Editor's note: Other letters about Anthony DePalma's
spring issue story "The Soul of University" are available
at www.nd.edu/~ndmag/sp2004/soulletters.html
Notre Dame
I took the old collegiate seminar ("A Death in the Curriculum")
under an infuriating fellow named Daniel Koob, even complained
to a dean about the demands and hated the required aggravations
. . . until about midyear, when I discovered I was breathing outside
the womb -- and wanted to be there! Basically, I had learned to
read -- not just the text at hand, but all texts, incorporating
both intellect and value base.
Research is mostly fine and good, though certainly it can easily
become an absurd little game. Give and take -- while wrestling
with lasting materials and vital issues -- is all that separates
education from trade school. All the research in all the schools
matters such a shallow swallow compared to the deep currents that
should never be left for "experts" to expose. We have too many
authorities but not enough thinkers.
Richard Mendola '74
Sagle, Idaho
After being mostly lectured to for three years as an undergraduate,
it was a pleasant experience my senior year to have a class, Great
Books Seminar, where we could actually have a discussion with
a professor and among ourselves. It cannot be that difficult to
train professors to teach seminars. It is not just the acquisition
of knowledge that is important. Students need to read more, think
more, discuss more, and be lectured to less.
Frank F. Tetlow '66
Pittsburgh
Anthony DePalma's article ("The Soul of a University") was an
elegy to the beauty of campus and to the outreach of priests.
Like him, I still miss the park-like setting, and I still remember
the kindness of administrators when my father died, too young,
while I was there. But Notre Dame's soul is not tied to its arboretum
or social outreach efforts; it is tied to its status as a Catholic
university. To be one, it must provide its students with the degrees
they seek and the lived example of how to grapple intellectually
with faith without losing hold of it. I learned -- by watching
my professors think -- how to reconcile thoughtfulness with Catholic
faithfulness. If the professors stop taking an interest in this,
then all the trees and priests in the world won't save Notre Dame
from losing its soul.
Jason Spak '95
Pittsburgh
It seems that an important question to ask when contemplating
academic excellence is, "To what extent do the common measures
of that excellence (for example, program rankings) reflect the
programs' impact upon the University's primary constituents, the
students?" If an improved ranking reflects a better educated student,
then it is a worthy goal. But if an important part of a Notre
Dame education is lost, as the author hints, then the measuring
stick is faulty. Perhaps America, and the church, needs a university
that educates fully the students who attend it, more than they
need another top-tier research institution that has sacrificed
its core, even unwittingly, for the sake of standards that we
will discover to be as insubstantial and empty as much of the
rest of American culture.
Michael T. Riley
Scottsdale, Arizona
Iraq
What a set of contradictions the spring issue presents! A letter
dismissing pacifism as a "fringe belief" is juxtaposed with a
report that beneath the Basilica's main altar are the bones of
Saint Marcellus, martyred for refusing military service. Then
Michael Baxter's Christmas mission of mercy and curiosity displays
the human face of a people, over a million of whom died of starvation
or disease as a consequence of U.S. sanctions that Madeleine Albright
insisted were "worth the price," living in fear of another U.S.
assault. By contrast, a graduate's account of his eager participation
in that war and another by a war-related accident victim displays
the characteristic military lack of any doubt that the war was
justified -- despite the unanimous view of church leaders that
it was not and despite our current appreciation that,
as Saddam Hussein had attested, he did not have WMD (the determinate
argument for the war), and that we had no compelling evidence
that he did. Finally, again by contrast, a moving account by a
survivor of the Baghdad U.N. headquarters bombing -- an abominable
act of violence (against good Samaritans) by any standard.
William H. Slavick '49, '51M.A., '71 Ph.D.
Portland, Maine
Reading the articles on Iraq made me proud I have been against
this unjust, unprovoked war which is based on lies and propagated
by a self-described "war president." How anyone could follow the
events occurring in Iraq and conclude that this war has anything
to do with its misnomer, "Operation Iraqi Freedom," is baffling.
Iraq is much worse off now, the region much less stable, and we
in the United States are much less safe now that Saddam Hussein
has been deposed. The Iraqi people are united against us while
more lives are being needlessly lost.
Regina Pakalnis, M.D., '77
Madison, New Jersey
Where were the peace activists during the '90s when Saddam was
murdering thousands of Kurds and Shiites? Why wasn't Michael Baxter,
CSC, selflessly demonstrating for peace and protection of victims
then in Iraq, or against the Taliban, or in Iran or Syria where
state torture and murder are routinely employed? His article affirms
what we all suspect: Peace activism is a cynical and politicized
form of anti-Americanism, plain and simple.
Michael S. O'Connor '78 Capt/MC/USNR
Cleveland, Ohio
(July 2004)
