The Student Culture:
Toward a Truly American Catholicism

In contrast to the faculty, many of the students who came to Catholic University already identified themselves as agents of change. The upheaval caused by the Council had been an intrinsic part of the religious formation of many of the undergraduate students, who accounted for almost half of the student population. And among the large body of graduate students, a significant proportion was actively engaged with the changes effected by the Second Vatican Council.[45] The “openness” to the modern world encouraged by the Council led many students to draw in a number of norms and ideals from American society, and the counterculture in particular. The subculture that resulted was significantly more eager to challenge clerical authority than the faculty, and to hold the institution to secular standards of democracy and human rights.

The student population contained an exceptionally high percentage of Catholics—nearly 98 percent in the Schools of Religion and Arts and Sciences, which accounted for 70 percent of the student population.[46] Despite this religious identification, the secular news media was critical in the framing of their self-understanding, and served as the primary vehicle of information for students who actively followed the events of the Council as well as the organized protests of students and African Americans.[47] While the secular media would play a fundamental role in shaping their worldview, as students at the Catholic University of America they did have more access to Catholic periodicals and intellectuals than their counterparts at other institutions. Perhaps most importantly, all students were required to take a handful of Catholic-oriented religion classes, which forced them to engage the changes recommended by the Council in an active and critical way.

As a result, students were assimilating an enormous number of changes in the country and their Church at the same time. [48] The student newspaper, for instance, carried stories of budding draft and war resistance,[49] the Free Speech Movement’s continuing efforts at Berkeley and elsewhere,[50] and a strike at St. John’s University over the dismissal of thirty-one faculty members.[51] The paper also carried continuing coverage of the changes being effected by the Second Vatican Council, particularly in the form of lectures on the implementation and changes of the Council by the faculty,[52] which “were always jam-packed.”[53]

One measure of the formation of the student subculture was the gradual liberation of the school’s paper from university oversight. The changes that took place over a four-year period are striking. The Tower’s first discussion of any matter of controversy in the university concerned the “speaker ban” in 1963, which the paper’s editors buried within a story about the Undergraduate Student Council.[54] The Tower’s minimal treatment of the affair stood in contrast to the furor it sparked nationwide, and The Tower’s editorial board ultimately criticized the student government for taking issue with the Board of Trustees: “As the legally constituted governing board of the University [the Trustees] demand the respect of the students, and any criticism directed toward it could only come from a group with full knowledge of its inner actions, and this group could in no way be the student body.”[55]

As a result of the damage to the faculty advisor, who was nearly fired for permitting the publication of any negative views in the paper, the editor’s sought appointment of an independent advisor. It is not clear why McDonald agreed to this change, but the effect was to free the paper from oversight that was effectively censorship.[56] Two years later, at the outset of the 1966–67 academic year, The Tower staff decided to cut its financial ties to the university by supporting itself with advertising, with the explicit intention of exploring changes in politics and religion with greater depth and freedom.[57] James Rowe, The Tower’s news editor at the time, noted that the change allowed the paper to become a conduit for the growing discontent, rather than hiding or blocking its expression.[58] This it most certainly did. In a survey of Tower issues from January 1963 to May 1969, there was a notable lack of direct criticism of the university’s administration before September 1966.[59]

Beginning in October 1966 criticism of the school blossomed, starting with the proposed transfer of the religious education department.[60] General criticisms of a clerical and distant leadership would resurface repeatedly throughout the year.[61] With its greater space and freedom, the paper in the 1966–67 school year provided an outlet for a number of regular columnists to air wide-ranging calls for reform. As a result the paper gave focus and shape to latent student dissent.

Student writers would hold the university to a new “democratic” standard, and press for reform in aspects of the institution that failed to measure up. Where students did not feel they were adequately represented by the 30-year-old Student Council system, they demanded a new apportionment of delegates.[62] When they did not feel that the in loco parentis rules were legitimate, they demanded their rescission.[63] Where they did not feel the curriculum allowed them enough personal latitude in the selection of courses, they demanded that it too be revised.[64] According to The Tower’s news editor, there was a larger spirit of discontent among students that “went from top to bottom in all areas, academic and social.”[65]

Students gather to protest a meeting of the Board of Trustees
in November 1966 (The Tower)

