The Catholic Church has gone through more change in the last sixty years than in the previous six hundred. These changes have caused a significant shift in the future outlook of Catholic higher education as the United States has developed a culture that has grown less receptive to religious traditions and practices. Drawing upon his extensive experience, James Heft lays out the current state of Catholic higher education and what needs to be done to ensure that Catholicism isn't fazed out of the educational system. Heft analyzes the foundational intellectual principles of Catholic Higher Education, and both the strengths and weaknesses of the present day system in order to look at possibilities for its future. Drawing upon both history and current cultural trends, The Future of Catholic Higher Education critiques the secularization thesis, explores the role of bishops, theologians, dissent, the sensus fidelium, the role of women and freedom of conscience, the relationship between theology and religious studies, hiring practices and curricular designs. Using the image of the "open circle," Heft advances a vision of the catholic university that is neither a "closed circle" of only Catholics nor a "market place of ideas with no distinctive mission." His "open circle" is one that fosters the Catholic intellectual tradition by including scholars of many religions, rooting Catholic social thought in Catholic doctrine, defending academic freedom and the mandatum.

Gerald J. Beyer’s Just Universities discusses ways that U.S. Catholic institutions of higher education have embodied or failed to embody Catholic social teaching in their campus policies and practices. Beyer argues that the corporatization of the university has infected U.S. higher education with hyper-individualistic models and practices that hinder the ability of Catholic institutions to create an environment imbued with bedrock values and principles of Catholic Social Teaching such as respect for human rights, solidarity, and justice. Beyer problematizes corporatized higher education and shows how it has adversely affected efforts at Catholic schools to promote worker justice on campus; equitable admissions; financial aid; retention policies; diversity and inclusion policies that treat people of color, women, and LGBTQ persons as full community members; just investment; and stewardship of resources and the environment.

American Catholic universities and colleges are wrestling today with how to develop in ways that faithfully serve their mission in Catholic higher education without either secularizing or becoming sectarian. Major challenges are faced when trying to simultaneously build and sustain excellence in undergraduate teaching, strengthen faculty research and publishing, and deepen the authentically Catholic character of education. This book uses the particular case of the University of Notre Dame to raise larger issues, to make substantive proposals, and thus to contribute to a national conversation affecting all Catholic universities and colleges in the United States (and perhaps beyond) today. Its arguments focus particularly on challenging questions around the recruitment, hiring, and formation of faculty in Catholic universities and colleges.

"After many years of scholarship, administrative experience and leadership in Catholic higher education, James Heft has written a book that draws upon many academic disciplines to paint a picture of the past, the current situation (challenges, strengths and weaknesses) of Catholic universities, and after identifying its foundational pillars, points the way to a future that is open to modern culture without capitulating to it, embraces Catholic intellectual traditions without fossilizing them, and presents a vision of its relationship to the hierarchy that is respectful, independent, faithful and dynamic"--

A detailed history of Catholic higher education in the USA, which emphasizes the intellectual and institutional dimensions of the subject.

The specific concern in What We Hold in Trust comes to this: the Catholic university that sees its principal purpose in terms of the active life, of career, and of changing the world, undermines the contemplative and more deep-rooted purpose of the university. If a university adopts the language of technical and social change as its main and exclusive purpose, it will weaken the deeper roots of the university’s liberal arts and Catholic mission. The language of the activist, of changing the world through social justice, equality and inclusion, or of the technician through market-oriented incentives, plays an important role in university life. We need to change the world for the better and universities play an important role, but both the activist and technician will be co-opted by our age of hyper-activity and technocratic organizations if there is not first a contemplative outlook on the world that receives reality rather than constructs it. To address this need for roots What We Hold in Trust unfolds in four chapters that will demonstrate how essential it is for the faculty, administrators, and trustees of Catholic universities to think philosophically and theologically (Chapter One), historically (Chapter Two) and institutionally (Chapters Three and Four). What we desperately need today are leaders in Catholic universities who understand the roots of the institutions they serve, who can wisely order the goods of the university, who know what is primary and what is secondary, and who can distinguish fads and slogans from authentic reform. We need leaders who are in touch with their history and have a love for tradition, and in particular for the Catholic tradition. Without this vision, our universities may grow in size, but shrink in purpose. They may be richer but not wiser.

As part of its Sesquicentennial celebration, Boston College invited leading Catholic educators to a symposium concerning the future of Catholic higher education in the United States. Participants gathered from October 22-24, 2013, at BC's Connors Family Retreat and Conference Center in Dover, Massachusetts. They discussed four critical issues requiring engagement by Catholic educational leaders: (1) strengthening awareness of and commitment to the Catholic intellectual tradition on Catholic campuses; (2) ensuring the personal and religious formation of students; (3) clarifying the relationship of Catholic colleges and universities to the Church, and (4) identifying and preparing future leaders of Catholic postsecondary institutions. The essays in this volume provided context for the days at Dover, and are intended to spotlight and urge action on critical challenges facing American Catholic higher education today.