The Catholic University of America: A History of Faith, Knowledge, and Research
Introduction
The Catholic University of America, a private and coeducational institution, stands as a flagship Catholic educational institution in the United States. Committed to being a comprehensive Catholic and American institution of higher learning, the university maintains a unique status as the Bishops' university. Its history is intertwined with the evolution of higher education in America, the growth of the Catholic community, and the pursuit of knowledge and research on a global scale.
Founding and Early Years
The decision to found The Catholic University of America was made by the bishops of the United States on Dec. 2, 1884. Pope Leo XIII, who was a source of encouragement from the beginning, gave the decision his formal approbation on April 10, 1887. A certificate of incorporation was registered in the District of Columbia on April 21, 1887. After papal approval of The University's first constitutions was given on March 7, 1889, and what is now called Caldwell Hall was completed, The University opened with thirty-seven students of the sacred sciences on Nov. The anniversary is commemorated annually as Founders Day. Established as a papally chartered graduate and research center, The Catholic University of America officially opened as an institution of higher education on Nov.
At the time, the modern American university was still in its infancy. The opening of The Johns Hopkins University in 1876 had marked its beginning. This institution in Baltimore was the first in the country to dedicate itself not only to the preservation of learning and to teaching, as universities had been doing since the Middle Ages and as American institutions had been doing since the foundation of Harvard College on an English model in 1636, but also to the advancement of knowledge through research. Very soon the conduct of research and the training of graduate students to carry it out became the hallmark of university status. By 1900, fourteen institutions offering instruction for the doctorate, The Catholic University of America among them, considered themselves ready to form the Association of American Universities.
The Vision of John Lancaster Spalding
As the article in its name suggests, The Catholic University of America was founded when it was thought that for some time to come American Catholics would be able to maintain only one institution of university standing. There had been occasional demands for such an institution for several decades. The Most Reverend John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria, Ill., became the principal champion of the Catholic University cause. In the Third Plenary Council of the Bishops, in 1884, he was able to persuade a majority that so long as they would "look rather to the multiplying of schools and seminaries than to the creation of a real University," the progress of American Catholics would be "slow and uncertain. A University," he said, "is the great ordinary means to the best cultivation of mind." A gift from Mary Gwendoline Caldwell of Newport, Rhode Island, made possible the foundation of a faculty of the sacred sciences as the nucleus around which a university could develop.
Expansion and Reorganization
The life of The Catholic University of America has been more or less coterminous with the movement, seen now on an international scale. The expansion of The University into the arts and sciences began with the opening, in 1895, of what were called at the time the "faculties for the laity." Three years later, the School of Law was established. A structural evolution led to a comprehensive academic reorganization in 1930. In that year, in accord with patterns that had become general in the United States, the College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences were established. The merging of the school of music with the departments of drama and art to create The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art further diversified the academic offerings. These initiatives have built our present complex of 12 Schools: Architecture and Planning, Arts and Sciences, Tim and Steph Busch School of Business, Canon Law, Engineering, Columbus School of Law, Metropolitan School of Professional Studies, Benjamin T.
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Governance and Leadership
When The University was established, its governance was delegated by the bishops to a board of trustees. An act of Congress in 1928 amended the original certificate of incorporation to allow, among other things, an increase in the membership of the board. Under bylaws that it adopted in that year, the board, which now has 48 members, has equal numbers of clerical and lay members. Since its founding, The University has been led by 16 presidents, earlier known as rectors.
Papal Visits
Catholic University is one of only three universities in the United States to have hosted the pope on its campus, and it is the only one to have done so three times - Pope John Paul II in 1979, Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, and Pope Francis in 2015.
Academic Programs and Research
Today the private and coeducational university has approximately 5,500 students enrolled in the 12 schools. The university's program is vibrant and dynamic, led by specialists who are deeply committed to cutting-edge research and pedagogy. Scholarship covers a temporally broad range (from the late pre-Columbian period through the present), is geographically expansive (straddling the Americas from north to south, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and with particular attention to the region’s historical connections to Europe, Africa, and the United States), and is thematically diverse (including legal, cultural, social, political, imperial, and economic history).
The university fosters constant, ongoing conversations about pressing questions of historical and political inquiry. Its vision of history is inherently interdisciplinary, nourished by the methods and preoccupations of anthropology, law, political science, art history, economics, musicology, and beyond.
The Enduring Mission
The Catholic University of America continues to uphold its mission as a leading center for research and teaching. The university aims to produce new knowledge through discoveries that change our lives and the world. Teaching of undergraduate and graduate students is critically important and an integral part of the mission. At least at the graduate level, many of the great research discoveries are produced through a collaboration between a faculty member and her students. At the undergraduate level, there is a modest positive association between the quality of a professor’s research and the assessed quality of her teaching.
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