A legacy in transition: A social portrait of the professoriate in a liberal arts college of the Catholic, Jesuit tradition. (Volumes I and II)

This thesis is an intensive study of one higher education institution, including its history and current contexts, to understand and develop a social portrait of its faculty, their views of their work and their relationship with their employing institution and its special mission. This portrait of the professoriate in a liberal arts college of the Catholic Jesuit tradition may contribute to an understanding of the professoriate, as well as an understanding of the process of accommodation to societal mandates being faced by many of the 237 Catholic higher education institutions.;Findings include contention surrounding the competing institutional purposes associated with this higher education institution--intellectual, social and religious. The growth and dominance of the newly laicized faculty, together with their professional values and normative expectations have joined with the changing and aspiring Catholic Jesuit institution in seeking a quality of academic excellence for their traditionally Catholic and socially mobile student body. Faculty perspectives and beliefs in science, verifiable truth, and democratic principles of collegiality and shared governance occasionally compete with personalized interactions, spiritual beliefs and hierarchical authority structures of the College. Professional values underscoring the importance of teaching, research and community service are contrapuntal to the communal, familial and authoritarian paradigms of the institution's past. Faculty idealism, cynicism, individualism are revealed as is the search for community among a departmentally-fragmented professoriate, whose essential work requires time alone. A variety of individual perspectives highlight the faculty's search for meaning in the primary teaching work, their academic fields, their institution and their lives.;Chapters include: Chapter 1: Introduction--The Study Questions; Chapter II: Methodology; Chapter III: Institutional History; Chapter IV: Analysis of Faculty Interview Data; Chapter V: The Struggle to Articulate Purpose at the College of the Holy Cross; Chapter VI: Contemporary Events in American Catholic Higher Education and the Ongoing Dilemma Associated with the Maintenance of "Religious" Education in America; Chapter VII: The Professoriate: Academic Professionalism; Chapter VIII: Conclusion.;Data collection consisted of interviews, document review, and observation. Fifty-two, two-hour interviews were completed and analyzed.