indeed, the current emphasis on degree production may be harming students. It was spurred partly by evidence that some other nations are graduating a higher percentage of their young people than the United States is—a dubious rationale for forcing many young people into college when they don’t want to be there. It was nurtured by misinformation about how many college graduates are needed for future jobs, and it was fueled by financial support from the Lumina Foundation, a well-funded organization that is committed to increasing the number of college degrees.

The country doesn’t “need” as many college graduates as Lumina and President Obama are pushing for, and UNC doesn’t “need” to reach a set goal of graduates. What the nation—and North Carolinians—need is the opportunity for each individual to pursue his or her career goals based on careful self-assessment and financial realities—whether they contribute to “degree production” or not.

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Symbols Matter, Reality Doesn't

2012-10-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

In September 2011 my university proudly unveiled a green investment in campus infrastructure, the “Solar-Dok” picnic table/charging station.

While it looks like a picnic table, it has 10 square feet of solar panels attached to its awning. Those panels are connected to a battery so that people can plug in their laptops phones, cameras, iPads or other devices. Rochester doesn’t get a whole lot of sun, but the potential justification for it was that it might save $90 per year in electricity costs and $9 per year in damages to the earth from reducing carbon dioxide emissions (both unreasonably optimistic assumptions). Aside from being a funny-looking table that gets virtually no use, at $11,500 it is a terrible economic investment and an even worse environmental investment. But it remains prominently featured on the college’s website and proudly sports the campus symbol of smart sustainability.

When asked whether they had calculated its impacts, college administrators indicated that no such calculations were even attempted. Nor did they care: it was an important symbol and message. “A few students wanted it,” admitted one administrator, and “that’s what our competitors are doing.”

I can think of no better illustration of what economists call the agency problem that cripples American higher education: It’s only a few dollars, what’s the big deal? And even if it’s a lot of dollars, well, there’s no harm to university administrators. Thus there is little incentive for administrators not to engage in these activities.

This mentality continues far beyond that $11,500. At the same time that our university installed the Solar-Dok, it broke ground on a new student dormitory, slated to cost $17 million. One reason for that price tag is that the building would be built to “LEED Gold” standards. To make a building certifiably green requires additional planning and construction expenses—by my estimate, $1 million of the total.

Wasteful expenditures are replicated at universities throughout the country. In the 2008-09 academic year, private and public four-year colleges spent over $365 billion (according to National Center for Education Statistics data on expenditures), roughly a 100 percent increase in real spending over a two-decade period.

How much of this spending delivers a better product? A lot of it involves adding buildings to accommodate the peak class demand times on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons so that students and professors don’t have to attend class on Friday.

And a lot of expenditures are non-academic. Does the club hockey team really need to become Division I?

The academic side of the enterprise, meanwhile, suffers from a lack of accountability. I am three-and-a-half years into my career here (having taught 2,400 students), but during that time our department has not once had a discussion about what goals we have for our undergraduates; whether our current teaching is producing the outcomes we want; whether the course offerings are appropriate; where our majors end up after graduating; and whether we should be doing work outside the classroom to enrich the undergraduate experience.

Three quick illustrations:

Our major, economics, is the largest at the university, and students are clamoring for more exposure to research, policy, and the professional side of economics. But we have no formal program that engages undergraduates in research projects beyond their basic econometrics coursework—this in spite of the fact that the focus of our economics graduate programs is on research and the labor market for our students would be enhanced by greater research experience.

Second, a centrally located 500-square-foot lounge in our department remains a repository of empty desks, boxes and files even as student groups and teaching assistants struggle to find space.

Third, we have just discovered that our department owns endowed accounts set up years ago by dedicated alumni to improve the undergraduate experience. One such account is funded well into the five figures and was intended to provide funds to bring a prominent speaker to campus each year for the benefit of our undergraduates. The account was discovered in a neglected file drawer.

Higher education shares some of the same problems that plague non-profits. Non-profits have many “owners.” It is unlikely that the interests of parents, students, alumni, faculty, local communities, competitors, employers, vendors, and politicians are in harmony. It is asking a lot of a board of directors to align those many interests, particularly when they have interests of their own. In contrast, for-profit stakeholders have myriad interests, but the lure of profits and the need to avoid losses form a powerful glue that binds them together. Absent such glue, all we have are vague mission statements.

Universities are aware of this, of course. Two commonly proposed “solutions” end up making things worse. First, in an effort to maximize something, schools focus on burnishing their reputations—which are inherently unmeasurable and depend on others’ perceptions. Second, many groups (all with their own interests) are given a “seat at the table” in crafting important decisions.

Paradoxically, working on your reputation promotes actions that degrade the reputation of the higher education system as a whole. When our peers invest in green elephants, so do we, because “all schools like us have a Solar-Dok.” When our peers inflate grades, so do we.

In the zero-sum game to “be the best” among our peers, we are drawn into the trap of arms races—for facilities, athletic program victories, mission creep administrative overhead, and more. But there can only be five schools in the top five, and this remains true whether we all have climbing walls in our athletic facilities or not.

These races persist because there is comfort in doing “what all good schools do,” without having to evaluate whether such programs make schools better.

And there are other pressures to conform, such as the accreditation process. Our university is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. This means that Adelphi, Hofstra, St. Johns and Seton Hall, Penn State—competitors of ours—each have a say in whether we remain accredited.

How would such institutions view proposed research programs and curriculum changes that are risky, innovative, and out-of-the-box? And how would such institutions feel about questioning some of our green elephants, since we, too, have a seat at their accreditation table?

Americans would be uncomfortable if the major agri-businesses were responsible for ascertaining what foods were healthy and safe, or if investment banks determined the quality and safety of financial instruments. Yet we see exactly that in higher education.

When outputs are hard to measure, as learning outcomes are, and when accountability is hard to enforce, there is great protection in “everyone else is doing it.” Mere effort is seen as evidence of progress, and any failures to achieve goals can be deflected by arguing that “there is a tough balancing act.”

With vagueness preferred over precision, and with important decisions made by many stakeholders, none typically having sole authority, a likely outcome is to serve a lowest common denominator. That is the easy way to build support for programs, especially when third parties pay a large portion of the bill.

