On
June 1, 1987, the day he officially became the 16th president
of Notre Dame, Monk Malloy was more than half a world away, wrapping
up a three-day visit in the Tibetan city of Lhasa. Which is to
say he was on a 12,000-foot mountain in a part of the world so
remote that only a few years earlier U.S. travel agents were discouraging
travelers from going there. And he was feeling a lot better.
Two days earlier he had been feeling about as bad as an altitude-sickness
victim can feel. His symptoms included vomiting, diarrhea, nightmares
and an inability to concentrate. But the malady lasted only 24
hours, and he considered it "a small price to pay for seeing the
world," as he wrote later in a travel diary.
His presence in that corner of the world on a day when many
people in his shoes might have been celebrating on home turf says
much about the kind of man the Rev. Edward A. Malloy, CSC, is.
He considers the entire planet home turf, for one thing, and is
unimpressed by the trappings of power or celebrity, for another.
He had already had an early taste of celebrity, thanks to an
appearance on a 60 Minutes TV segment. En route to the
Far East, he was recognized in the Chicago, Seattle and Tokyo
airports by people who had seen the program. And to his astonishment,
it happened again in the gift shop of the Lhasa Holiday Inn.
This June Malloy '63, '67M.A., '69M.A., will complete 18 years
as president of the world's leading Catholic university. Over
that time he has visited more than 40 more foreign countries and
encountered a lot more celebrity, yet he remains pretty much the
same unassuming person he was in Lhasa.
If a film were to be made about the Malloy presidency, which
concludes this summer, it might aptly be titled The Quiet
Man. His administrative style is grounded in consensus and
collegiality, and his personal style is low key and unflappable.
Says Nathan O. Hatch, who has been provost of the University since
1996: "Monk does not initiate; you don't wait for him to tell
you what to do, you get moving and let him react to your proposals.
That's a certain style of leadership, and I would say it works
effectively at Notre Dame.
"Monk is not a politician," Hatch adds, "and he's not very calculating
-- sometimes to his detriment. He does not schmooze. The other
side of all that is a streak of virtue: He just is who he is."
Friends insist, however, that his calm demeanor masks an intense
competitiveness -- ask anyone who ever participated in Monk Hoops,
the late-night pickup basketball games he played with students
for years until he developed tendonitis in his shoulder and couldn't
shoot effectively. Of that moment he says, "I decided, why play
if I can't shoot?"
Shooting was one of Malloy's strengths on the court, says Jack
Burke '83, a Sorinite who played Monk Hoops two nights a week
during his four years at Notre Dame and credits that experience
with making him a first-team All-Bookstore player in his senior
year. "He was a great outside shooter, and he had a quick release,"
says Burke, now a consulting actuary at Milliman USA in Wayne,
Pennsylvania. "He was not shy about putting up shots. And he had
real good hands if you tried to drive around him. He was an intense
player in that he worked hard at it."
Both his competitiveness and his unflappability date to Malloy's
teenage years and his skills on the basketball court -- skills
that helped his team at Archbishop John Carroll High School in
Washington, D.C., to a 55-game winning streak and brought him
offers from more than 50 colleges. Malloy was a one-year varsity
letterman at Notre Dame. In a talk last fall to a Notre Dame class
in management and human behavior, he acknowledged: "My style as
a player was never to let on. If somebody beat you on a particular
play, you didn't let on that you were going to get him the next
time. Emotionally I'm very much engaged in what's happening. But
on the basis of my athletic experience, I do not manifest the
kind of quick emotional response.
"Coach Willingham and I have a lot in common in that way," he
added, drawing an appreciative laugh from the class. "We all have
our style, and with me it has nothing to do with indifference
or lack of enthusiasm. Watching games on TV by myself I'm very
vociferous. But that's not my style in public settings."
His style served him well in the days after he was chosen to
succeed Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, '39, the president who
personified Notre Dame to the world for 35 years. Malloy faced
two challenges: being perceived as a "jock president" because
of his athletic background, and following a legend.
