The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Photo: Ron Hewson Michael W. Higgins, president of St. Jerome's University, was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the International Federation of Catholic Universities. All aboard Once again we are recruiting new members for the Board of Governors of St. Jerome's University. If you are interested in being considered as a candidate, submit a CV to: Sandy Ingham, Chair Human Resources Committee President's Office St. Jerome's University Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G3 You can also e-mail your CV to: rthompso@uwaterloo.ca Beyond the baccalaureate by Michael W. Higgins St. Jerome's University has been involved with adult learning, lifelong learning, and extension offerings for a long time. The St. Jerome's Centre for Catholic Experience, for instance, has been providing lectures, seminars, workshops, performances, and special events since 1982. The current director, Dr. David Seljak, is keen on expanding the Centre's offerings and extending its reach. To that end, Harry Froklage, Director of Development and Graduate Affairs, and I have been working with various religious communities and private individuals to try and establish a series of named lectures that will guarantee the long range security of our current offerings as well as help us establish new lectures responding to the ever more pressing demands for knowledge and insight. Currently, Harry and I are working with several groups that wish to establish these named lectures, but I want at this particular time to highlight one that has been established--from previous issues of SJU Update you will know the background--and that is the John J. Wintermeyer Lecture on Christianity and Public Policy, recently given by Claude Ryan, the past leader of the Liberal party in Quebec and in many ways the conscience of that province. Mr. Ryan's inspirational talk--intelligent, forthright, committed--was a superb first lecture in what we know will be a stimulating series of lectures for years to come. It is our sincere hope to firmly root similarly named lectures in the Centre's annual offerings. From the very beginning of its mandate, the Centre has provided all its lectures free of charge. In addition, we provide free parking, coffee, and a goodly measure of free speech. A similar undertaking was the Catholics in Public Life Conference, the first of its kind in Canada, which we hosted on October 27th and 28th. The conference was a joint enterprise with the Waterloo District Catholic School Board and was designed to bring together various figures in public life--media, politics, health, education, social services--to talk about the implications, both private and public, of taking seriously one's Catholic faith in the context of a life of public service. Among the panelists were Richard Gwyn, the nationally respected political affairs columnist for The Toronto Star, John Dalla Costa, a business person with an ethical edge, and Jack Costello, past president of Regis College in Toronto. Intermingling resulted in a creative synergy that produced some of the most exciting ideas on faith and public life that I have heard for a very long time. This was the inaugural conference of the Catholics in Public Life following upon the inaugural Wintermeyer lecture. And as the term implies, there are more to come. In addition to these ways of responding to our constituency's request for educational leadership in public matters, St. Jerome's has also entered into a consortium agreement with the Diocese of Hamilton, the Sisters of St. Joseph, and the Resurrection Centre for Lifelong Learning in order to provide a structure for ongoing pastoral ministry formation in our diocese. This is still being fine-tuned, but our own Department of Religious Studies has exercised a quite considerable role in the designing of the program and will be there to assist in its implementation. It is a splendid example of the level of cooperation among so many agencies in the Diocese of Hamilton to help prepare for our shared future. And finally, I would like to inform all of you that St. Jerome's is currently looking seriously at the possibility of activating its degree-granting right in the area of Theology. We are only at the very early stages, but we have canvassed educators, health professionals, and social service providers throughout the Diocese of Hamilton to determine their level of interest in enhanced theological leadership in our community. The interest is palpable, generous, and real. But so also are our difficulties. We will need to raise money for this new undertaking by St. Jerome's--should we decide that it is the right direction in which to go--and to that end we would like to gather as much feedback as we possibly can from the graduates of St. Jerome's University as to the wisdom and desirability of going in this new and challenging direction. I will give you more details in coming issues of SJU Update and keep you fully apprised of this exciting project. I believe that it is the next and natural step in SJU's mandate to educate Catholic leaders for the future. I believe that we would be remiss in our duties as a postsecondary Catholic institution if we did not rise to the challenge, and yes indeed, the risk, of providing a service for the Catholic community of this diocese that one should naturally expect to come from a university environment. So, yes, we are involved in education beyond the baccalaureate level and we have been so for many years. As you well know from your vantage point in the workplace, times are changing and they are doing so with a rapidity that is as much unnerving as it is invigorating. The university is at the heart of change, effecting change and being affected by change. But as an organism--a living dynamic organism--we both spiral through the future and hold ground as a sanctuary. It is a difficult job. But it's what a university does when it's faithful to its mandate. %1 Times are changing and they are doing so with a rapidity that is as much unnerving as it is invigorating 2