New Notre Dame president pledges integration of academics, faith

Published: 2005-09-27

NOTRE DAME, Ind. (CNS) -- Pledging to integrate academic excellence and religious faith to make the University of Notre Dame "a great Catholic university for the 21st century," Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins became the university's 17th president Sept. 23. He is only the third Notre Dame president in 53 years, succeeding Holy Cross Father Edward Malloy, president since 1987. Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh was president from 1952 to 1987. Father Jenkins, 51, is a native of Omaha, Neb., and holds a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. Notre Dame's bylaws require that presidents be priests of the Indiana province of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the school's founding religious community. In his inaugural speech Sept. 23, Father Jenkins said he will be committed to making the university "a place of higher learning that plays host to world-changing teaching and research, but where technical knowledge does not outrun moral wisdom, where the goal of education is to help students live a good human life, where our restless quest to understand the world not only lives in harmony with faith but is strengthened by it."

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