But not every action wins universal support. In a bureaucratic environment, many people are conditioned and empowered to say “no,” particularly when there’s no clear mechanism to reward them for a good outcome and when current sacrifice is virtually assured. Thus, when it comes to eliminating majors to cut costs, pricing class times and courses variably to reflect demand, or raising teaching loads, there is little incentive to swim upstream, say “yes,” and be a true leader.

Because feedback loops and accountability are missing, collegiality emerges as the currency of choice. Collegiality is college-speak for being “on-board.” Questioning the status quo is non-collegial and threatening. One cannot “collegially” raise questions about green elephant projects or the direction of the college’s educational mission. Paradoxically, the absence of monetary incentives (which would exist in a profit-making organization) increases the suspicions of the tribe regarding why someone would raise questions about such things. If you wish to remain in the good graces of your campus colleagues, it is not in your interest to ask hard questions.

F. A. Hayek correctly implied in The Fatal Conceit that not all emerged orders are “good” in the sense that they are generally desirable. I urge critics of higher education to avoid the temptation of arguing that the problems are the result of conscious policy choices and conspiracies. This seems to me to be wrong both theoretically and empirically—and it’s an uncharitable way to encourage people accept change. Almost every department chair, college staff member, college administrator and trustee that I have ever met has been extremely thoughtful and proud to be a part of the university.

The problem is that the combination of muted feedback mechanisms, multiple stakeholders, opaque output, and the accreditation process means that no amount of good intention can save universities from inefficiency and resistance to change.

Hayek offers us another lesson here. Hayek found that people thought that in the Road to Serfdom he had overreacted to the dangers of planning and government control in the United States and the United Kingdom. They contended that the U.S. and U.K. could get away with central planning because of their good history—they were “different” from the totalitarian states.

Hayek’s response was that government control can and does produce a change in the psychology of a people; the political ideals of a people and their attitude toward authority are endogenously determined. They are as much the effect as the cause of the political order within which they operate. To apply this insight to higher education, asking actors from within the sector to make dramatic changes is akin to asking them to take large pay cuts. Despite the preponderance of people in the academy promoting the virtues of altruism, I am not optimistic about many people taking up the plow.

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Ignoring Facts Is Not a Strategy

2012-10-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

It is an optimal time for the University of North Carolina system to come up with a new overall strategic plan that will shift directions to reflect the new realities and new ways of thinking that have emerged since the plan was last revised in 2007.

Yet it appears that the committee convened to forge a new plan is being deliberately led to continue policies based on misleading data and stale beliefs. This is especially true regarding UNC’s role in the state economy.

The UNC Advisory Committee on Strategic Directions, which met for first time on Wednesday, September 26, is comprised of 32 academic and business leaders and UNC staff. It received its commission from the UNC Board of Governors, and is chaired by UNC system president Thomas Ross.

Ross established the committee’s agenda; he made “”setting degree attainment goals responsive to state needs” his highest priority, suggesting that having more graduates will help attract businesses to the state. He also made it clear that he intends for those attainment goals to be ambitiously high, and that he expected others to draw the same conclusions he has: “Almost all of the data you will hear later predicts that we will need more educated people” he said in his introductory remarks.

The latter remark was true, but only because the “experts” providing the data made no mention of the ample and growing body of evidence that there is no realistic demand for more college graduates.

There are two major conflicting perspectives on university degree attainment and economic development. Ross expressed one of them, the belief that colleges and universities must produce more graduates to compete in the changing global economy. This view has long held sway with UNC’s governing boards and administrations.

The other is that our economy has already achieved sufficiently high levels of educational attainment, and that too much higher education is unfocused and unproductive. It poses an obvious threat to those who hold the first view, and is therefore frequently ignored in policy circles such as Board of Governors meetings.

Certainly, Ross and the committee ignored it. He declared that he is “hoping to follow” the example of Virginia, which “statutorily” mandated a dramatic increase in state residents who enroll and graduate. There is a 2011 Virginia law that calls for the state to produce an additional 100,000 bachelors degree-holders over a 15-year period by increasing enrollment and improving graduation rates.

Unfortunately, Virginia’s additional degree quotas resemble the sort of “central planning” with specific goals of production that was the hallmark of failed communist dictatorships across the globe, especially the former Soviet Union. It is hard to see how following suit will help the economy of North Carolina.

Furthermore, studies show that an absurdly high percentage of recent college graduates (as many as half) cannot find fulltime work, and pushing more young people into college will hardly improve that situation.

Yet none of the speakers brought in to inform the committee mentioned the glut of recent graduates. One, education consultant Dennis Jones, was a particularly unabashed supporter of increasing educational attainment levels. He was the primary consultant behind Oregon’s 40-40-20 program, which aims to have 40 percent of the adult population with bachelor’s degrees, 40 percent with two-year associate’s degrees, and 20 percent with high school diplomas. It is a goal divorced from economic reality: unnecessary, extravagant, and inevitably counterproductive.

Yet Jones took it even further by praising foreign educational leaders who hope to have 100 percent of their population with postsecondary credentials.

Jones was even challenged by a committee member for providing information in a confusing or misleading manner. He presented a graph revealing ethnic minorities’ lower average educational attainments but, as the committee member noted, he left out Asian-Americans, who have the highest education attainment of all groups, including whites.

Jones dismissed the need to include Asians, saying that he was merely “drawing comparisons.” Yet such selective use of data is not always harmless when important policies are under discussion—doing so can seriously alter the discussion. In this example, including Asians in the data set undermines arguments that other minorities’ low attainments are due to discrimination or a lack of government attention. It changes the debate about minorities and education from one of government action to one involving non-government factors, such as culture.

More objective information is needed for the committee to arrive at sensible decisions. At least, that’s what was intended. Fred Eshelman, a BOG member who is on the advisory committee and chairs a second strategic committee made up of university system employees, has insisted that he intends to have the strategic planning process proceed with “no preconceived notions” and to be “data-driven.”

It is hard to see how the information provided to the advisory committee at its first meeting accomplishes that. It is not as if alternative information is unavailable, nor is it limited to conservative or higher education reform circles. In fact, there is just such a study on educational attainment and economic development recently completed by the Global Research Institute (GRI) at UNC-Chapel Hill that questions the need to produce more college graduates. And that report is known to at least one committee member. Keith Crisco, the current North Carolina secretary of commerce, participated in a series of discussion groups conducted by the GRI discussing higher education’s role in the economy that led to the report.