As far as the "jock president" image was concerned, he simply
refused to play along. "I considered the fact that I was a basketball
player in school as a kind of interesting sidelight, or something
that made me stand out from the crowd," he says. "It's funny --
only in recent years when I've been more directly connected with
the NCAA have people seen me in the athletic world. Before that
it was just something curious about my background."
As for succeeding Hesburgh, Malloy seemed to slip easily into
his new role. Hesburgh helped out by disappearing from the campus
for the better part of his successor's first year. Malloy also
took full advantage of the nine-month period between being elected
president and taking office, using the interval to prepare for
the transition.
In an invited talk he gave a few years ago at Wake Forest University
entitled "Succeeding a Legend," he reminisced: "I would summarize
my overall condition of mind at the end of the transition period
. . . as confident I could get the job done but fully aware that
I would need to develop my own administrative style."
* * *
One morning in 1991, a group of about 100 black and Hispanic
students sat down outside the registrar's office and settled in
for a polite but determined confrontation with the University
over racial conditions. The sit-in group called itself Students
United for Respect, SUFR for short, and its demands included a
multicultural center on campus, compulsory African-American and
Latin-American courses, more minority faculty and a University
anti-harassment policy.
Malloy considers that one of the low points of his time in office.
"The hardest thing about SUFR," he says, "was that all my life
I had been an advocate for multicultural realities. I probably
took it more personally because I had tried to be an advocate
and supporter of some of the things they were trying to move forward.
But I think the way it played out was fine, and if you look at
where Notre Dame has come from that point, I think we've made
a lot of progress.
"This isn't to say that everything is hunky-dory," he adds,
"but my experience with the students who come here today is that,
whatever race they are, they are very well prepared. So they're
not asking this kind of 'should I be here?' question. There's
much more diversity. There's more interracial dating. There's
more support groups of various kinds."
Chandra Johnson '96 , an assistant to the president
and the assistant director of Cross-Cultural Ministry, agrees.
"We have created programs that help students hear from the top
down that they are valued," says Johnson, an African American
who believes her office in the president's suite makes her a visible
symbol of commitment from the top.
Like Malloy, she sees a change in the type of student coming
to Notre Dame. For one thing, she observes, "We have many more
biracial students. Each year the numbers of African-American students
grow, but now at least half are clearly biracial. The mindset
is, they don't necessarily see themselves as rejected or marginalized.
We are also getting a different kind of majority student, with
much more social sophistication.
"You still see a black table in the dining hall," she concedes,"
but now there are smatterings of white and Hispanic students --
roommates of black students -- who are part of the black-table
experience. We also have all kinds of alumni groups of color now."
The pains of implementing diversity were not the only low point
in Malloy's presidential years. Another came in 1999 when the
NCAA put the athletic program on two-year probation after finding
the Irish guilty of serious rules violations for the first time
ever.
"One of the hardest things for me," he says, "was the day on
which I handled all the media for four or five hours. I could
say, well, the penalty imposed upon us was not as severe as it
could have been if the violations were more egregious, but it
was still the first time and it was on my watch, and I had to
describe my version of what happened and what we were going to
do about it.
"One of the things that happens is that when they write your
obituary, it just naturally comes up because it got a fair amount
of publicity. I think we've made a lot of structural changes that
have been helpful," he says. "In terms of how it informs where
we are today, I don't think it informs very much of our awareness
of ourselves or anybody else's awareness of us. When people look
at us, they say, 'Here's a place that's running a clean program
and they're doing it right.'"
* * *
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Monk Malloy was still in
his room in Sorin Hall when the telephone rang. "Turn on the television,"
said his secretary, Joan Bradley.
Pausing only long enough to take in the horror of the unfolding
events, Malloy hurried to the Main Building and called together
the University officers and everyone else who reported directly
to him. They quickly decided to call off classes and declare a
day of prayer and reflection.
