Academic literature on the topic 'Catholic colleges'

More than forty Irish colleges were established in France, Spain, Portugal, the Italian States and the Austrian Empire between the 1580s and 1690s to cater for a diverse range of Irish Catholic students and priests who had travelled to the continent to pursue higher education. The colleges were a significant feature of Irish Catholicism, most obviously in the early modern period, and they have therefore attracted substantial attention from historians. The first modern attempts to write their histories appeared in the later nineteenth century and were heavily influenced by a Rankean emphasis on primary sources, as well as contemporary Irish Catholic nationalism. If the dominant historiography of the period emphasized the persecution of the ‘penal era’, then the existence of a network of Irish colleges producing redoubtable clergy for the Irish mission helped to explain how the Catholic Church survived in Ireland. In this paradigm, the production of priests was the main role bestowed on the colleges. This essay examines the foremost early historian of the colleges, and of the viewpoint just oudined, the Vincentian priest and superior of the Irish College in Paris, Patrick Boyle. In 1901 he produced the first book-length history of an Irish college: The Irish College in Paris from 1578 to 1901.

AbstractThe function of the first women’s colleges in the USA is singled out. They expanded opportunities for women to get higher level of education, taking into account the fact that at that time women were not allowed to enter higher education establishments on equal footing with men. Some structural peculiarities of the first women’s colleges are viewed. By educational level colleges for women in that period were subdivided into two-year colleges, four-year colleges and universities. Financing peculiarities of the first women’s colleges in the USA are analysed. According to the source of financing colleges were private and public. The factors that led to the development of women’s education are analysed. Insufficient number of teachers in schools and widespread printed literature led to the need of involvement women in higher education. Teachers thought that intellectual abilities of men and women were equal, because women were not in social deprivation, and should participate fully in the life of civil society after obtaining knowledge in educational institutions. Due to scientific and technological revolution a number of devices that allow women to save time for economic affairs was worked out and, in turn, for this reason women could focus more on gaining knowledge for mastering future profession. The goals of women’s colleges establishment are analysed. Some teachers tried to train teachers, taking into account the shortage of teachers in schools due to expansion of the school network. Other teachers tried to give scientific and religious education and improve health of girls. The third group of teachers wanted to teach women self-education. The specifics of functioning of the first ɋatholic women’s colleges is analysed. Catholic leaders raised the question of expanding the network of Catholic women’s collegei due to insufficient number of religious teachers who have had some education level, because of the inability of church leaders to leave the church for educational services in colleges. In the USA, a peculiar feature of teaching in Catholic colleges was that the purpose of providing educational services was not only the development of intellectual abilities and training for future careers, but also spiritual development of students, which is the foundation of the Catholic faith.

Catholic schools and colleges are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain and sharpen their distinctiveness in a climate of secularism, indifference to religion and the shortage of practising Catholics. This article argues that one method of bolstering Catholic schools’ mission integrity is to highlight one important feature of its identity – theological anthropology – and shows how curriculum delivery outside Religious Education syllabuses might contribute to its teaching. I take examples from two popular set texts in A-level English Literature to highlight how they might be used creatively to stimulate discussion of a defining feature of personhood within the Christian tradition, imago Dei.

This paper challenges the idea that harmonious relations prevailed amongst Bath's various religious denominations during the ‘Age of Reform’, from the 1820s to the 1860s. It reveals instead that the public expression of anti-Catholic opinion was a regular feature of the city's political scene in this period. An anti-Catholic ‘crusade’, directed against such local targets as Prior Park and Downside colleges, and ‘Popery’ in general, was sustained by a variety of local organizations and national organizations that had branches in Bath, as well as prominent Tory activists resident in the city. Many Irish-born evangelical clergymen played a prominent role in this crusade. It is not surprising, given the prominence of Irish clergymen in Bath's anti-Catholic movement, that protests against the state endowment of Maynooth College were popular with the city's anti-Popery activists; furthermore, several proselytizing organizations whose principal aim was the conversion of Ireland's Catholics to the Protestant faith had a permanent base in Bath. The perceived iniquitous effects of ‘Popery’ in Ireland formed part of the anti-Catholic crusade's propaganda message. While the anti-Popery cause appealed particularly to the city's Church of England community, with many of its clergymen and prominent lay Anglicans to the fore of the anti-Catholic agitation, it attracted support from all sections of Protestant society.

