From Notre Dame’s founding in 1842 to today, one of the core tenets of the University has been education. Students come from all over the world to study, research, and learn under the golden dome. Notre Dame’s new Strategic Framework for 2033 states, “This effort to educate students and conduct research at the highest level animated by a distinctive Catholic mission is one of the most exciting and consequential experiments in global higher education.”
Education is near and dear to both the Press and the University as a whole, and NDPress publishes a wide variety of works that focus on the topic of higher education, as well as education in general. Below are select titles that handle Catholic identity in higher education, the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program, the history and future of liberal education, and more.
Labors from the Heart:
Mission & Ministry Catholic University
by Mark L. Poorman C.S.C
Labors from the Heart, a collection of personal narratives, comes from the inspiring day-to-day work of people who attempt to prove the Catholic university true to its mission. Some of the essays are written specifically about the individual Christian ministries—residence hall ministry, liturgical coordination, marriage preparation and enrichment, and adult Christian formation. Others are about faculty and administrative activities which find a distinctive home in a Catholic university—a law school’s legal aid clinic for the poor and marginalized, an alumni association’s continuing education program with a special focus on social justice and professional ethics, an innovative program for training a corps of young teachers for underserved Catholic schools. Some are narratives by people who have a professional or personal stake in the vitality of Catholic higher education—an alumna who provides a retrospective of the meaning of her education, a writer who “commits acts of public relations” on behalf of the University.
“. . .this collection of first-person reflections is a welcome and, by virtue of its method, an original and generally accessible contribution to a vital discussion.” —Teaching Theology and Religion
Stories of Beginning Teachers:
First Year Challenges and Beyond
Edited by Alysia Roehrig, Michael Pressley and Denise A. Talotta
Stories of Beginning Teachers offers insight into the challenges and triumphs of beginning teachers, presenting both research findings and case studies on the challenges faced by new teachers. More than twenty categories and five hundred specific examples of potential problems and issues are cited in Part 1 of this book. Armed with such useful information about the most frequent, serious, and persistent challenges, Roehrig, Pressley, and Talotta assert, a young educator will be better prepared to teach and more likely to succeed.
“. . . an informed and informative survey and description of the unique and manifold challenges new classroom teachers face. . . . Stories of Beginning Teachers is especially commended reading for anyone contemplating embarking on a teaching career.” —Library Bookwatch
Teaching Service and Alternative Teacher Education:
Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education
Edited by Michael Pressley
In Teaching Service and Alternative Teacher Education: Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education, Michael Pressley and his fellow contributors provide the history of ACE. They also offer a blueprint for other educational institutions interested in implementing a similar program. Covering the fundamentals of starting and maintaining a program like ACE, Teaching Service and Alternative Teacher Education discusses motivation, planning, intellectual foundations, and community building. It also tackles practical issues such as financing the program, obtaining accreditation, and recruiting teachers.
“Teaching Service and Alternative Teacher Education is highly significant to scholars and students in related disciplines. It reports on a program that is likely to be used as a model for similar programs for years to come. This volume will be an important resource for anyone who is interested in alternative teacher education. Readers cannot fail to be impressed by the ACE program—and they will learn a lot about the design and development of quality alternative teacher education.” —Joanna Williams, professor of psychology and education, Teachers College, Columbia University
Religion, Scholarship, and Higher Education:
Perspectives, Models, and Future Prospects
Edited by Andrea Sterk
Religion, Scholarship, and Higher Education explores foundational issues surrounding the interaction of religion and the academy in the twenty-first century. Featuring the work of eighteen scholars from diverse institutional, disciplinary, and religious backgrounds, this outstanding collection of essays issues from a three-year Lilly Seminar on Religion and Higher Education. Reflecting the diversity of the seminar participants, this insightful volume presents a wide variety of viewpoints on the role of religion in higher education and different approaches to religiously informed scholarship and teaching.
“This is a valuable and well-edited book whose implications stretch wider than North America. The text helps to create a vision of what higher education might be.” —Journal of Beliefs & Values
The Case for Parental Choice:
God, Family, and Educational Liberty
by John E. Coons
This work makes a richly humanitarian case for parental school choice, seeking to advance social justice and respect the dignity of parents—especially those on the margins. For decades, arguments in favor of school choice have largely been advanced on the basis of utility or outcome rather than social justice and human dignity. The Case for Parental Choice: God, Family, and Educational Liberty offers a compelling and humanitarian alternative. This volume contains an edited collection of essays by John E. Coons, a visionary legal scholar and ardent supporter of what is perhaps best described as a social justice case for parental school choice. Few have written more prodigiously or prophetically about the need to give parents—particularly poor parents—power over their children’s schooling.
“Those looking for a better way to resolve differences, to transcend partisan narratives, and to promote a robust and pluralistic school system that engenders greater trust would be wise to consult Coons’s extensive scholarship. The Case for Parental Choice makes an elegant and accessible reintroduction to his work.” —City Journal
Why Choose the Liberal Arts?
by Mark William Roche
In a world where the value of a liberal arts education is no longer taken for granted, Mark William Roche lucidly and passionately argues for its essential importance. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience in higher education as a student, faculty member, and administrator, Roche deftly connects the broad theoretical perspective of educators to the practical needs and questions of students and their parents.
“Can a liberal arts education be defended in a time of economic decline? Mark William Roche thinks so and that’s what he explores in this book. . . . Roche includes personal reflections to illustrate and personalize his points on the enduring value of a liberal arts education.” —Catholic Library World
The Idea of a University
by John Henry Cardinal Newman
Introduction by Martin J. Svaglic
The Idea of a University illuminates St. John Henry Newman’s timeless and accessible defense of a Catholic liberal education. St. John Henry Newman and his influence on theology, religion, and education continues to benefit us today. The Idea of a University, one of his pinnacle works, collects his lectures about the intertwined strength of the Catholic Church and the liberal university. Within these discourses, Newman lays out arguments for the essence of a Catholic University and the benefit to students and the world as a whole. He writes not for only Catholics but for all readers, appealing to truth and fact before expounding upon reason and examples. The Idea of a University is a vital part of the history of liberal education, as well as a foundation for looking to the future as academia continues to change and develop.
“It is a classic; like so many classics, however, and alas, it is largely forgotten or too seldom read. This is decidedly not because it is difficult to read; it is wonderfully readable, and the reading of it will, we urge you to believe, transform the imagination of any student. In nine interconnected essays, Newman defines the nature of the true university and the purpose of education—knowledge as an end in itself—and defends, by extolling, the liberal arts.” —The American Citizen