"We wanted to be in contact with the faculty, the staff, and
especially the rectors and staffs in the dorms," he has written
of that day. "We wanted to have convenient and comfortable places
for students to bring their cares and concerns, and we decided
that the dorms would be the best focal point. We also wanted to
mobilize the staff of the University Counseling Center, the staff
of Campus Ministry, and as many faculty as we could reach with
voice mail and Internet communications."
Hurriedly the group began planning for an afternoon Mass of
Remembrance. "Because it was a warm and sunny day, we chose the
South Quadrangle adjacent to the flagpole right next to the Law
School for the Mass," Malloy has written. "After lunch, I took
a long and slow walk around Saint Mary's Lake. I remember with
great vividness the sense of serenity that prevailed on campus.
The ducks were sleeping, there was almost no noise, and in the
far distance I could hear the tolling of the funeral bell in Sacred
Heart Basilica. It seemed such a contrast between that scene and
the ones I witnessed on television during the course of the day."
In his homily that afternoon he spoke of "the reality of evil,
the sense of tragic loss, the uncertainty about the future, and
our need for one another and for the living God." He invoked the
image of "the beautiful text that is suggested right below the
Sacred Heart Statue in front of the Main Building. It says Venite
ad me Omnes: 'Come To Me All You Who Are Weary And Heavy
Burdened And I Will Give You Rest, For My Yoke Is Easy And My
Burden Light.'"
He considers that as the most vividly memorable moment of his
presidency. "I was playing a presidential role and also a priestly
role, and the community was responding, and all the things we
try to cultivate here were manifest that day. It happened quickly
and everybody pulled together, and anyone who was there will never
forget being a part of the day."
Another traumatic moment occurred on January 24, 1992, when
a bus carrying the women's swim team home from a meet overturned
on the Indiana Toll Road, killing two students, ages 19 and 20,
and temporarily paralyzing a third. Another tragedy occurred in
2003 when a freshman student went missing before finals and was
later found drowned in the Saint Joseph River. Such moments, painful
as they are, "also show how we pull together," he says.
* * *
Notre Dame is a startlingly different place than it was in 1987
when Monk Malloy took office (see chart).
From operating budget to endowment to research funding, the
numbers have rocketed. The profile of students gets headier each
year, and you often hear campus old-timers confess they're glad
they're not trying to enter the University today, given the level
of competition. Two-thirds of all undergraduates now enjoy some
measure of financial aid, and the school pledges to meet students'
full need. This means Notre Dame could appeal to more star students
who might formerly have ended up at a Harvard or a Duke or a Stanford
because of their attractive aid packages. Female students now
make up almost half of the undergraduate head count, and more
than one in five students belongs to an ethnic minority.
Pick any other benchmark and the contrast is equally impressive:
Library volumes are nearly double, endowed chair holders have
quadrupled, and new construction has been relentless. An entire
new quad stands where cars used to park on football weekends,
a new cluster of residence halls is located on part of the original
golf course, and 20,000 more seats fill the stadium.
Administrative colleagues call Malloy an intelligent and empowering
leader who is not always comfortable in large settings but can
mesmerize donor groups with his vision of what Notre Dame can
be and how his listeners can help make that vision real.
"He quietly and consistently leads by example," says Louis M.
Nanni '84, '88M.A., vice president for university relations. "For
18 years he has lived in a dorm with a sofa that doubles as his
bed and only about three feet between the bed and his desk --
it's almost like a hermitage. And he teaches a class for first-year
students. Talk about having your president model a commitment
to undergraduate education."
Sorin senior Jeremy Staley thinks it's kind of neat to have
the president living in his dorm. "He has a welcome sign on his
door, handwritten, and anybody can drop in. After one of the games
this fall when the mass exodus from the stadium reached Sorin,
I noticed he was lined up to get in the building like everyone
else. Each August right after the semester starts he invites all
the Sorin freshmen to his office in the Main Building for pizza.
It was kind of a strange experience for me, eating pizza where
administrators and trustees usually meet."
