Catholic college leaders examine strengths, discuss challenges ahead

Published: 2006-02-10

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Catholic higher education leaders attending an annual gathering Feb. 4-6 in Washington were urged to take creative and confident approaches to their current and future challenges. "The challenges in higher education come to us, we don't have to look for them," Mary Lyons, president of the University of San Diego, told a group of about 200 Catholic university presidents, many of whom were nodding in agreement. Lyons, a panelist in a closing session at the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities meeting, urged her colleagues to face their challenges head-on. She likened the current mind-set in the nation and in Catholic higher education to a "hunker-down mentality" and the "21st-century equivalent of the duck-and-cover drills" of the 1950s in response to perceived security threats to the U.S. She said Catholic college presidents should not shrink back, even from "attacks within the family" and instead should "take up our mission with confidence."

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