The interest in calls for reform was not just articulated in print, as students demonstrated an increasing willingness to employ organized protest as a tool to effect changes at the university. The first significant student protest was over the leadership problems in the College of Arts and Sciences in March 1966. Approximately 300 students held a “Prayer Vigil” in front of Mullen Library to support faculty calls for the replacement of the college’s dean. It reflects the uneven pace of change taking place that the “vigil” was sharply criticized by The Tower’s editors: “A Prayer Vigil ... is usually associated with crises of national import—Civil Rights, Peace and Freedom etc. While not underestimating the University problem at hand, it still seems safe to say it is not one of earth-shaking proportions. The concept of a Vigil, coupled with the singing of “We Shall Overcome,” would seem to fall more appropriately under the heading of “mob tactics” than of honest communications.[66] A second protest followed shortly thereafter over the lack of communication in the religious education transfer where some 250 students and faculty directly petitioned the Trustees.[67]

In the largest protest before the strike, discontent over McDonald’s petty mistreatment of the drama school led over 400 students to hold a candlelight vigil before the Rector’s residence in February 1967. What is particularly important in these incidents is the increasing legitimacy such action gained among a core of students and faculty, and the cooperation of students and faculty in organizing and effecting these protests. Even though the number of protesters was relatively small, these incidents helped to generate feelings of a “damaging ill-will caused by the administration’s repeated disregard of student and faculty protests.”[68] Each incident fostered tactical skills that would be deployed in the strike, and even began to generate support from the editor’s of The Tower, as the criticisms of the administration for anti-democratic behavior and “excessive clericalism” was taken up in the in-house editorials.

The emerging student subculture paralleled that of the faculty in its development, but the values the students embraced, the standards they defended, and the authorities they cited went well beyond the Council and the American Association of University Professors. Where the faculty asserted democratic procedures and “openness” as essential for the fulfillment of the goals of Catholic higher education, the students posited these goals as goods in themselves, and essential in every facet of life at the university. As a result, the ecclesial subculture held an increasingly tenuous hold on most of the students. This difference would be crucial to the unfolding of events in the strike

Next: The Dismissal

Notes

[45] Almost 20 percent of the students were members of the clergy, and the School of theology was the fourth largest in the university. Report to the Middle States Association of Colleges and Universities, 1969, Section III, 10–11.

[46] Report to Middle States, 11–12.

[47] Rowe and Pierce interviews supported by Andrew M. Greeley, “The New Breed,” America (23 May 1964): 706 ff; C. J. McNaspy, “This Restless Generation,” America, 726ff; “Students Use Force Play,” America, 762.

[48] These patterns clearly parallel the larger changes, noted by sociologists, that were taking place nationwide among Catholic students in higher education. See Andrew M. Greeley, “The Catholic Campus,” The Critic (October–November 1966): 84ff; Joseph Simons, C.S.C., and Peter P. Grande, “Student Administration War of 1966: The Strategy of Escalation,” Catholic Educational Review 64 (December 1966): 588ff; and Robert Hassenger, “Protest and the Catholic Colleges,” Protest! (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1970), 483ff.

[49] “Group denies church right to censorship [of priests on Vietnam war],” The Tower, 3; Jim Rowe, “Vietnam dialogue cancelled,” The Tower, 16 December 1966, 1; and “Student leaders decry draft, urge voluntary national service,” The Tower, 10 February 1967, 8. The Catholic University debate team opposed the Vietnam conflict in debates against Harvard, earning page 1 coverage: “Debaters hold their ground against Harvard opponents,” The Tower, 7 April 1967, 1.

[50] “Demonstration experts meet to plan April student strike,” The Tower, 16 December 1966, 4 and “Students demand curriculum voice,” The Tower, 17 February 1967, 3.

[51] “St. John’s faces possible disaccreditation; AAUP threatens strong censure measures,” The Tower, 2 December 1966, 8. See also Patrick J. Sullivan, U.S. Catholic Institutions and Labor Unions 1960–1980 (New York: University of America Press, 1987), 250ff

[52] “University symposium to assess marriage in light of Vatican II,” The Tower, 28 October 1966, 1; “Cardinal [Sheehan] gets Chrysostom Award tonight,” The Tower, 9 December 1967, 4; and “Upheaval in Catholic Education must hit Trustees,” The Tower, 10 March 1967, 2.

[53] Lee interview.

[54] “Lecturers and Tower ads given unanimous vote of support,” The Tower, 18 January 1963, 3. The Tower Editorial Board took no position on the matter, and only two letters to the editor were published on the “speaker-ban” issue. One was critical of the university: “the dialectic and discussion going on in the Church today is off limits to the C.U. student...,” Jane Power, “Idea of a University,” The Tower, 22 March 1963, 2. The other letter excoriates students for whom “loyalty to the school is almost non-existent.” Dennis P. Casey, “A Timely Letter,” The Tower, 29 March 1963, 2.

