Jesuit? Vincentian? Whatever!
The nasty, academic (I know: that’s redundant) squabble between Harvard’s own Alan Dershowitz and DePaul’s (at least until now) Norman Finkelstein has hit the front page of The New York Times‘ “Arts Section” — right next to the ninety-eighth episode of the long-running soap opera, “Don Imus: Shock Jock.”
Dershowitz has been bombarding DePaul’s administration and faculty with e-mails setting forth Finkelstein’s myriad transgressions which ought to prevent him from being tenured.
If The Times’ story merits credence the Dean of Arts and Sciences at DePaul has been persuaded by the Harvard advocate and now opposes granting Finkelstein tenure. This is how Finkelstein explains the reasoning:
Mr. Finkelstein said that the dean of DePaul’s College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences, Charles E. Suchar, explained his opposition by arguing
that “DePaul was a Jesuit school,” and adhered to the values of St.
Vincent. “He claims that my scholarship does not fulfill the Vincentian
value of personalism,” or respect for dignity of the individual.
Leave it to those Jesuits to be in on the action, even when it’s not their school. This only confirms my view that a hermeneutics of suspicion should govern the reading of College “Mission Statements.” That is, if anyone, including deans and faculty,
even bothers to read them.
Did I miss something? The dean of the College of Liberal Arts thinks he is at a Jesuit School?
I find that hard to believe. Correction in the offing? Then again, it’s not unusual for people who are only dimly aware of Commonweal to ask if it’s a Jesuit magazine. Perhaps I should start replying, “No, Vincentian.”
Hagiographers will be interested to learn that St. Ignatius Loyola adhered to the values of St. Vincent de Paul, an especially neat trick, given that the latter was born a few decades after the former had died.
AMDG.
Jesuit Volunteer Corps…Vincentian Service Corps. Both dedicated to serving the poor. There’s the connection, without the need to do a “Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon” analysis for the Jesuits and Vincentians.
I once met a fellow who had subsequently acquired a Ph.D. but confessed that earlier he went to Manhattan College (actually run by the Brothers of the Christian Schools) under the impression that it was a part of the New York City College system. O.K. But at least he was not the Dean when he thought this. In self-derfence DePaul ought to put out some sort of denial that one of its deans thinks it is a Jesuit institution.