With the exception of his inaugural year, Malloy has taught
a seminar course throughout his presidency. The classes meet for
two and a half hours on Sunday evenings and pursue a common theme:
"The Stories of Peoples and Cultures." As his syllabus this fall
noted: "By employing eight novels and two films, we will attempt
to understand human persons and social groups from a variety of
historical and cultural settings. . . . Our goal is to seek insight
and understanding in a world undergoing rapid change and troubled
by conflict and hostility."
Among the books assigned were Nikolai Gogol's Taras Bulba
and Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies Detective
Agency. The films included Monsoon Wedding and In
America. This spring will mark the 34th semester he has taught
the seminar, and only once has he used a book or movie more than
one time.
Marie-Christine Luijckx, a present-day senior who took the seminar
in autumn 2001 as a freshman, remembers being "a little nervous
at first" when she found herself in a class taught by the University's
president. "But he was very open and we all felt comfortable pretty
quickly," she says. Claire Kelley, another freshman that fall,
thought the name Malloy sounded sort of familiar when she received
her seminar assignment. She asked her father, an '80 grad, if
he knew the name "and he was really excited."
Kelley remembers Malloy as a good discussion leader with a great
appreciation for literature and a sense of humor: "We were laughing
a lot," she says. But more than the laughter she recalls an eerie
coincidence just before September 11. The previous week's reading
was On the Beach, a 1957 novel by Nevil Shute about an
attack on America, a misdirected response, and a nuclear exchange
that wiped out life in the northern hemisphere. "Our class discussion
on Sunday focused around a hypothetical scenario in which New
York was attacked," Kelley says. Then came Tuesday's morning horror
and the afternoon Mass on the quad, and she couldn't help thinking
about Sunday's class. "I was so shaken up," she says.
Malloy rations his time judiciously but is generous with it.
He has chaired or participated in dozens of educational organizations
such as the American Council on Education and the International
Federation of Catholic Colleges. He serves on the boards of Vanderbilt
University (where he earned his Ph.D.), the universities of Portland
and Saint Thomas, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. "When
he makes commitments to such organizations," says Lou Nanni, "he
really delivers."
One cause he feels strongly about is CASA, the National Center
on Addiction and Substance Abuse, located at Columbia University.
Says CASA President Joseph A. Califano Jr., a former U.S. secretary
of Health Education and Welfare: "When we first started CASA I
called Father Hesburgh, whom I knew from the Johnson administration,
and told him I wanted him to chair a commission. He said Monk
is the man, and I called Monk and he immediately agreed. He is
clearly more concerned and knowledgeable in this whole area of
smoking, drinking and drug abuse than any other college president."
Califano recently added Malloy to CASA's board.
Among internal constituencies, Father Malloy is particularly
attentive to University alumni and goes out of his way to make
appearances at alumni clubs and functions. Alumni office records
show he has spoken at more than 100 Universal Notre Dame events
-- and the records are incomplete.
* * *
It was April Fool's Day 2001 in Saint Louis when the women's
basketball team, after a come-from-behind win over Connecticut
in the semifinal game, beat Purdue by two points to claim the
NCAA championship. As the 68-66 final tally lit up on the scoreboard,
Monk Malloy, in an uncharacteristic burst of exuberance, bounded
onto the court and hugged coach Muffet McGraw.
"That was a program that went from nothing to filling the fieldhouse
and then actually winning the championship," he enthuses as he
recalls one of his favorite presidential moments. Another joyful
moment was winning the national football championship in 1988.
"Being on the field at the Fiesta Bowl was great fun," he says.
Malloy's connection to athletics these days is largely through
roles with the NCAA; he is currently chair of a task force on
gambling by athletes. Myles Brand, president of the NCAA and a
former president of Indiana University, calls him "a leader who
always takes the moral high ground." Citing an anecdote he calls
typical, Brand recalls a meeting last spring aimed at seeking
a memorandum of understanding regarding the Bowl Championship
Series. "I was facilitating, and there was one president from
each conference and Notre Dame," says Brand. "We were stuck. Monk
hadn't said much during the meeting, and all of a sudden he volunteered
a solution, saying 'this is the right thing to do.'"
