CTU Annual Report 2010-2011

Every autumn Catholic Theological Union publishes its annual report. The 2010-2011 annual report is available for download by using the link below.

PDF Download: 2010-2011 CTU Annual Report

President’s Letter

It is a great honor to report to you on the state of Catholic Theological Union (CTU). Each year we try to wrap our report in an overarching theme — one that we think captures the current mood of CTU. This year we have chosen the theme: “For the Sake of the World.” It was inspired by a striking passage in Matthew’s Gospel where the disciples ask Jesus to explain his parable about a field in which both weeds and wheat grow up together (see Matthew’s Gospel 13:36-43). The field hands ask the landowner if they should pull up the weeds, but he advises them to let both grow together until the harvest, lest in trying to root out the weeds they hurt the wheat, too. When Jesus begins to explain the parable, he says … “the field is the world.” Yes, the place where both good and evil are present, the place that is the object of God’s love and care, the place where God’s word is to be sown is, in fact, the world — not simply the Church or some place sheltered from the sharp challenges that are with us today.

As a Catholic graduate school of theology and ministry, preparing some 500 men and women to bring the word of God’s love to our world, a world filled with weeds and wheat, we want to focus all of our energies and purpose “for the sake of the world.” Taking part in our forty-third graduation ceremony this past May reminded me of the dynamism and outreach of CTU’s mission. Two of our graduating students — one a married lay woman and the other a Hispanic seminarian — together gave a speech, both of them celebrating in harmony the completion of their studies and their determination to serve the Church of the future. We conferred three honorary doctorates: on Sr. Mary Collins, OSB, one of the country’s outstanding liturgical scholars whose teaching and writing have inspired a whole generation of Catholic teachers; on Jewish leader Harold Gershowitz, a driving force behind the founding of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and an outstanding champion of interfaith dialogue; and on Fr. Thomas Coughlin, OP Miss, the first born-deaf priest ordained in the United States and a tireless advocate for those with disabilities. And we celebrated almost one hundred graduates — religious seminarians, religious sisters, and lay men and women ready to serve the Church worldwide!

Preparing outstanding women and men “for the sake of the world” involves every aspect of CTU. We strive to give first-class academic and pastoral training to all of our students. We have built an excellent and renowned faculty. We maintain a fully automated and professionally staffed Catholic research library that is outstanding among its peers. We provide graduate courses not only at our state-of-the-art facilities in the university neighborhood of Hyde Park, but also through a growing array of online courses that reach students from dioceses across the country and even across the globe who do not have access to Catholic institutions of higher learning. A wonderful collaboration with the Catholic Church Extension Society, which shares scholarship costs with CTU, is helping fund education for a whole new generation of Catholic leaders.

New Alliances

These are challenging times for many institutions in our society, and CTU has to be vigilant to remain strong and innovative. One way we are doing that is by forging constructive links to other allied institutions. As one of our Trustees put it, we are “building up our institutional muscle”! This year, for example, we have entered into a collaborative alliance with DePaul University, our Chicago neighbor, the largest Catholic university in the United States and the ninth largest private university in the country. CTU and DePaul have enjoyed a close friendship since the founding of CTU in 1968. Over the years we have benefited from having one of the major officers of DePaul on our Board of Trustees and have worked together on a number of programs and events. Now, however, we want to intensify this long-standing relationship with an exchange of goods and services, and with an array of collaborative academic ventures. This is not a merger of our two schools — both DePaul and CTU will retain their governance structures and financial independence. But we are forging a new, mutually beneficial collaboration between the county’s largest Catholic university and the largest Catholic graduate school of theology and ministry.

Another important new alliance is between CTU and the Lay Centre, a residential program in Rome for lay students pursuing doctoral studies at pontifical universities. Its residents include not only Catholic students but also Muslim, Jewish, Orthodox, and Protestant students. The Lay Centre has its historical roots in the famous Foyer Unitas that was a residence for the Protestant and Orthodox observers at the Second Vatican Council. At the conclusion of the Council, Foyer Unitas eventually embarked upon a new mission under the official name of the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas and ever since has been a superb institution that has earned the deepest respect of the Vatican itself. In addition to serving its resident students, the Lay Centre also runs a continuing education program for people living in Rome and provides unique briefing sessions for various institutions that visit Rome. Because of the compatibility between the missions of the Lay Centre and CTU, the board of the Lay Centre approached CTU this past spring about the possibility of entering into close collaboration between our two institutions. The services and facilities of the Lay Centre offer exciting new opportunities for our students to take part in educational programs in the heart of the Church.

For more than thirty years CTU has had an educational presence in Jerusalem, offering credit programs and continuing education opportunities for hundreds of participants over the years. Now we are able to add Rome to our repertoire — establishing a meaningful educational presence in two cities with tremendous historical and spiritual significance for Christianity.

In taking up these new relationships, we are determined not to forget our long-standing relationships here in Chicago. Chicago’s Archbishop, Francis Cardinal George, OMI, has been an important spiritual guide for all of us, and we are most grateful that the Archdiocese has entrusted CTU with the theological education and formation of its future lay leaders through such means as the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program (for Black Catholic lay students) and the Oscar Romero Scholarship Program (for Hispanic lay students). The graduates of these programs now serve in important roles in the administration of the Archdiocese and in numerous Chicago parishes. CTU is also pleased to be able to offer theological education and formation for lay ministers from Chicago and the surrounding dioceses of Gary, Joliet, and Rockford, and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. We sponsor a special preaching training seminar for international priests working in the Church in the United States and this year began a preaching workshop for local Chicago priests.