The authors of the GRI report, Chapel Hill professors Peter Coclanis and Daniel Gitterman, call for young people to pursue more varied and more individualized routes into the workforce than reflexively going to college immediately after high school. This includes getting them to survey their entire range of options, to consider their options at an earlier age, and to choose alternate careers that require vocational or technical training.

Such due diligence by high school students may end the current “jobs mismatch,” in which many high-paying technical and skill trade positions go unfilled for lack of qualified applicants while over 30 percent of recent college graduates work in jobs that require no postsecondary education.

Coclanis and Gitterman even use some of the same underlying data that Jones used, from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. While they highlight the Center’s projection that 59 percent of all jobs in North Carolina in 2018 will require some postsecondary training, as did Jones (and it must be emphasized that such forecasts are at best tenuous estimates), they did not agree with Jones’ clarion call for greater college attendance.

They noted that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 57 percent of North Carolina’s adult population already has some postsecondary education. Even if one is to accept the Georgetown Center’s rather presumptuous estimate that future demand will require 59 percent of the workforce to have postsecondary credentials, it appears there are currently enough people (approximately) pursuing higher education to fill that demand. The problem may be that too many of those people are enrolled in the wrong programs or are not completing their programs.

It is most likely a problem of information. Too many people still cling to a perception that any college degree is a sure path to a good job, and that other options are inferior. But that is no longer true. We have too many people seeking academic degrees with no added employment potential at community colleges or second- or third-tier colleges and universities—often because they falsely think any degree will improve their job prospects—and not enough people entering some non-degree technical programs even though doing so will almost assuredly open up well-paid opportunities.

Furthermore, an academic college degree takes a minimum of three or four years to complete; many of the in-demand technical or vocational programs can be finished within one year. We may simply need to start promoting technical training and other options in the high schools and community colleges more to bring order to the labor market.

Strategic plan committee members should be permitted to decide for themselves which approach is more reasonable: Jones’s, which calls for excessively high levels of educational attainment with no relation to the existing job market, or the GRI study, which realistically takes note of the fact that, if 59 percent of the anticipated workforce requires postsecondary training, 41 percent will not.

But Ross is leaving very little time for discussion with an extremely aggressive timetable set for the strategic plan, with only three more meetings before a finished report is due in January of 2013. Let us hope that cooler and more deliberate heads on the committee prevail and demand some serious, two-sided investigation of the issues before the state gets an expensive mistake rammed down its throat.

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Pretty Good Advice

2012-10-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Right now, parents who are preparing to send a child off to college are perusing Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. They’re looking for anything that can give them an edge—an edge on how to wisely invest in their kid’s education.

One book they may come across is Getting the Best Out of College co-written by Peter Feaver, Sue Wasiolek, and Anne Crossman. Respectively, the authors are a professor, a dean, and a recent graduate of Duke University. The book, issued in an updated edition, even includes a foreword by Duke University’s famous college basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Getting the Best Out of College offers comprehensive advice on dealing with the ins and outs of a college experience. The publisher claims that there are “lots of books telling students how to get into the college they want and how to pay for it once they do. This is not one of those books. This book begins where they end.”

Indeed, the book covers topics ranging from dormitory life to picking out the perfect class schedule and preparing for life after college. Whether you are a parent or a student, if you have an issue or concern about college life, chances are you will find it covered, at least in general terms, in this book. There are also brief testimonies of students sprinkled throughout the book to back up the advice the authors give in each chapter.

Getting The Best Out of College starts off at a very logical point: moving into a dorm and staying connected to your family at home. As a former resident adviser (RA), I can tell you that the book does a very good job of covering both the bright sides and dark sides of dormitory life.

For example, it addresses common complaints about living with a roommate who has “different definitions of ‘clean’” and it offers useful tips on packing for school such as “[a]ssemble what you feel like you can’t live without, then pack only 60% of that.” If you are used to having your own room or do not have any siblings, that is a chapter you should play close attention to.

A common theme is planning out all aspects of your college experience, including your social life. With your college transcript, the writers say, “you are creating a narrative of your educational journey,” so you need to consider your class schedule. They advise you to pick your courses mainly on the reputation of the professor and the course itself; classes should be challenging and intellectually stimulating.

In my last year at North Carolina State I did exactly that. My friends were singing the praises of a professor who had received a teacher of the year award in the past; I looked him up and the class he taught, which was social psychology, and when I saw it fit both my schedule and degree, I took it. I was very happy with that decision.

The longest and probably the most helpful chapter in the book is the one on professors. The authors point out, “[g]etting the best out of college means, in part, getting your money’s worth out of your relationships with the professors who are paid (largely by you) to provide a product you are buying: an education.”

Accordingly, the book covers every nook and cranny of the student-professor relationship, such as how to tactfully and professionally engage professors when you believe they are wrong about a topic, and how to get a professor to write a good recommendation for you.

Even though this is an advice book about the college experience, the authors also discuss reasons why you should consider either delaying college or even dropping out if college is not right for you. The authors advise that students consider a “gap year,” which is taking a year off after high school before going to college, in order to take stock of whether or not you are ready for college financially, emotionally, and intellectually.

The book also discusses options like transferring, dropping out, studying abroad, and even enlisting in the military.

Since many young Americans today get little benefit from college (but at high expense), it’s important that parents think seriously about college and its alternatives.

Overall, the book is quite useful in broad terms, but it has some flaws.

Planning ahead, in general, is a very good thing; however, only those with very distinct personalities have both the time and the inclination to map out every aspect of their college experience. As I was reading the book, I had a mental image of myself with pencil and paper writing out a battle plan for college that would rival Eisenhower’s Operation Overlord. It’s simply not very practical or realistic.

The authors presume a lot of flexibility in selecting your schedule and that a treasure trove of intel on professors and their courses is available. Sure, there are websites like Rate My Professor that can give you some idea about a professor, or you might be lucky enough to track down an upperclassman who has had the class before.

Most of the time, however, especially if you are a hard science major or are a double major, you won’t have the scheduling flexibility or the pre-existing knowledge about a professor to make fully informed decisions on the classes you are considering.

Some universities are now utilizing social networking sites like Facebook to give students the opportunity to share their experiences and ask questions of other students about classes and professors to bridge that knowledge gap. That will help to reduce the information problems students face, but I don’t think it will entirely solve them.

Additionally, as a former resident adviser, I was disappointed to see that the role of an RA is not covered in greater detail. Getting The Best Out of College alludes to the role of RAs throughout the book, but what exactly an RA is and what his or her role is in the dormitory are not exactly clear.

