A Particular Kind...

Today there is an intense interest, almost an obsession some would say, in diversity and pluralism. Within the worlds of higher education, a Christian university serves the great good of diversity and pluralism by being a different kind of university. It does not mimic the false pluralism and diversity that pretends our deepest differences make no difference. Rather, it engages within the bond of civility the differences that make the deepest difference. The Christian university, if I may use today's academic jargon, does not fear the otherness of the Other. It very deliberately is the Other. As the Other, it respectfully engages and defines itself in relationship to the other kinds of universities to which it is other.

In speaking about the crisis of the Christian university, I have been generalizing, and I am assured by some that Valparaiso University is an exception—that it is determined to be what it was founded to be. I pray this is the case, for I cannot forget the Valparaiso that helped form me and innumerable others in the high adventure of responding to the the Church's heart for learning. I cannot forget those chords of the Mass in B Minor and O.P. Kretzman's pilgrim pondering of the falling autumn leaves, prelude to winter and the promise of a new springtime. Yes, this is in part nostalgia, but it is in much greater part hope and anticipation of what a Christian university can be in imaginative fidelity to its motto—”In your light we see light.”

--Father Richard John Neuhaus, Valparaiso University, February 2007