Fr. Gregory Lucey, SJ President, AJCU

The AJCU Higher Education Leadership Seminar, under the leadership of Sr. Maureen Fay, O.P., will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year when it gathers on June 17th in Chicago. Thus, appropriately, this issue of Connections focuses on the Seminar with testimonies of those who have found the experience enriching beyond their expectation.

A frequent discovery noted by those who have attended the Seminar is that Jesuit higher education is larger than they thought. Even if they have been a part of the network for several years or even if they have served at different Jesuit schools in the United States, they come to a new level of awareness of just how large the network really is and how diverse the 28 schools are that make up the network.

Though each shares the common distinctiveness of being Jesuit and Catholic, each of the 28 institutions expresses that commonality in creatively different ways depending on the rich history of that particular institution in the region of the country that it serves. Recent visits to New Orleans, St. Louis and Boston deepened my awareness of how each of our schools is meeting the new challenges of our age in the Church and society.

Despite the hurdles resulting from Katrina, Loyola New Orleans just celebrated a century of service to the people of the South. Saint Louis University continually spreads itself over midtown St. Louis with incredible new facilities for research, medical services and athletics. And, Boston College is continually finding new ways to serve critical needs of the Church in the 21st Century.

My most recent travels took me to Rome for a meeting of the International Committee on Jesuit Higher Education (ICJHE). The committee is chaired by Father Michael Garanzini, SJ, Secretary for Higher Education for Father Adolfo Nicolas, SJ, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, and President of Loyola University Chicago. The committee includes representatives from Latin America with 31 institutions, Africa with 16 institutions, Asian Pacific with 23 institutions, South Asia (India) with 55 institutions, Europe with 38 institutions and North America with our 28.

In all, globally, we are talking about 191 Jesuit institutions of higher learning. However, many of these institutions are not what we think of as a university but rather an institute like the Jesuit Institute of South Africa in Johannesburg, or a center like the Beijing Center for Chinese Studies. Some are seminaries and others are true universities like the Ateneo de Manila University or Sophia University in Tokyo.

A meeting like this makes one realize again that Jesuit higher education is much larger than one particular school or what we have in the United States. No other continent compares with North America in terms of the level of growth and development of our institutions over the last forty years, but there has been significant growth in India, the Philippines and Latin America. The need for growth is most evident in Africa and parts of Asia. With the exception of Jesuit seminaries, there is very little Jesuit higher education in Africa, but there are several initiatives being explored especially for schools of business. There is also a serious effort underway in responding to the possibility of establishing a Jesuit liberal arts college in Hong Kong.

As I participate in discussions about the need for new initiatives internationally to establish Jesuit institutions of higher learning, I am reaffirmed in the conviction of the importance of our efforts to build our leadership pool here in the U.S. through programs like the Higher Education Leadership Seminar and the Ignatian Colleagues Program, which is now formally a part of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

Thank you for being willing to make the extra efforts to strengthen the pool through your efforts toward professional and personal development. We have a major challenge that it is only getting bigger, but the leadership initiatives that we have in place are helping us meet that challenge head on.

Blessings on your summer,