[55] “Council and Criticism,” The Tower, 3 May 1963, 2.

[56] Rev. Leo Foley, the last faculty advisor, was nearly dismissed for allowing the students to print on the “speaker-ban” issue. Pierce interview. James Rowe reemphasized the importance of an outside advisor in this period. Rowe interview. Regis Louise Boyle, the new advisor, taught English and journalism in the D.C. public school system, and some additional courses in the University's adult education program.

[57] “How Long, O Lord?” The Tower, 6 May 1966, 2. This was only won with the strong support of the Student Council. “Council Supports TOWER’s efforts,” The Tower, 14 October 1966, 1 and “Apologia,” The Tower, 14 October 1966, 2. Notably, this issue was raised at the same Student Council meeting as the speaker ban.

[58] Rowe interview. Rowe speaks from the perspective of someone who actively pressed for changes in the Student Council for a year and a half, before becoming news editor of the paper in January 1967 and editor in chief in January 1968.

[59] The lack of criticism of the university’s handling of the “speaker ban” or the other issues that came to the surface is noted above. Aside from that the only occasions for criticism seem to have been a critical Newsweek article, “Minor flap over schools ranking,” The Tower, 11 December 1964, 1 and a series of articles by Albert Pierce, “The Vigil and Its Aftermath Discussed,” The Tower, 22 April 1966, 3; “More Problems Demand More Solutions,” 29 April 1966, 3; and “Faculty Possesses Inherent Right to Determine Policy, Procedure?” The Tower, 6 May 1966, 3. But according to Pierce, his articles were so unusual at the time that he was “called into the Rector’s office for a heart-to-heart talk.” Pierce interview.

[60] The 4 November 1966 issue of The Tower was groundbreaking in this sense, with three critical articles: “Joint faculty committee opposes transfers, advises Religious Ed remain in grad A&S,” 1; Albert C. Pierce, “Anti-layism affects transfer,” 2; and the editorial board’s own criticisms, “Information, please,” 2. The following week The Tower editorial board called for a lay board of trustees, “Revisions imperative,” The Tower, 11 November 11, 1966, 2; Pierce again criticized the Trustees, “Trustees control rel. ed. move,” 2; and further criticism flowed in from students and faculty in Al Pierce and Tom Brannan, “Students, faculty voice dissent over religious ed transfer,” 3 and Tom Brannan, “Council releases statement in support of religious ed.,” 3.

[61] This would resurface particularly over the lack of available copies of the Statutes, Vic Capece, “Council petitions Rector, requests University statutes,” The Tower, 16 December 1966, 1; the mistreatment of the school’s drama department, Thomas Brannan, “Wolman, Hartke to Meet March 6,” The Tower, 17 February 1967; and “Student Council supports drama students; urges Rector to supply information,” 1.

[62] “Reapportionment,” The Tower, 21 October 1966, 2. The negative reaction from the Clerical Conference indicates the revisions worked against the clergy’s role in the Council. Tom Brannan, “Council conducts open forum; analyzes present structure,” The Tower, 21 October 1966, 1. See also Tom Brannan, “Student Council reorganizes,” The Tower, 2 December 1966, 1.

[63] The Student Council pressed the relaxation of dress rules, “Council okays dress rules, discusses reapportionment,” The Tower, 28 October 1966, 1. The Tower criticizes the rules limiting the actions of female dorm residents in an editorial, “Honor System,” The Tower, 28 October 1966, 2.

[64] Albert C. Pierce, “New dean forsees revisions,” The Tower, 30 September 1966, 2 and Fran Farrell, “Logos open forum airs student opinion; several curriculum changes emphasized,” The Tower, 3 March 1966, 8. Reduction of the religion and philosophy requirements and a greater latitude in electives were the chief concerns.

[65] Rowe interview.

[66] Tom Berger, “Gathering Seeks Resolution Action,” The Tower, 18 March 1966, 1 and “Amen,” The Tower, 16 March 1966, 1.

[67] Jim Rowe, “Students present statement to bishops protesting communications breakdown,” The Tower, 18 November 1966, 1; “Merger at Catholic U. provokes group protests,” NCR, 18 November 1966, 1; and Tom Scheuring, “Communications problem is real at Catholic U.,” NCR, 23 November 1966, 4 (Scheuring was a graduate student in religious education at the time).

[68] Pierce interview and “250 students at Catholic U. take their protest case to the bishops,” NCR, 23 November 1966, 1.