RAs, if they are doing their jobs properly, can have a big impact on students’ lives, especially in their freshman and sophomore years when students are most likely to live on campus. Becoming an RA could be a good way to pay for college since most colleges provide their RAs with on campus housing and a stipend. This isn’t for the faint of heart because it consumes a huge chunk of your time and social life, but it is a great way to learn time management skills and leadership qualities—and it looks good on a resume.

Unfortunately, those who would benefit the most from this book are probably the least likely to read it. If you are a parent who has taken the initiative to seek out a book like Getting The Best Out of College, I have a feeling that your son or daughter would to do just fine anyway.

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Education for Liberty

2012-10-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

Last week, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation held its annual Liberty Forum in New York City. The foundation’s mission is to strengthen freedom around the globe by sponsoring institutes that promote limited government. Among the panel discussions at the two-day program was one entitled “Disruptions in Higher Education: An Opportunity for the Freedom Movement?”

I spoke on that panel, along with Professor Tyler Cowen of George Mason University and Ines Calzada Alvarez, Secretary General of Online de Madrid Manuel Ayau, an organization that provides online economics education in the free-market tradition of Manuel Ayau. (Ayau founded the University Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala.)

The consensus was that the impending disruption in higher education—the bursting of the bubble and subsequent changes in the way students learn—should indeed create opportunities for education to advance liberty.

My argument was that it will do so because the old model of higher education was (and is) heavily stacked in favor of the proponents of collectivism, but future education will not be. To a large extent, our higher education system has been colonized by faculty and administrators who are sympathetic to the expansion of government and unsympathetic to laissez-faire. College students were (and are) much more likely to hear from Marxists than from conservatives or libertarians.

In that old model, a student faced the “bundle” problem. Once the student chose a school, he or she had to choose from the courses and majors offered there. It was as if when you walked into a grocery store, you were allowed to buy either Bag A or Bag B, when both bags contained many items you’d never want to buy individually.

When I was an undergraduate, for example, the only macroeconomics course was taught by a dyed-in-the-wool Keynesian who was absolutely certain that federal authorities could manage the economy to give us high GDP and low unemployment. There was no alternative to that misinformation-laden course, except taking a different major.

Consumers don’t like having to buy bundles, whether it’s food, cable-TV, or education. They would much rather shop for the best and buy only what they want. New developments in education are making that increasingly possible.

Students will be drawn more toward schools that permit them to shop around for the best courses and transferring those credits from other schools rather than requiring them to take their entire bundles. Perhaps in time the very concept of a college degree will change, as students assemble online portfolios of their learning and accomplishments (certificates, badges, and other indicators of capability) to show the world.

In that new educational environment, the old constraints such as accreditation and transferability will matter less and less. None of the huge number of students who signed up for Sebastian Thrun’s initial Udacity course on artificial intelligence cared in the least that Udacity is not accredited. Thrun’s reputation was all that mattered.

With students shopping around for educational products that are high in quality as well as interesting, the market will be open. The old course offerings with their mild-to-severe leftist orientation will have to compete with courses that are balanced or take an intelligent pro-liberty view.

In my comments, I mentioned one such course—an introductory economics course taught at Wake Technical Community College and Florida State University that overturns the usual way of teaching economics. Eliminating much of the graphs and math, the course concentrates on economic concepts, such as the role of incentives and comparative advantage. Understanding those concepts is a big step toward understanding the value of liberty. The course designers intend to “scale up” its availability.

The other two panelists have both embarked on online education. Professor Cowen recently launched, with his faculty colleague Alexander Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution University. The first course available on MRU is on development economics. As Professor Cowen explained in his talk, the cost of producing the material for the site was almost zero (if you don’t count the time the creators put into learning all they know about their subject) and students can partake of their offering for free.

At present, there is no official credit for taking an MRU course, but Professor Cowen said that he would be happy to write a personal letter of recommendation for any student who demonstrates that he or she has mastered the material. That might be a better advertisement for the student than merely completing another official college course where professors are known to frequently dispense gift grades.

In her presentation, Ines Calzada Alvarez explained how her organization, OMMA, brings the great economic insights of Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and other giants to students through online education. As is the case with Marginal Revolution University, her budget is very small, but that is not a barrier to education.

We are at the beginning of a discovery process in the new world of boundary-less education. Among the questions “edupreneurs” will seek to answer are:

How can we create educational products that will most appeal to students? For example, what maximizes the likelihood that a young person will want to spend time learning about development economics rather than playing Halo?Is it better to work within the framework of existing higher education institutions, or to go around them?How can we best certify that students have in fact learned course material?And last but not least, can the business community be persuaded to break its bad habit of screening out individuals just because they don’t have the standard college credentials and evaluating them on the basis of other indicators of competence?

Change is undoubtedly coming to higher education. That’s good news for many reasons, but especially because it will mean that students won’t have to go through institutions that wrap them in socialistic thinking. They will be able to choose professors who understand the virtues of freedom. Seize the opportunity!

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For the Greater Good (of the University)

2012-10-14T03:15:00.000-07:00

My university, Ball State University (BSU) in Muncie, Indiana, wants to build a $25 million hotel, conference center, restaurant, dormitory complex. The proposed building site includes university-adjacent property that houses a privately owned printing/copying/apartment enterprise. The owner of that business has refused the university’s cash offers. So in early September the university’s board of trustees approved exercising eminent domain power to seize it. In other words, BSU is going to ask a court (that is, the government) to force the owner to give up the site of his business (which is actually owned by a trust) without compensation that he considers acceptable, the rationale being that it will all be for the “greater good.”

BSU, a public university, is not the first university to invoke eminent domain, nor will it be the last. Two years ago, Columbia University prevailed in what had been a long eminent domain struggle when the Supreme Court refused to hear the affected property owners’ appeal.

The BSU eminent domain saga has disturbing parallels with the account of “Naboth’s Vineyard” in the Bible (1 Kings 21). Naboth lived in Israel during the reign of Ahab and Jezebel, king and queen of Israel. Naboth owned a vineyard that Ahab coveted. It was a good vineyard, but more importantly it was close to the king’s palace. So the king offered to trade one of his other vineyards for Naboth’s. “No deal,” said Naboth. The king next offered to buy Naboth’s vineyard for a price Ahab deemed fair. Naboth turned down this offer also.