While many believe that service should be connected to the religious identity of Catholic colleges and universities, little research has been done to see if this is in fact the case. To test this commonly-held belief, we surveyed students at and gathered information about twenty-six different Catholic campuses in the United States. We find no correlation between students’ frequency of service and their perception of Catholic identity. In addition, we find that students perceive their school to be less Catholic the more institutions link service to Catholicism. The only characteristic of service that is positively correlated with Catholic identity is the percentage of service learning courses offered. In other words, students do not see anything intrinsically Catholic about volunteering, but rather that Catholicism means that you should volunteer more. We believe this suggests how Catholic colleges and universities can link service to their Catholic identity.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the roles that college supervisors perform in the Field Experience programme with particular reference to the Field Experience programme in a Catholic College of Education. Through clarification of the roles it was expected that the effectiveness of college supervisors would be improved resulting in a more efficient and productive Field Experience programme at the institution concerned. The overall aims of the study were: (1) to clarify the roles of college supervisors (2) to improve the quality of the Field Experience programme (3) to give the programme more meaning in the teacher education course at the College concerned and (4) to make it clear to participants in such a programme that there is an important role for college supervisors to play. The study involved the co-operation of 62 student teachers, 45 classroom teachers (country and city) and 10 college lecturers (totalling 117). A questionnaire was designed on the basis of discussions with Field Experience participants, on a survey conducted the previous year, and on an open-ended survey conducted immediately after the mid-year Block Practicum. The final questionnaire was then distributed to 82 student teachers (75.5% return), 76 classroom teachers (58.5% return) and 11 college lecturers (90% return). The study made use of earlier work by Waters (1973) and also by Duck and Cunningham (1985). In the study, student teachers, classroom teachers and college lecturers were surveyed by means of a questionnaire to rate the frequency with which specific supervisory tasks (already identified in a pilot study) were performed. This involved rating each of the supervisory tasks twice; firstly rating , the 'actual' occurrence of the task and secondly by rating the 'ideal' occurrence of the task. Results of the study showed that there are differences of perception surrounding role expectations for college supervisors and that these roles require clarification. What were perceived to be the roles for and the behaviour of college supervisors contrasted with what was actually exhibited. Students and teachers (country and city) perceived college supervisors to be actually performing an Evaluator role; while lecturers perceived a Manager role. The 'ideal' role for college supervisors was perceived by all respondent groups to involve the functions and tasks of Manager. The degree of role conflict present indicates that follow-up measures deserve consideration and clarification and that orientation and learning programmes need to be conducted for all Field Experience participants in order to give the Field Experience programme more significance and to improve its overall effectiveness. A result of the study and one which could be emphasised in order to improve the quality of the programme was the indication of 'desirable' and 'undesirable' characteristics of college supervisors who were involved in the Field Experience programme at the College concerned. These results were similar to the earlier work of Beer et al. (1983) and were indicated by' the use of openended comments being included at the conclusion of the questionnaire. These comments concerned the personal and professional characteristics of college supervisors and together with this author's work could form the basis of further study as a step towards increasing the efficiency of Field Experience programmes.

Thesis (Ed.D.) -- Teachers College, Columbia University, 1991.
Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Thomas Leemon. Dissertation Committee: Mary Mowrey-Raddock. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-112).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2007.
Title from file title page. Philo Hutcheson, committee chair; Mary Deming, Sheryl Gowen, Christine Coley, committee members. Electronic text (116 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Oct. 6, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-112).

