By Gretchen Keiser

A new scholarship program for students in the Atlanta archdiocese is being linked to this weekend and future collections for the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Atlanta has been chosen for the debut of an experimental program by CUA to make partial tuition scholarships available to students whose parishes take part in “honor roll” giving to the university.

If a parish wants to participate, said Monsignor William Kerr, director of diocesan relations for Catholic University, they will ask for at least a one dollar contribution per person in the parish to the annual collection, coming up this Sunday, Sept. 16. Any parish that registers in this honor roll program will then be able to award a one-half tuition scholarship to a student who is going to attend Catholic University.

“We’re hoping primarily to have undergraduate students for scholarship,” said Monsignor Kerr, explaining the details of the program. But he acknowledged that it might be possible for a parish to apply the scholarship to graduate studies for someone pursuing higher studies in such programs as religion, religious education and Canon Law.

As of the fall of 1983, tuition costs at Catholic University were $6,250 a year for undergraduate study and for all graduate programs except engineering, architecture and law, which had higher tuition rates.

Catholic University, while intimately linked to the work of the church in the United States and North American, is a private, coeducational university with 10 schools, all with graduate or professional programs. The school began almost 100 years ago, in 1887, as the church needed a place to instruct priests, brothers and sisters. But it is now predominantly a school attended by lay people, who make up 93 percent of the student body. The university has about 7,000 students, with slightly more than 50 percent attending graduate school and the rest coming as undergraduates.

The “honor roll” program is designed to attract Atlanta students to the university and also to make CUA familiar to people in the archdiocese. “We want people to feel this is something we can take pride in," Monsignor Kerr said of the work of the university and its contributions to the church.

While Catholic University is the only school which benefits from an annual collection in American parishes, the funds provide only a fraction of the school'’ operating budget of $53 million. Normally the collection brings in about $3.5 to $4 million from around the country for the university. Last year the Atlanta archdiocese gave over $25,000 to the collection.

The schools of the University are Arts and Sciences, Education, Engineering and Architecture, Law, Library and Information Science, Music, Nursing, Philosophy, Religious Studies and Social Service.

Most critical to the American church are CUA’s graduate program in ecclesiastical studies, noted Father Edward Dillon, the officialis of the provincial Court of Appeals, handling appeal cases from the Tribunals of the Province of Atlanta. Father Dillon, who received his license in Canon Law from Catholic University, pointed out that the university is the only place in the United States where one can obtain a pontifical degree in Biblical studies or Canon Law, degrees which enable people to teach in Catholic seminaries and to be judges in diocesan Marriage Tribunals, where annulment cases are decided.

Under the new Code of Canon Law promulgated internationally by the Church, that license in Canon Law is now required for judges in Marriage tribunals, Father Dillon said. Over the last 15 years, students in the Canon Law program have increased in number from about 20 in 1969 to over 90 this year, he said, emphasizing that Catholic University’s critical role in the American church is often not understood or appreciated by Catholics.

However, Monsignor Kerr also said that Atlanta was chosen to be the first diocese for the “honor roll” program because it has had a supportive relationship historically with the school. Archbishop Thomas Donnellan was at one time a member of the board of trustees of Catholic University and is a "longtime friend” of the community, and that fact, combined with the support of a number of priests in the archdiocese, the university found to be a “great combination,” he said.