The refusals distressed Ahab. So much so that he was bedridden and unable to eat. Enter the infamous Jezebel, who after upbraiding her husband for being spineless, told him not to worry. She would get the vineyard for him. Acting in the name of Ahab, Jezebel convened a kangaroo court, where Naboth was falsely accused and convicted, after which he was stoned to death. Ahab got the vineyard.

Was Ahab and Jezebel’s seizure of the vineyard legal? Well, if you’re the king and queen, you get to write the laws. So, yes, it was legal. What about calling it legalized theft? That Ahab and Jezebel each suffered a gruesome death introduces a measure of justice, but the vineyard was never restored to Naboth’s heirs.

Mr. Hiatt, the Muncie businessman whose , is obviously the counterpart to Naboth in the Ball State saga. I’m not holding my breath waiting for BSU administrators to declare “I’m the Ahab” or “I’m the Jezebel.” Not surprising. Neither Ahab nor Jezebel enjoys much positive name recognition despite the passage of more than 2,500 years. Some might think BSU’s board of trustees is collectively playing the Ahab/Jezebel roles. Not likely. Boards of trustees everywhere are regarded as little more than rubber stamps for university administrators. It’s more likely that board members are like the flatterers who surrounded Ahab and Jezebel.

While BSU’s board members may be rubber stamps, that doesn’t stop them from saying downright silly things. For example, following BSU’s eminent domain approval, one board member was quoted as saying, “…I see this as an economic engine that will drive revitalization” in the university neighborhood. But since when did confiscating private property encourage others to sink capital in adjoining (yet-to-be-confiscated?) property? Wealth confiscation is not a prescription for wealth growth. Never has been, never will be. Maybe that’s why two of the Ten Commandments forbid stealing and coveting (commandments 8 and 10).

A variant of this trustee’s nonsense is that Ball State’s expenditure of $25 million on the venture will have “multiplier” effects on the surrounding community’s income. The idea is that as the carpenters, plumbers, and everyone else involved in the project are paid for their efforts, they will spend it and thereby generate income for those from whom they are buying. The process supposedly repeats and repeats, so that income rises by more than $25 million.

Advocates of public sector spending boondoggles often invoke this “multiplier” notion. Nevertheless, it’s bogus. The problem is that the $25 million does not materialize out of thin air. To return to biblical analogies, the $25 million doesn’t miraculously appear in the community like manna. It comes from somewhere else. There will be a reduction in spending somewhere else by $25 million, meaning the same multiplier process will be going in reverse somewhere else.

Regardless of dollars and cents calculations, however, I submit that something else is more significant. The requirement that buyers and sellers obtain the consent of their counterparts is foundational to the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. This is especially true for so-called “little guys”—the Mr. Hiatts of communities across the nation. These are the people who are most susceptible to the encroachments of bullies acting under the aegis of government. We ignore the mutual consent requirement at great risk, and it doesn’t matter a whit if it’s the capped and gowned set doing the bullying.

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Removing the Veil of Ignorance?

2012-10-06T01:15:00.000-07:00

Americans like to hear that politicians from the opposing parties are working together to solve problems. A good case in point is the “Student Right to Know Before You Go Act” sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). Bipartisan cooperation on a matter that most Americans regard as important—making a good college decision—sounds like a sweet melody in this year of political cacophony.

Undoubtedly, both senators have good intentions—you can read an article they wrote here. The question is whether their bill will have good results. Legislation often fails to live up to its hype, but this bill might be an exception to that rule.

The bill (available in full and in Senator Wyden’s synopsis) is supposed to “support statewide individual-level integrated postsecondary education data systems.” In short, the authors believe that the current college data reporting system (the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System or IPEDS) is not adequate either for students and parents or for policy analysts.

As is common with bills, this one begins with several “findings” Congress has supposedly made. One is a misleading “finding” about the supposed million-dollar earnings premium that bachelor’s-degree holders get; another is an accurate one that many people who have “lower” educational levels earn more than people with bachelor’s degrees; and then we come to the critical one: “Employment and earnings projections of distinct degree and certificate programs and the cost of obtaining these credentials are not equal across institutions.”

That’s right, and it would do serious damage to the higher education bubble if people could see just how little good many college credentials do for students.

In particular, the bill is supposed to give students reliable information on:

Post-graduation average annual earningsRates of remedial enrollment, credit accumulation, and graduationAverage cost of the program (before and after financial aid)The effects of remedial education and financial aid on credential attainment.

Let’s start with the easiest element of those four, cost.

College costs can be known and it makes just as much sense for students to hunt for the best bargain as it does for car shoppers. Students can already get cost data, though. I don’t think there are any colleges or universities that don’t have cost calculator features on their sites. (Here is the calculator for the University of Texas, for example.) There are also sites that make cost comparisons quick and easy because they have data on most colleges and universities, such as CollegeData.

With abundant information on college costs already available, it seems that the bill is reinventing the wheel.

How about the rates of remedial enrollment, credit accumulation, and graduation?

Having information on the extent to which a school enrolls students who need remedial coursework certainly is indicative. If a high percentage of the students admitted need remedial work, that shows a rather weak student body and (probably) correspondingly low academic rigor. But you can figure that out just by looking at the average SAT or ACT scores, information that’s already available.

Graduation rates are much less important than most people, including the sponsors of the bill, think. Wyden says that information will help students “know what their likelihood of completion is.” The problem with that way of looking at graduation is that it turns graduation rates into a matter of chance. If a college has an 18.3 percent graduation rate, that doesn’t mean that whether a student graduates is like having to roll a 6 on a die. You have an 18.3 percent chance of doing that. But if you earn the necessary number of credits at the college, you have a 100 percent “chance” of graduating.

Students already have access to graduation rate data (for example, here) but they might be making a mistake by paying attention to it. A school could have a relatively high graduation rate due to low academic standards.

For college costs and graduation rates, at least we have quantifiable data. When it comes to the “effects of remedial education and financial aid” we enter the realm of guesswork. If a student who needed remedial courses passes them and later graduates, does that prove that the courses were effective? Or does it show that the rest of the curriculum was easy enough that graduating was merely a matter of persistence?

Finally, and most important, the senators want students to be able to compare likely earnings after they graduate: How much am I apt earn if I take a business major at College A versus College B? A history major at University C versus University D? A women’s studies major at College E versus University F?