The small cemetery is all that remains ofthe Snow Kirk! in Old Aberdeen. The church itself fell into ruin in the eighteenth century having been used bythe Catholic community since the Reformation? The churchyard, however, continued to be used ' for Catholic burials into the twentieth century. Two wall plaques record the burial there ofthe brothers, John and James Sharp both priests who had worked on the mission in Scotland for many years? The funeral monuments attest to their piety and in John's case state that he hadbeen educated at the colleges at Scalan in Upper Glenlivet and Valhido'lid in Spain.4 Praise follows for his great learning and for his personal culture and manners:s the implicatIOn being that he owed these qualities to .. his education at the colleges. It is particularly charming that,the epitaph pll\~es equal emphasis on learning and urbanity. He had been trained at a Scots College abroad in the penal times when it was illegal to receive such an education in Scotland. While his . . memorial tablet commemorates his achievements the majority of Scots Catholics who attended the colleges abroad during the penal times have gone unrecorded.6 This dissertation will attempt to identify those students who through their contributions to cultural life of Scotland and elsewhere deserve greater academic attention. Historians have written on aspects of Catholic history during these times. Alphons Bellesheim7 , J F S Gordon8 and William Forbes-Leith9 have produced histories ofthe Catho~.ic Church in Scotland. Their accounts, though ofgreat value, are more than a century old with consequent short-comings. Bellesheim, the German historian, wrote his four volumes on the history ofthe Church in Scotland from the earliest times. Volume 4 deals with post-Reformation history and concentrates on missionary work, particularly that of the Jesuits, in Scotland. The style is anecdotal and his approach is hagiographical. Gordon wrote his history in anticipation of the reestablishment ofthe Scottish hierarchy in 1878. The main part of his text is devoted to ', supporting this and the Penal Times are covered only in an extensive foreword in which he attempts a broad sweep ofthe subject and like Bellesheim relies heavily on unreferenced source material. Both ofForbes-Leith's major works are heavily dependent on the accounts ofthe troubles of Catholic individuals from the late sixteenth to the eighteenth century. In nature they are family histories dominated by a small number ofnorthern families including:tJordon, Forbes and Leith. In all these histories passing reference is made to the Scots colleges abroad but no asse~~mentof their impact is attempted. More recently Mark DilworthlO , Maurice Taylorll and Brian M Halloranl2 have produced histories of individual Scots colleges and an anthology ofessays on the Pontifical Scots College in Rome was produced to' celebrate its 400th anniversary.13 The Innes Review continues to produce scholarly articles on many aspects of Scottish CathoIicism.14 However, the vast majority ofthese accounts are focused exclusively on religious matters as is unsurprising since almost all ofthe historians involved are ordained priests, secular and regular, and therefore writing from a professional or vocational perspective. IS The impact ofthe Scots Catholic colleges in Europe during ,' this period has not yet been addressed as a whole, either in terms ofsecular history or ofthe wider influence ofthe alumni ofthe colleges. This dissertation has two foci. The first is a statistical analysis ofthe prosopographical information contained in the college registers ofstudents. Together with other archival material this gives a view ofpatterns of attendance and trends sustained over time. The main details covered with regard to the students are age, family background (social and occupational), geographical origin and relationships with wider Catholic and Scottish networks. This is all original work based on primary sources.16 The last comprehensive review ofthis college material was organised by P J Anderson17 more than a century ago and consisted ofthe assembly ofprimary material without translation or analysis. More recent attempts at prosopography have been those ofHalloran (a partial reconstruction ofthe missing Paris college records) . and Dilworth (a listing ofthe known members ofthe Wiirzburg Schottenkloster). In neither case was any analysis ofthe data attempted. My data base ofstudents was produced after rigorous examination or re-examination of original college archival material surviving in Scotland and on the continent. Wherever possible corroborative cross referencing was made with other archives - particularly those ofthe Society of Jesus18 and the Congregation ofPropaganth'FideJ9 in Rome - and therefore represents a significant advance on any earlier work attempted in the field.