Another very important network for us is our participation in the Association of Chicago Theological Schools (ACTS). This association of ten Chicago-area theology schools offers our students free cross-registration, library collaboration, and common programming — a key ecumenical dimension of our students’ preparation for ministry.

Extending our Reach: New Web sites at CTU

This past year CTU made a major investment in upgrading our various websites, extending our educational outreach to the wider world. Our main website received an upgrade and whole new look (see for yourself at www.ctu.edu). Websites connected to specific programs such as our Peacebuilders Initiative for high school students (www.peacebuildersinitiative.org) and our Catholics on Call vocational discernment program for young adults (www.catholicsoncall.org) both received facelifts and enhanced capacities. An entirely new entry that came online this summer is Learn@CTU (http://learn.ctu.edu). This extraordinary resource makes available online lectures, articles, essays, book excerpts, and a host of other educational opportunities for our worldwide alums and for the general public. Please visit and sample these splendid online resources!

Special Events

As always seems to be the case, this past year has been filled with special events that widen our scope, keep our faculty and students alert to the issues that inform our contemporary world, and enable CTU to serve its wider circle of friends and supporters. Our Shapiro Lecture Series continues to bring to campus superb Jewish scholars as part of our ongoing Catholic-Jewish dialogue program under the auspices of The Bernardin Center for Theology and Ministry. Again this year, the Bernardin Center sponsored the “In Good Faith” conversations that bring together in dialogue leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities to engage challenging issues of mutual interest. Black History Month was celebrated again at CTU with a series of lectures and celebrations, including a special focus on the cause for canonization of the first Black priest ordained in the United States, Fr. Augustus Tolton, a Chicago priest and the namesake of our program. The Bernardin Center’s Catholic Common Ground Initiative was pleased to honor Fr. J. Bryan Hehir, legendary promoter of peace and justice on behalf of the Catholic Church in the United States, with its Cardinal Joseph Bernardin Award. Sundays at CTU, our quarterly liturgy and lecture series, has continued to grow with more than 200 in attendance at each gathering.

One of the highlights of each year is our annual Blessed are the Peacemakers Dinner hosted by our Board of Trustees and chaired this year by Trustees H. Patrick Hackett and Christopher Kennedy. This year’s honoree was Monsignor Kenneth Velo, a revered Chicago priest. Monsignor Velo was a trusted assistant to Joseph Cardinal Bernardin and gave the famed homily at the Cardinal’s funeral Mass. Monsignor Velo went on to become the President of the Catholic Church Extension Society and is currently President of the Big Shoulders Fund while also serving as Senior Executive for Catholic Collaboration at DePaul University. The many friends and public who admire Monsignor Velo for his generous service made this one of the most successful dinners CTU has ever had. We were very pleased that newly-elected Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel also came to the dinner and spoke warmly of his friendship with Monsignor Velo.

Teaching and learning in the classrooms of CTU are at the heart of our mission as a graduate school of theology and ministry. But we believe that the many public events we host throughout the year are also part of our educational environment and keep CTU connected to the wider world that we are called to serve.

Threading Through Financial Challenges

The severe conditions in the US and world economies have called for special vigilance. In CTU’s case, the downturn in the market during the past two years affected our endowment investments, one of the major sources of ongoing support for the school. The frailty of the economy and so much unemployment also put a strain on our students. Many of our lay students, for example, were forced to reduce the number of hours of classes they could take in order to stretch out their tuition payments — which in turn made the school belt tighten to maintain our financial health. One step was to introduce some non-paid furlough days in the course of the fiscal year to help offset unanticipated losses in tuition income. Although faculty, being under contract, were exempt from these furlough days, virtually every one of our faculty freely contributed the same amount of compensation to the school in solidarity with our staff — a true sign of loyalty and generosity in difficult times.

I am very happy to say that these and other steps have helped CTU weather the economic storm without having to let go of any of our loyal faculty or staff! With the expert assistance of the Finance Committee of the Board, we have designed a path to ensure that we will continue to have a balanced operational budget going forward — as we have since the community organizer, artist, non-profit executive director, pastoral care director, education coordinator, director of religious beginning of the school — a proud and important record. And, I am also happy to report that during this period of economic stress for our country, your support to CTU has not only been maintained but has steadily grown! We are beyond the halfway point in a campaign to increase our scholarship support for lay students, a crying need in today’s economy. Through your support of that campaign we have raised more than $1,600,000 toward our goal! That generosity allows us to sustain and expand the mission of CTU at a time when the needs of our world for the message of the gospel are growing more acute. CTU’s balance sheet is very healthy, and we are committed to being good stewards. Thank you!

The Future

For the past year and a half, CTU has been preparing for its ten-year accreditation renewal visit from the Association of Theological Schools of the United States and Canada (ATS). In September 2011, five visitors from ATS spent time at CTU to examine every aspect of the school — from our curriculum and library to the condition of our facilities and the menus of our food service! The official protocol for this reaccreditation process also requires the preparation of a Self-Study document by the school that reviews the school in light of several key standards established by our accrediting agency. Over the last year, various committees and sub-committees — involving virtually all of our faculty and staff — have been at work putting this review together. It is a valuable, yet time-consuming, exercise. Reading through the report, I realized how blessed CTU has been: new facilities; a vibrant and dedicated faculty; eager and competent students from all parts of the globe; a circle of faithful and generous friends; and, above all, a sacred mission of preparing a new generation of men and women for a life of service — “for the sake of the world.” Thank you for being such a vital part of that impressive task.

Fr. Donald Senior, CP
President