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Post by Chu Chu on May 13, 2021 11:49:40 GMT -5
Unlike other Jesuit colleges, Holy Cross has a very religious and Roman Catholic name. If you are a parent or prospective student who does not know anything about the school, your initial (and maybe final) impression will be coincident with what you perceive Catholicism to be. In the past, this association was a huge plus for many who would consider the school. Today, increasing numbers of people, Catholic and other, perceive Roman Catholicism to be an intolerant, corrupt, right wing and out of touch church. This is a big problem to overcome, that Fordham, Boston College, Georgetown, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Seattle U, Marquette and others do not have. Notre Dame, which has a very Catholic and religious moniker, is the exception to the rule, and escapes the same identity problem because the name is in French and most people think football and don't know what Notre Dame means. It might be different if it was called Our Lady University.
In my opinion, our new president has been striking just the right tone with his insightful and inclusive remarks. He models and intellectual and compassionate faith tradition that I believe will resonate with many. I wish him well!
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Post by td128 on May 13, 2021 12:19:35 GMT -5
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Post by matunuck on May 13, 2021 12:42:42 GMT -5
Have to track the survey down but pretty sure that among tier-one catholic colleges ND has the highest percentage of self-identified catholic students.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on May 13, 2021 12:57:45 GMT -5
Unlike other Jesuit colleges, Holy Cross has a very religious and Roman Catholic name. If you are a parent or prospective student who does not know anything about the school, your initial (and maybe final) impression will be coincident with what you perceive Catholicism to be. In the past, this association was a huge plus for many who would consider the school. Today, increasing numbers of people, Catholic and other, perceive Roman Catholicism to be an intolerant, corrupt, right wing and out of touch church. This is a big problem to overcome, that Fordham, Boston College, Georgetown, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Seattle U, Marquette and others do not have. Notre Dame, which has a very Catholic and religious moniker, is the exception to the rule, and escapes the same identity problem because the name is in French and most people think football and don't know what Notre Dame means. It might be different if it was called Our Lady University. In my opinion, our new president has been striking just the right tone with his insightful and inclusive remarks. He models and intellectual and compassionate faith tradition that I believe will resonate with many. I wish him well! I have to think that if someone believing the Catholic church to be intolerant, corrupt and out of touch midway through their contemplation of attending Fordham, Georgetown, or Santa Clara, would abort immediately. The disguised or inoffensive name of the school would not, in my opinion, trump the applicant's disdain for Catholicism.
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Post by longsuffering on May 13, 2021 14:56:02 GMT -5
Getting to midway in the contemplation phase at least offers a chance to be wowed by Georgetown's foreign service chops and close affiliation with the State Department or Fordham's close affiliation with Wall Street. But changing the Holy Cross name would generate more focus on Catholicism than we have now so whatever small disadvantage the name presents is what it is. When HC gets publicity for spats with the Bishop or protests about it being too Catholic or not Catholic enough it isn't good publicity. Establishing excellence in academic areas such as Georgetown and Tufts have established in Foreign Service studies will do much more than any name change. In 2021, what academic field of study is Holy Cross most known for excellence in?
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on May 13, 2021 15:03:24 GMT -5
Talking about Holy Cross changing the name of the college is an even greater waste of time than our periodic discussions about HC going FBS in football, the Ivy League taking on new members, or me winning that Olympic Gold Medal, three items recently enshrined in the annals of implausible events.
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Post by Chu Chu on May 13, 2021 15:17:56 GMT -5
Talking about Holy Cross changing the name of the college is an even greater waste of time than our periodic discussions about HC going FBS in football, the Ivy League taking on new members, or me winning that Olympic Gold Medal, three items recently enshrined in the annals of implausible events. To be clear, I did not, and I do not, advocate for a name change. We are The College of the Holy Cross. I simply point out that our name is a barrier some who have been turned off by pedophilia, financial corruption and right wing political advocacy of American Bishops, all of which is well known. Others complain that the church does not include women and the laity in ways that are meaningful in making decisions. These are headwinds.
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Post by td128 on May 14, 2021 6:09:47 GMT -5
All great points being shared here which is why it is all the more important to get into the marketplace and pound your chest and be proud of who we are and what we represent. Display the commitment to excellence in winning on and off the field that attracts individuals who similarly want to be within a community that desires and appreciates and pursues excellence in ALL its pursuits.
This is why situations such as that professor a few years back who defiled our Lord and Savior are so devastating. Untold damage to Alma Mater from that. Shame on those who supported his hire knowing of those writings.