• , A second focus ofthe dissertation is on the cultural impact that the colleges achieved through their alumni. In the compass of a doctoral dissertation it is simply impossible to give a full account of the cultural or political activities ofso many individuals active over such a geographical area and a span ofcenturies. The overview attempted is only indicative ofthe scope and degree of influence achieved and in no way intended to be comprehensive or definitive. It is supported quantitatively, however, by the statistical analysis ofthe data base which establishes the minimum numbers of Scottish alumni active in various fields such as the Church, military and state service, commerce, academic research, humanities, art and architecture A number ofthe most famous students ofthe colleges have been evaluated .already as contributors to their own field of endeavour either in biographies21 or within general histories.22 In each case they have been treated as individuals with little suggestion that they belonged to a corpus ofalumni that benefited from the unique privileges which attendance at a Scots college conferred. This omission becomes more regrettable when an assessment is made ofthe other students ofthe colleges in more than two centuries who have escaped the attention of historians or have received only the most peremptory ofaccounts. In a preliminary way this dissertation attempts to sketch some ofthe connections which emerge when these individuals are viewed in context. Again the constraints of space have limited the background which I have been able to provide. What is offered is inte.tfded only to aid the reader in having some .A sense ofthe world in which the Scots alumni existed. It is in .no way . primar;:.to the dissertation or fundamental to its purpose or claims. In my researches I have had access to a number of archives of primary materials. As well as those ofthe Jesuits and Propaganda Fide already mentioned were the MadridlValladolid College (now in Salamanca) and the Roman College: also the Archivio Segreto Vaticano and Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana were examined for relevant material. The University of WUrzburg kindly allowed me access to surviving manuscripts from that city's Schottenkloster. I have made extensive use ofthe Scottish Catholic Archives in Edinburgh and found valuable material in the Special Collections ofthe University ofAberdeen and in the City ofAberdeen's archives.. ,. The methodology which I have adopted in constructing this dissertation is to have discussed in order the following: the founding ofthe colleges; the basis oftheir academic success; the numbers and backgrounds ofstudents who attended; their contributions to the Catholic mission in Scotland; further contributions to the wider Catholic Church; those alumni who took up significant positions in Military or State service; those who were prominent in scholarly or academic life; and those noted for scientific, business or.artistic excellence. In all cases, where relevant, statistical analysis ofthe data base has been used to support any conclusions drawn. One more point requires to be made in this preface: to declare my personal viewpoint. By confession I am a Catholic, Scottish but ofIrish ancestry. This has driven much ofmy interest in this research but I have striven to avoid it colouring my objectivity. I sta~ed the research in a state of almost complete ignorance and was driven by curiosity which only intensified the more I learned. If! have weighed evidence more lightly or exaggerated outcomes more than a totally objective commentator from a wholly secular background might have done then in my defence I might claim that I have done no more than partially to rectify the imbalance shown by past historians in their almost total neglect or denial ofthe substantial contributions to cultural developments achieved by the Scots Colleges abroad.