If that information could be compiled, it would be very useful. At present, colleges put a big smiley face on all their programs, making it seem that all their grads do well once they’re out in the labor market. We know that isn’t true, but there isn’t much hard evidence to prove it.

Senator Wyden says that the bill would allow the new data systems “to match individual level transcript data to post-graduation employment and earnings outcomes.” Apparently, that objective can be accomplished by having the Social Security Administration marry its universal data on what jobs people are doing and how much they are earning with college and university information on their graduates and majors.

Suppose that students and their parents could go to a site where they would find out that the 25 Behemoth University grads in the 2010 class who majored in, let’s say, communications, range in earnings from $40,000 to zero. If it were also possible to indicate how many have jobs in the communications field and how many are working in other fields (if they’re working at all), that would be better still.

Legislation often has unintended consequences that are harmful, but in this instance, the unintended consequences could be beneficial. Reliable data showing that degrees from certain schools and in certain majors are generally of little value in the market would cause many students to steer away from them. It would be as valuable to students thinking about college (including whether it’s a good idea at all) as it’s valuable to automobile shoppers to be able to find out which models are excellent and which ones give owners lots of trouble.

Information like that could prove fatal, by the way, to the academically dubious identity studies programs Bruce Bawer so ably dissected in his book The Victims’ Revolution.

I’m not sure that the senators understand what the full impact of their bill would be if it works. Yes, it would help students make more informed decisions about going to college, but often that informed decision would be to do something else. Many would see that they aren’t cut out for the sorts of high-stress college programs that can lead to good employment (such as engineering) and that the kinds of low-stress programs they could handle are apt to lead to mundane jobs.

If this bill ever comes up for hearings, I’d expect that spokesmen for the higher ed industry would try to derail it. The very last thing they want is for prospective students to make accurate cost-and-benefit calculations.

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You Majored in What?

2012-10-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

“What did you major in?” I’ve probably heard that question a thousand times and asked it a thousand times myself. Sometimes the answers are impressive, sometimes the answers are less so, calling for a polite smile and change of subject.

But every once in a while the answer triggers a double-take—“You majored in what?” Below is a list of those kinds of academic programs: the strangest undergraduate majors you’ve probably never heard of.

First, however, a caveat: to say that they are strange is not necessarily to say that they aren’t worth studying or you won’t get a job if you choose a strange major. In fact, by obtaining a specialized degree, you will have credentials that few others have. That may enable you to land a well-paying job and come out ahead of all those people with “normal” majors, not to mention having something interesting to talk about at dinner parties.

Here are my top ten weird majors.

1) Canadian Studies

A wag once compared Canada to “the apartment above a really great party,” but that doesn’t mean the place isn’t worth studying. At Duke University here in North Carolina, students may select Canadian Studies as a second major. Since founding the program (which receives some funding from the Canadian national and Quebecois provincial governments), Duke has produced over 100 Ph.D.s whose work has focused on Canada.

2) Espionage Engineering

Was it your dream as a kid to be a real-life “Q,” like in those old James Bond movies, designing clever ways to make seemingly harmless objects into deadly weapons? Well, you may not get a chance to design laser-watches, but at Liberty University in Virginia you can major in Electrical Engineering with Intelligence Specialization, which is probably about as close to Bond-like gadgets as you’ll be able to get with a four-year degree.

3) PGA Golf Management

At Methodist University in Fayetteville, NC, students can enroll in the PGA Golf Management Program. Essentially a specialized business degree, the program promises to equip students to “pursue a career as a golf professional in the private or public sector, resort or corporate golf structure, administration, club management, turf management or industry representative.”

4) Equine Studies

Love horses? Consider enrolling in an Equine Studies program such as the one at Johnson & Wales University’s Providence, RI campus. Although this may sound like an odd course of study, there are actually a number of colleges that offer equine studies programs—so many, in fact, that there is a website devoted to ranking schools based on their equine studies programs. According to HorseSchools.com, Olds College in Alberta, Canada holds the notable distinction of having the greatest horse-to-student ratio.

5) Fermentation Science

If you want to make a career out of brewing and/or drinking beer or wine, Appalachian State University in Boone, NC has the program for you. But don’t drink too much while you’re taking the program; to obtain a degree, students must acquire a “a strong background in chemistry and biology” while also learning a “considerable” amount about “business, marketing and entrepreneurial principles.”

6) Motorsports Management

Like Will Ferrell’s character in the movie Talladega Nights, Belmont Abbey College’s Motorsports Management Program was born wanting to go fast. For students pursuing “business careers in the multi-billion motorsports industry,” the program promises to help you get there through “partnerships with sanctioning bodies, teams, tracks, media, sponsors, agencies and attractions.

7) Bagpiping

Yes, Bagpiping. Keeping true to its roots—founder Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland—Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania offers its students the chance to major or minor in playing the bagpipes.

8) Theme Park Engineering

Can’t get enough of theme park rides? Try designing them yourself with a degree in Theme Park Engineering from California State University-Long Beach! It’s not all fun and games, though. The degree is generally only available as a second major, and students are required to take many classes in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and civil engineering.

9) Jazz Studies

Given the title’s similarity to certain other academic departments, you might at first glance think that Jazz Studies is about the grievances of a historically oppressed minority group. Happily, it is not—at least not primarily. According to Michigan State University’s official website, students who major in Jazz Studies will “develop a high level of competency in jazz performance, and in compositional, scoring, and arranging skills;” they will also become familiar with the “historical and cultural context of jazz.”

10) Poultry Science

Ever wanted to know how that juicy chicken sandwich arrived at your dinner plate? NC State University’s Poultry Science major may be for you. NC State University students and alumni may object that Poultry Science is not a particularly strange major and ought not be included in this list, but, I mean, come on—their band plays “Old Macdonald Had a Farm” at basketball games. (Commence angry comments now).

At this point, you may be asking: Why should we care about weird majors?

Well, for one thing, it’s an occasion to ponder what American higher education might look like if it were a truly free market for education. If state, federal, and local governments did not subsidize colleges and universities, would they still include such unusual majors?

My Pope Center colleagues Jane Shaw and George Leef pondered what a free market in higher education would look like, and they argued that it is the only way to find out which programs, from philosophy to plumbing, are really worthwhile. Unusual majors (as well as common ones) might survive, but only if they provided enough value for students who were spending their own money.