Malloy had urged the presidents to find a compromise among their
contending positions on the complex bowl formula. As he recalls
the meeting, "I tried to remind them what was at stake and how
we all had to be concerned with the future well-being of intercollegiate
football. I suggested that there was enough suspicion and concern
about the behavior of student-athletes and coaches, not to speak
of athletic administrators, and that we didn't need to be perceived
as driven by self-interest."
When he took office in 1987, Malloy had an agenda for his presidency,
and as the end of his term nears he ticks the items off with a
certain satisfaction. First and foremost was his determination
to preserve the University's Catholic mission and identity: "If
I failed in that and succeeded in all the rest, I would not feel
I had done a good job." Among other goals were maintaining the
tradition of excellent teaching, building up the graduate schools
and the research environment, promoting diversity, expanding Notre
Dame's international character, creating and maintaining good
town-gown relations, nurturing residential life, balancing budgets
and having success at fund raising. Looking back he says, "The
thing I feel best about is that we've been able to do multiple
things simultaneously. As far as I was concerned they're all important."
Nathan Hatch, who joined the faculty in 1975, has detected no
discontinuity between the Hesburgh and Malloy years. "I see us
on an evolutionary course to building a great Catholic university,"
he says, "one that nurtures the tradition of great undergraduate
teaching and establishes a new trajectory of research; one that's
not self-referential but can compare itself with the top 25 schools;
and one that's distinctive in its Catholic mission. If you look
back over Monk's time, we're better at all three of those things."
The research-teaching debate has been a perennial issue over
at least three decades, particularly among Notre Dame alumni who
earned undergraduate degrees. Hatch insists that the current emphasis
on research is nothing new. "When I came here, I was expected
to teach well and do first-rate research," he points out. "There
was a time when some people saw research and undergraduate education
as inversely related. My philosophy is, you build both."
* * *
It was in on a mountaintop in Aguascalientes, Mexico, that Malloy
began to think seriously about the priesthood. He was there on
a summer service project between his junior and senior years at
Notre Dame. "There was a period that summer when I was by myself,
and I just had this sense of certitude that I was being called
to the priesthood," he recalls. "I decided to pursue it, and I
applied to Holy Cross."
The Rev. E. William Beauchamp, CSC, '75J.D., '81M.Div., who
for 13 years was Notre Dame's executive vice president and now
is president of the University of Portland, says Malloy's priesthood
is at the very core of his being: "He is first and foremost a
priest. He didn't aspire to be a college president, or even desire
it. It was the fact that he was serving Holy Cross that made the
difference."
Malloy echoes that insight. "The only reason I became president
was because of the Holy Cross priests," he says, "and I think
the role we have played and continue to play is a very essential
one. It's very much a part of my sense of what makes Notre Dame
special. Unlike some religiously affiliated schools, we've been
able to sustain that connection to the founding religious community."
On July 1, at age 64, Malloy will turn the keys of office over
to another Holy Cross priest, Father John I. Jenkins, CSC, '76,
'78M.A., who was chosen last spring by the trustees to become
the 17th president of Notre Dame. Malloy probably won't be in
Tibet then, though he is looking forward to a sabbatical.
But that doesn't mean he'll vanish for a year the way his predecessor
did. "What I intend to do is be in and out," he says. "I want
to have an operative office, and I want to continue working on
writing and other projects. When I come back I'll teach. I've
thought about teaching a course in biography and autobiography,
and I'd like to teach a course in leadership and maybe a course
in higher education.
"I have a lot I want to learn, a lot of things I want to pursue,"
he adds, "and the older I get the more I'm interested in a wider
variety of things. I don't have any limitations on the things
I want to know."
Walt Collins is a former editor of this magazine.
(January 2005)