This study investigated the methods of professional development used for institutional mission education, the role of the senior student affairs officer in delivering professional development, and the frequency of mission education that entry-level staff receives within the Division of Student Affairs at Catholic colleges and universities. The targeted population for the study encompassed senior student affairs officers (SSAOs) working in student affairs at Catholic colleges and universities within the United States.

The study found that prior knowledge and understanding of institutional mission is important for new entry-level student affairs practitioners to join the Catholic college or university student affairs community. The study also categorized common strategies of education for institutional mission into two subgroups: formal and collaborative. Finally, the research study found that there were no institutional characteristics that were significantly linked to institutional mission education training for new student affairs staff. However research results showed a slight difference in that institutions with Offices of Mission offered mission training with greater frequency than institutions without an Office of Mission.

In the Apostolic Constitution, Ex corde Ecclesiae, John Paul II states that the Catholic university and college is a human institution wherein the members critically assist in the on-going promotion of human dignity and cultural heritage through the three-fold missions of teaching, researching, and providing various pastoral services. Moreover, the members perform these tasks, imbued with the Christian spirit and inspired with the Gospel values in order to "assure in an institutional manner a Christian presence in the university world confronting the great problems of society and culture." In short, the institution marks the confluence of two streams within a Catholic academic environment--culture and religion. Church legislation has remained neither silent nor irrelevant on the question of Catholic higher education. In fact, the 1983 Code of Canon Law devotes several canons of related issues pertinent to these institutions. It does not, however, systematically address the critical topic of church-related educational institutions with respect to religiously-owned universities and colleges and their canonical status. Instead, in a more general way, the 1983 Code introduces new and broader options for canonical status, including the public and private juridic person and the public and private associations of the faithful with or without juridic personality. Consequently, at the heart of this dissertation lies the issue of canonical status of religiously-owned federated Catholic universities and colleges in Canada; the crux of the matter is the precise determination of and alteration to that canonical status, given the broader designations in the 1983 Code. Accordingly, based on the presumption that tracing the titles to property of religiously-owned educational institutions is the truest indicator of its present canonical status, this dissertation undertakes a canonical investigation into the titles to property of the Basilian-owned, Canadian federated Assumption University at Windsor, Ontario. Selecting and properly applying an option, if appropriate, presents innovative ways to direct various educational institutions within particular settings and under different governance models, while ensuring, among other concerns, the protection against exposure to civil and canonical liabilities of church-related institutions and the on-going mission of the Catholic university.

This research study analyzed the results of the Jesuit Universities Consortium in comparison with the results of the Catholic Colleges and Universities and the Council for Christian Colleges Consortia as measured by the 2005 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) in order to determine and identify any statistically significant differences between the consortia. One-way ANOVA analyses and Tukey HSD post hoc comparisons were conducted on the data from freshmen/first year students and seniors/fourth year students on each of the five clusters of the NSSE to determine any statistically significant difference and, subsequently, the effect size of any found differences. The study found that there were statistically significant differences on the following: 1) freshmen/first year students in the Jesuit Universities Consortium and the freshmen/first year students in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities Consortium on the NSSE cluster of Academic Challenge, 2) freshmen/first year students in the Jesuit Universities Consortium and the freshmen/first year students in the Catholic Colleges and Universities Consortium on the NSSE cluster of Enriching Educational Experiences, 3) freshmen/first year students in the Jesuit Universities Consortium and the freshmen/first year students in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities Consortium on the NSSE cluster of Supportive Campus Environment, 4) seniors/fourth year students in the Jesuit Universities Consortium and the seniors/fourth year students in the Catholic Colleges and Universities Consortium on the NSSE cluster of Active and Collaborative Learning, and 5) seniors/fourth year students in the Jesuit Universities Consortium and the seniors/fourth year students in both of the Catholic Colleges and Universities and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities Consortia on the NSSE cluster of Supportive Campus Environment. While statistically significant differences were found in the aforementioned analyses, effect sizes were small for all. Future research studies, including longitudinal studies, are needed to fully investigate levels of student engagement within the three consortia.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 1999.
Abstract and vita. "The goal of this thesis-project is to assist campus ministers in the initial stages of the formation of multicultural faith communities ..."--Introd. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 177-187).

Petitions to reject controversial speakers from college campuses would have little effect unless administrators were willing to formally disinvite speakers. So, why are administrators responsive to some movements to exclude certain perspectives from campus and not others? This paper attempts to answer this question through an empirical study of 349 speaker disinvitation attempts on 218 U.S. colleges and universities from 2000 to 2017. I use an original data set with information sourced from the Foundation for Individual Rights and U.S. News and World Report to determine what factors predict a successful formally rescinded invitation. My findings suggest that the forum of the speech, the petitioner type, and speaker type may predict the success of an attempt to disinvite a speaker from college campuses. My empirical results showed that conservative protests are better predictors of success than liberal protests. This paper addresses class bias and complacency with the academic culture in religious institutions as the main influencers causing pundits to ignore free speech politics at less selective, non-secular American colleges and universities.

