Campus Notes

Guest Article: Catholic Identity on Catholic College Websites

By Stephen F. Gambescia & Rocco Paolucci

(Editor’s note:  Stephen F. Gambescia is associate professor in the College of Nursing and Health Professions at Drexel University.  Rocco Paolucci is the education research director for the Open Learning Research Project of the Inter­learning Company LLC.  The Cardinal Newman Society asked Drs. Gambescia and Paolucci to provide the following excerpt from their important study of Catholic college and university websites, published in Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 2011, 3-27.)

Colleges’ websites have taken major supporting roles in communicating their mission, purpose, objectives, academic programs, and overall student experience.  Presumably, colleges that are ostensibly Catholic “express” this identity to all prospective and current students clearly and unambiguously.  The purpose of this study was to assess the nature and extent of ways in which U.S. Catholic colleges publicly explicate their Catholic identity through their official websites.

We identified seven markers — generally based on Ex corde Ecclesiae — that manifest Catholic identity on a Catholic college website.  These markers were then used as the yard stick to measure the websites of 206 Catholic colleges in the U.S. (includes all Catholic colleges except for seminaries).

Catholic on home page. The first marker is a statement on the home page that the college is currently “Catholic,” not simply historically Catholic. …

Affiliation with sponsoring Catholic identity. …whether the college explains on its webpage and ideally links from the home page (e.g., “History” or “About Us”) that there is active and significant sponsorship from a recognized Catholic religious order or Catholic diocese. …

Lead academic statement. …college should clearly state in what can be considered its major statement of academic purpose, goals, or objectives that students receive an education that is influenced by one or more of the following Catholic elements: Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic theology, Catholic Church doctrine and teachings, Catholic spirituality, and Catholic social justice. …

Human resources page. …whether the college clearly states in the jobs section or human resources section that the college is Catholic and expects that current and prospective employees, including faculty, will recognize and respect its mission and purpose. …

Catholic worship. …demonstrate that there is Catholic worship, devotions, sacramental opportunities… and such evidence or the link to evidence is no more than two clicks from the home page. …

Catholic social services. …demonstrate evidence of Catholic service, including opportunities to serve the poor and disadvantaged, service learning opportunities, formal programs to learn about and participate in social justice, and support of formal programs of Catholic-based volunteer corps …

Catholic heritage. …evidence of its Catholic heritage on its website by using photographs, images, or symbols that are clearly identified as Catholic…

Findings — 16 of the 206 colleges (7.7%) had all seven attributes present on their websites.  Seven of the colleges showed no attributes.  One-third of the colleges used five or more attributes.  About 47% of the colleges used fewer than four attributes.  On average, a Catholic college used 3.7 out of the 7 Catholic identity attributes identified for this study.

Almost 90% of the colleges gave great detail for the history of their sponsorship and evidence of contributions of the sponsorship was provided throughout many of the pages.  More than three-fourths (76.7%) of the colleges had an easy link to the campus ministry or spiritual life of the campus; students who want to be involved in Catholic faith-related activities would have an easy time in identifying these activities and know the people to contact.

However, the study found that more than 60% of the Catholic colleges did not use the qualifier “Catholic” on their home pages.  Using the term Catholic on the home page is certainly a clear and expeditious way of communicating this; most would expect that if a college is Catholic, then the Catholic identity would be front and center, so to speak.  Surprisingly, close to 60% of the colleges did not communicate the social or community service activities of the college.  Such activities are emphasized in most of the sponsoring entities’ mission statements, are often included in the mission of the college, and are usually a major part of campus ministry.

The primary mission of a college is the academic formation of a student.  If a college presents itself as Catholic, one would expect that the academic formation in some way has a Catholic imprint; that there is some treatment of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition.  This study reviewed the lead academic statements on colleges’ websites.  Again, it was surprising that 60% of colleges did not mention how their Catholicity would be integrated into academic programs.  The study also found that more than 70% of colleges had human resources pages making no attempt to communicate their Catholicity to prospective em­ployees.  Their human resources pages looked no different than that of secular colleges.

Senior administrators and boards of trustees of Catholic colleges should be acutely aware of how their Catholicity is explicated on their official college websites.  Individuals at high levels of responsibility should conduct close peri­odic reviews and revisions to their colleges’ websites to ensure that their Cath­olicity is clearly and unambiguously communicated to visitors of their websites.

(Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Dr. Stephen F. Gambescia at sfg23@drexel.edu or Dr. Rocco Paolucci at paolucci@interlearning.org.)