It also gives us occasion to contemplate the age-old question of the purpose of higher education.

Most of these odd majors seem odd due to their specificity—they are tied to a career. Is it right that they should be? Some would argue that the proper venue for such vocational training is not a university but a technical school or community college. Vocational training at a university, they say, crowds out liberal education and students are left with a narrower perspective than a real college graduate ought to have.

Perhaps, but as those equine studies majors could probably tell you, you can lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink. If people are only interested in education and training that leads to a good career, it does very little good to make them study the humanities at the same time. Maybe they will want to do that later, or in a different setting than college.

In education, let a thousand flowers bloom. Some of them may seem strange to most of us, but that’s all right. If someone wants to major in bagpipes, that’s fine as long as I don’t have to either listen to the performer or help pay for his studies.

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Carpet Bombing Identity "Studies"

2012-10-05T15:44:00.000-07:00

At most colleges and universities today, you find courses and even entire programs in Women’s Studies and Black Studies; at many others, you’ll also find Chicano Studies, Queer Studies, Cultural Studies, and the like. Their defenders say that those courses are academically rigorous explorations of fields that were previously neglected and are important in our increasingly diverse, multicultural world.

Bruce Bawer begs to disagree.

In his new book The Victims’ Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind, Bawer shows that those various “studies” are for the most part academically dubious exercises in opinion-mongering. Far from filling any hole in the curriculum, he shows that these programs began because academic promoters realized that they could easily pressure administrators into giving them courses and departments—and money.

The galaxy of identity studies has been under critical scrutiny for many years. Melana Vickers wrote a strong critique of Women’s Studies for the Pope Center in 2005. In her book History Lesson, Wellesley professor Mary Lefkowitz exposed both the misinformation peddled in her college’s Africana Studies courses and the vicious counterattack against her for daring to question their content. With his book, Bruce Bawer adds greatly to our understanding of the educational malpractice that goes on in the “studies” realm.

The thing about The Victims’ Revolution that makes it so valuable—indeed, incendiary wouldn’t be too strong a word—is the way Bawer has gone “inside” the programs. He attended conferences, read textbooks, and even got hold of student writings. Making fun of goofy course titles is fairly easy, rather like carpet bombing the enemy from 30,000 feet. Bawer actually infiltrated behind enemy lines.

One of the crucial aspects of all the “studies” programs that he identifies is the deliberately obfuscatory jargon that professors and authors use to make it seem as though they have something profound to say and to bedazzle naïve, impressionable students.

For example, concepts (especially those that are thought bad, such as capitalism or private property) are never simply analyzed; instead they are “problematized.” Books and documents are not read, but are “interrogated.” Everyday words can be turned into deeply symbolic notions. “Gaze,” for instance, doesn’t merely mean to look at someone. In the world of “studies” it is freighted with overtones of oppression. “You may even, Sartre argued, feel ‘enslaved’ by the Other’s gaze,” Bawer writes.

The very purpose of “studies” departments is far more political than educational. Bawer has a lot of candid statements to that effect, such as this admission by the founders of the Women’s Studies Department at SUNY-Buffalo: “This education will not be part of an academic exercise; it will be an ongoing process to change the ways in which women think and behave. It must be part of the struggle to build a new and more complete society.” Consequently, students who take these courses have to demonstrate that they have absorbed the opinions and “facts” they have been fed. Here’s an example.

In one of his “behind-the-lines” forays, Bawer gazed (shall we say) upon a Women’s Studies course that was remarkably open. He could read the assignments and the blogs the students wrote. The results were reminiscent of cults where new members put their brains in neutral and obligingly parrot whatever the leader says. One pitiable young woman wrote:

“Being that men are more likely to inhibit [she means commit] murder and assault, as a women [sic] I need to be aware of not only this, but also of the cultural influences and emphasism/pressure [sic] for men to be this way. I need to become more aware of the environment/people around me as well as an understanding of the pressures media places over men.”

That poor student would have been far better off taking a course to improve her writing rather than one that “problematizes” the fact that some men commit crimes into a need for cultural reconstruction.

And then there are the books, the execrable books.

One book that is highly popular among “studies” professors is Paolo Freire’s The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (The Pope Center’s Jay Schalin called it “the sacred scroll of the social-justice-in-education movement.") The trouble is that the book is not an academic work at all, but simply a screed. Bawer writes, “Freire’s world is one populated solely by the ‘oppressors’ and the ‘oppressed,’ and in his book he does little more than insist repeated that the ‘oppressed’ should not actually be taught… but should rather be helped to recognize their ‘oppression’ and encouraged to resist it.” The book is irresistible to professors who are intent on instilling a feeling of grievance and injustice in their students, but that’s all it does.

Another book that is commonly used is Ron Karenga’s Introduction to Black Studies. It is chock full of the historical misinformation that led to so much grief for Mary Lefkowitz at Wellesley, along with such leftist tropes as the superiority of “black collectivity” over European individualism.

While “studies” advocates try to put on a veneer of academic respectability for the public, their conferences give the game away, since they cast aside the pretense of scholarship. (Nothing like a gathering of the like-minded to loosen tongues.0 Bawer spent a lot of time going to such conferences and heard a lot of astounding—and revealing—talk.

Consider his trip to a conference on Disability Studies. One speaker, in Bawer’s words, “explained that her mother has multiple sclerosis but refuses to use technology meant to make her life easier—an act Smith celebrates as ‘resistance in the face of hegemony, as many of the vendors of the technology are able-bodied white men.’” She went on to describe inventors of products to aid the disabled as uncaring capitalists and exhorted disability activists to “expose normalcy as a construction.”

In other words, it is better that suffering people continue to suffer as long as capitalists might make some money from selling things to alleviate their suffering. Why should we want people who think such absurd things teaching impressionable college students?

We shouldn’t, of course, but Bawer explains that these “studies” programs persist because the victimology advocates know that almost no college leaders will say “no” to them. It’s all a great con, he argues, in which academic hustlers figured out that white, liberal, guilt-ridden administrators could not deny them—professed spokesmen for groups those administrators have been conditioned to regard as oppressed—whatever they wanted. That is why we have this plague of “studies” and why they are so hard to prune back, much less eliminate.