A great many Catholic colleges existed in the United States at the opening of the twentieth century. Exactly how many it is impossible to say with certainty because any answer presupposes agreement on the answer to a prior question: “What should be counted as a college?” The Catholic Directory for 1900 listed 10 universities, 178 “colleges for boys,” 109 seminaries, and 662 “academies for girls.” According to this count, there were no Catholic women’s colleges at that time, although the College of Notre Dame of Maryland graduated its first baccalaureate class in 1899 and is included among the 128 colleges for women listed in U.S. Commissioner of Education’s Report for 1899-1900. The same Report, however, listed only 62 Catholic institutions among the 480 included under the heading: “Universities and colleges for men and for both sexes.” No doubt some Catholic colleges simply failed to provide the information necessary to appear in the Commissioner’s Report. But their failure to do so is in itself significant; and even assuming that is what happened, it still leaves an enormous gap between the Commissioner’s figures and the 188 colleges and universities reported in the Catholic Directory. Moreover, many of the “colleges for boys” could, with equal justice, have been called academies, since elementary- and secondary-level students made up the majority of their student bodies. As the case of Notre Dame of Maryland indicates, Catholic “academies for girls” were beginning to upgrade themselves to collegiate status. Had the word college been more freely applied to non-Catholic institutions for women at an earlier date, a good many of these academies would probably have called themselves colleges long before, for they did not differ all that much from the “colleges for boys” in terms of curricular offerings and age-range of students. While the situation of Catholic institutions was particularly murky, the question “What makes a college a college?” engaged the attention of practically everyone involved in secondary and collegiate education at the turn of the century.

Like other Catholic communities in Protestant jurisdictions, the Dutch had their own early modern collegial network. The early modern Dutch state is commonly known as a Protestant bulwark from which the Catholics were by and large expelled. However, due to the efforts of the Catholic Reformation and the reluctance of many Dutch to embrace Calvinism in its orthodox variety, Dutch Catholicism managed to survive on a rather large scale, though often with a particular colour marked by lay power and imbued with Jansenism, a rigid variety of Catholic theology rather similar to orthodox Calvinism. Whereas Catholic elementary education continued to be provided in private schools, Catholic colleges and universities, as public institutions, were not allowed in the Dutch Republic. During two centuries Dutch Catholics, at least the militant among them, had to go abroad for their secondary and higher education. Foreign colleges played a major role in their education and intellectual debates: the Dutch colleges of Cologne, Dole, Douai and Rome remained faithful to the Old Church, whereas those of close-by Louvain were the breeding-ground of Jansenism. Significant numbers of Dutch students went to other Catholic universities, at Reims in France, at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, or at different German universities. The Jansenist schism of 1723 led to the creation of the Old Catholic Church with its own college at home, at Amersfoort, tolerated by the Dutch authorities. The scale of the Catholic communities posed a multi-confessional challenge for the Dutch. This was overcome by a high level of official connivance, permitting the tacit creation of Catholic teaching institutions on a private basis, including some small colleges, and the organization of Catholic confraternities at the public universities. Similarly, the Calvinist ‘regents’ mostly closed their eyes to the stream of Catholic students towards foreign colleges in spite of their repeated interdiction by the States-General. This essay will look at four educational strategies adopted by Dutch Catholics to ensure their survival as a confessional community.

Groups were underrepresented in the mainstream either because they chose a separate identity or were discriminated against, or both. Roman Catholics were the largest outsider religious group, mainly by choice. A major Catholic Foundation at the University of Illinois drew rebuke from authorities for undercutting Catholic schools. Among Protestants, many supported smaller denominational colleges. Fundamentalists mostly chose their own institutions. Women remained in ambiguous positions; they were included in state universities, but not in the Ivy League, and often had their own colleges. African Americans were strongly discriminated against. Howard was the only true African American university. Christianity played a considerable role at most African American colleges and universities. Jews founded Yeshiva College and Brandeis University, but most were eager to assimilate into mainstream American schools, where they faced quotas; anti-Semitism also played a role in faculty hiring, especially in the humanities.

