Campus Notes

The National Catholic Register interviewed Dr. George Harne, the new president of The College of Saint Mary Magdalen, about his plans and hopes for the New Hampshire Catholic college.

When asked how he aims to fulfill his vision for the College, Dr. Harne said:

We begin by ensuring that the faith of our students will be strengthened rather than undermined while they are in college. All of our faculty are Catholic and take the Oath of Fidelity to the Catholic Church at the beginning of each year. All of our students take four years of catechesis while deepening and strengthening their faith in a community that strives to think with the mind of the Church and live according to the rhythms of the liturgical year.

In our academic program, we strive to integrate fully the strengths of the Great Books tradition … with the riches and intellectual discipline of the Catholic tradition, both the monastic tradition and that of the medieval universities. At the foundation of our education are the traditional seven liberal arts ordered to the highest considerations of philosophical and theological truth.

We also seek to be faithful to Ex Corde Ecclesiae (On Catholic Universities) and Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason). We seek to be faithful not only to the teachings of the Church, but also seek to help our students integrate their faith with the truth of the scientific and humanistic disciplines, so that they will have a unified and integrated vision of themselves, each other and the world.

Finally, we believe that a truly Catholic college is a place where students encounter Christ in the sacraments and live their faith in their relations with other students, faculty and staff. There must be an active effort on the part of the faculty and staff to ensure that the college is a place where the students can and do have that encounter.

Read the rest of the interview with Magdalen’s president here.

The College of Saint mary Magdalen is featured by The Cardinal Newman Society in The Newman Guide to Choosign a Catholic College for its strong Catholic identity.