The book ends on a hopeful note. Bawer suggests that parents and alumni who are immune to the “thick clouds of pretentious rhetoric and charges of prejudice” that “studies” advocates use to defend their fiefdoms will steer their children and their money away from those programs. The heightened awareness these days that college courses that don’t teach anything useful are an unaffordable luxury will make more people ask the question that must terrify the “studies” purveyors: “Is there enough educational value here to justify the cost?”

Bawer also advances the possibility of founding new colleges, employing faculty drawn from a huge pool of unemployed or underemployed scholars and offering a first-rate liberal arts education.

I will add another prospect that he doesn’t, namely the movement away from the traditional B.A. as the means of signaling one’s employability, and toward online badges and certificates. All the “studies” grew up under the shelter of degree programs, as little parts of the bundle of academic credits students felt the need to purchase. Now that the bundle is starting to break up, courses and programs will have to pass the test of the market on their own.

It’s hard to imagine that many of the “studies” programs will pass that test, and especially so once the message of The Victims’ Revolution gets out.

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The Best Laid Plans

2012-10-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

In 2007, the University of North Carolina system revised its strategic plan with great fanfare. Developed by the UNC Tomorrow Commission, the process featured “town hall” meetings at numerous locations across the state, public surveys, and all manner of input from various estates. It also garnered considerable media coverage. At times, it seemed that all that was missing was some trapeze artists and elephants for it to be a full-blown circus.

While UNC Tomorrow seemed to be a bottom-up approach with lots of public involvement, it was also a very controlled process that produced a report that strongly resembled a Democratic Party election campaign platform of the era—not surprising since the commission’s executive director, selected by UNC president Erskine Bowles, was Norma Houston, a longtime aid to Democratic Senate President Marc Basnight. The final report was largely a design for government expansion.

Now, the Board of Governors is again revising its blueprint for the future. According to the board president, Peter Hans, the governors are required to do so every five years. And as UNC system president Thomas Ross noted on September 13 at the most recent Board of Governors meeting, a lot has changed since 2007.

Things may be different this time around, with less spectacle and a more wonky, bureaucratic approach rather than the populist tack taken by Houston. The 2012 process will take approximately four months rather than the full year UNC Tomorrow took to produce its report.

The UNC Tomorrow report was completed before the recession, when it seemed that North Carolina’s economy would forever enable the legislature to throw increasing amounts of money at its university system. As Ross stated at the BOG meeting, the new plan must be conducted with an understanding that the university system faces “a time of limited resources.”

Also, the board was an overwhelmingly Democratic organization in 2007, to be expected after over a century of that party’s control of the legislature. Currently, Republicans hold a slight edge on the 32-member board, and Republican Fred Eshelman will be the central board member in the new plan.

Two separate bodies will oversee the plan; one will be headed by Eshelman and composed of administrators (primarily school chancellors) and General Administration staff. It will deal will with specific policies and information gathering. The other will be a larger and more general oversight committee, with a wide-ranging membership including board members (Eshelman is one), chancellors, politicians, general administration staff, faculty members, and community and business leaders.

Despite the new appearances, it remains to be seen whether the new plan will result in any substantial changes in direction for the UNC system. While the economic climate and many of the key individuals involved differ from five years ago, the UNC administration dominates the working committee, and will play a role as big or bigger than the governors will.

Furthermore, Ross is setting the initial agenda. He provided a list of five goals for the planning campaign, each with several sub-goals. While these goals are very general at this point, they still form a set of guidelines that will strongly influence the final plan. Ross’s five basic goals are:

Set degree attainment goals responsive to state needs; Strengthen academic quality; Serve the people of North Carolina; Maximize efficiencies; Ensure an accessible and financially stable university.

They all sound laudable on the surface, but it is difficult to derive any indication of the direction that the UNC system will take from them. A few of the sub-goals sound potentially troublesome. For instance, while discussing the first goal at the September 13 meeting, setting “degree attainment goals responsive to state needs,” Ross cited a presentation given at the August board meeting by former Landmark Communications CEO John Wynne. That talk had called for a massive state-funded increase in the number of college graduates. Starting with this assumption is a mistake; our economy’s need for more graduates is highly debatable; right now, an extremely high percentage of recent graduates are forced to seek work outside their field and take jobs for which no higher education is required.

Eshelman emphasized that he intends to keep his committee’s investigation “data-driven” with “no pre-conceived notions.” Still, the fact that the new planning campaign began at the August meeting with Wynne’s presentation raises some questions about objectivity. Wynne’s philosophy closely resembles the recommendations of the UNC Tomorrow Report, which encouraged the system to expand its role in the economic realm. That report stated: “UNC should be more actively engaged in enhancing the economic transformation and community development of North Carolina’s regions and the state as a whole.”

It is an ominous starting point for a new strategic plan to promote ideas that rest on questionable assumptions. If Eshelman truly wishes the process to remain objective, he will have to be vigilant to make sure that the staff members and administrators on his committee do not control the flow of information too tightly. It will be interesting to see whether a speaker is invited to a Board of Governors meeting who will counter Wynn’s pro-growth presentation.

Another crucial matter concerns Ross’s call to “strengthen academic quality” by increasing “the focus on preparing graduates with the core competencies needed to succeed.” It is likely that, in this case,the rhetoric may not match the eventual policy. In recent years, the UNC system has moved away from true general education programs that emphasize a common core of knowledge. Instead, it has given students a vast array of general education courses with which to satisfy requirements and by promoting the teaching of writing “across the curriculum” rather than through intensive training in specific courses.

In a private conversation soon after he took office in 2010, Ross said that he favored giving students maximum flexibility in choosing their classes, rather than mandating a strict core, since college is a time for personal exploration. Yet “core competencies needed to succeed” don’t come easy—it seems as if Ross, and the UNC system, are missing the inherent tradeoff between developing core competencies and personal exploration.

Ross’s goals do include some promising elements. For one, he wishes to continue improving academic quality with stronger admissions standards—continuing a process of raising standards that began with his predecessor. He also wishes to improve the university system’s “space utilization,” something that the university system desperately needs to explore in the long run to avoid building expensive new buildings. Currently, campuses are extremely underutilized in non-peak hours.

The new strategic plan is highly welcome; UNC Tomorrow promised all things to all people in a time of seeming endless prosperity. That day is past, and the key contributors to the new plan show some signs that they understand a university system’s limitations. Maybe this time around they will get it right—but that will happen only if board members control the process and avoid automatic acceptance of the conventional wisdom from the past.

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