The changes we have been discussing naturally affected individual institutions in different ways. In this chapter we shall look more closely at some examples that illustrate the the general trends and at the same time shed light on other matters not previously discussed or touched on only in passing—for example, the rapid growth of professional and vocationally oriented programs and the equally rapid expansion of Catholic colleges for women. By way of background, we begin with some statistics on the overall growth of Catholic higher education in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Detailed surveys made by the Catholic Educational Association in 1916 and 1926 provide useful base points for analyzing changes in the latter part of the period, but information for the earlier part is much less satisfactory. Indeed, the figures for 1899 in the following table must be regarded as mere approximations. But these are the best figures we have, and Table 1 may be taken as a reliable indicator of the direction and overall scale of change in enrollments. These figures show that although secondary-level students accounted for approximately 60 percent of the enrollment in catholic colleges at the turn of the century, and about half in 1916, they were no longer considered part of the same student population in the mid-twenties. Undergraduate enrollment for 1916 is understated by perhaps as much as 1000 because the survey did not include the Catholic colleges for women that had come on the scene since 1899. Failure to include them stemmed not only from the traditional sexist bias of Catholic “college men,” but also from the fact that women’s colleges were only beginning to make their presence felt.

In the early modern period, Catholic communities under Protestant jurisdictions were not alone in establishing collegial networks in Catholic centres. The Maronites, a Christian Church in communion with Rome faced educational challenges similar to those of Catholic communities in western Protestant states. A Maronite College was founded in Rome in 1584, on the model of others Catholic colleges created in Rome in the second part of the sixteenth century. Until now, traditional Maronite and Lebanese historiography has tended to treat the institution in isolation from the other collegial networks and from the global perspective of the papacy on the challenge of educating national clergies in non-Catholic jurisdictions. This essay presents an overview of the Maronite College in Rome, outlining the context for its foundation (the Roman Catholic mission in the Near East) and the links with others colleges. To plot the evolution of the institution, two versions of the college rules (1585 and 1732) are compared. They were influenced by the changing attitudes of the papacy, the foundation of Propaganda Fide, the activities of the Jesuits and changes within the Maronite patriarchate itself. The second part establishes a profile of the early modern staff and students of the college. Details are available on 280 Maronite students received by the institution between 1584 and 1788. For the young Maronites, life in Rome was difficult, with changes in diet and conditions, financial worries and cultural challenges. There were frequent interventions by the Lebanese authorities with the Jesuit college managers. Special attention is paid to the course of studies in Rome and academic links with other Roman institutions, especially neighbouring Jesuit colleges. The third part discusses the links between the Roman college and changes in the middle-eastern Maronite community. The Maronite college was the main European gateway for the Maronites. Some eastern Catholics chose to remain in Europe, often to follow academic careers. Attention is also paid to the relationship between the College and the Maronite diaspora and its links with intellectual life in the West. In the latter context, the role of the College library and its manuscript collection in facilitating Western academic access to oriental languages and thought is described. Like other networks, the Maronite college fulfilled a broad range of functions that went well beyond the simple training of clergy.

Internationally, the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted the education sector. While NSW has avoided the longer periods of remote learning that our colleagues in Victoria and other countries have experienced, we have nonetheless been provoked to reflect on the nature of schooling and the systemic support we provide to transform the learning of each student and enrich the professional lives of staff within our Catholic learning community. At Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta (CEDP), a key pillar of our approach is to create conditions that enable everyone to be a leader. Following the initial lockdown period in 2020 when students learned remotely, we undertook an informal teacher voice piece with the purpose of engaging teachers and leaders from across our 80 schools in Greater Western Sydney to reflect on and capture key learnings. This project revealed teachers and leaders reported very high feelings of self-efficacy, motivation and confidence in their capacity to learn and lead in the volatile pandemic landscape. These findings raised the question: how do we enable this self-efficacy, motivation and confidence in an ongoing way? This paper documents the systematic reflection process undertaken by CEDP to understand the enabling conditions a system can provide to activate everyone to be a leader in the post-pandemic future and the key learnings emerging from this process.