People are attracted to strong principled leadership especially in the midst of a whirlwind of excessively politicized and overpriced verbal diarrhea that emanates from so many college campuses these days.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 14, 2021 8:04:45 GMT -5
Holy Cross is not changing its name, though the name is very awkward. The name is derived from the first Catholic church in Boston, named Holy Cross. The French priest who celebrated the first Catholic mass in Boston and founded and named the church was Claude Bouchard de la Poterie. He is the author and publisher of this tome, the "Resurrection of Laurent Ricci". www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Laurent-Ricci-History-Jesuits/dp/1385406534Laurent Ricci was the Superior General of the Jesuits when the order was suppressed by the Pope. He died in prison. I can assure you this book will never be required reading at Holy Cross, a copy is probably is not even in Dinand. If the Index of Prohibited Books was still around, this volume would be on it. Claude Bouchard de la Poterie named the church in Boston after a relic of the True Cross, that Bouchard had brought with him when he sailed into Boston from the French West Indies with a French naval squadron. This relic: www.thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?Source=Archives&ID=12202The first appearance of the relic in Boston was on Sunday, November 2, 1788. The Abbe presided at the first public mass offered in Boston, having secured a former Huguenot chapel on School St. for his church. The meetinghouse was delipidated and abandoned. A Boston newspaper, the Independent Chronicle, published a news account of the church opening several days subsequent. The report, excerpted below, was likely partly written by Abbe Bouchard. A public notice announcing the availability of tickets for a mass on the following Sunday further described the chapel’s dedication and consecration to This relic was manufactured by Bouchard in the French West Indies. At the time that Bouchard de la Poterie arrived in Boston with his relic of the True Cross, there were four such relics of the True Cross in France. Three were in churches on the Ile de la Cite in Paris: Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle, and the eponymously named Eglise Sainte-Croix de la Cite. The fourth was in an abbey named Holy Cross. The Abbaye de Sainte-Croix is in Poitiers, a city in France where Bouchard had been a parish priest. Veneration of holy relics was a source of income, which is probably the genesis of Abbe Bouchard's manufacturing of a relic. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Cross_Abbey_(Poitiers). Aside from manufacturing relics, Abbe Bouchard also manufactured credentials, but I'll save that for another day. If Twitter had existed back then, he would have been a very prolific Tweeter.
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Post by alum on May 14, 2021 8:07:49 GMT -5
All great points being shared here which is why it is all the more important to get into the marketplace and pound your chest and be proud of who we are and what we represent. Display the commitment to excellence in winning on and off the field that attracts individuals who similarly want to be within a community that desires and appreciates and pursues excellence in ALL its pursuits. This is why situations such as that professor a few years back who defiled our Lord and Savior are so devastating. Untold damage to Alma Mater from that. Shame on those who supported his hire knowing of those writings. People are attracted to strong principled leadership especially in the midst of a whirlwind of excessively politicized and overpriced verbal diarrhea that emanates from so many college campuses these days. I am not going to react to this. It's like in the Progressive commercial about becoming your parents. We all see it.
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Post by hcpride on May 14, 2021 8:33:29 GMT -5
Holy Cross is not changing its name, though the name is very awkward. I agree that going forward what were once helpful attributes (a very strongly Catholic name in tandem with a singular focus on undergraduate liberal arts, for example) may now be negatives to a critical mass of the best and brightest prospective students (even those applying to a few Catholic schools). That doesn’t mean we can’t fill our campus with 3200 good kids and balance our books (we’re obviously doing that), but it does have an effect (and has had an effect) on stats, rankings, and prestige.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on May 14, 2021 9:58:07 GMT -5
Ask yourself this: do we want people who hate the Catholic church attending Holy Cross?
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 14, 2021 10:14:33 GMT -5
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 14, 2021 10:16:56 GMT -5
Ask yourself this: do we want people who hate the Catholic church attending Holy Cross? Why would anyone who hated Catholicism attend Holy Cross?
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Post by Crucis#1 on May 14, 2021 10:55:03 GMT -5
Using the term hate the church may be overly simplistic....
I know many people who really enjoy the liturgy, spirituality and understanding the history of the Church but really dislike the current hierarchy. There is a distinction between loving the church, as the people of Christ, and seeing and disliking what has been covered up and not managed well.
The attrition in the number of catholic schools is staggering, but understandable. I still reflect fondly upon my teachers and the priest in my catholic grammar school, with the exception of one Nun, who was a sadistic disciplinarian. But my High School..... Not so much a fond memory.
There are so many, who have had a completely positive experience throughout their life with the priest and bishops, but so many have not.
At HC, I had a classmate, who was always pleasant to me, but he seemed to be very unhappy in many ways. He left school after freshmen year. 25 years later, I understood why, after reading several articles and seeing interviews. It was clear that his experiences before HC, had a profound impact upon him.
For catholic school survival, there is a lot of fence mending and outreach that is needed.
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Post by matunuck on May 14, 2021 11:07:45 GMT -5
I'd like to see a different admissions marketing/resource allocation strategy implemented and see the results before blaming other factors for stagnate app growth.
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Post by purplehaze on May 14, 2021 11:23:37 GMT -5
Many Catholic grammar and high schools have experienced significant growth with kids from other Christian denominations attending - those parents want a faith-based education and are willing to pay for it Yes, college is different but the name of our school is not exclusively ‘Catholic’, it is unapologetically ‘Christian’ and we should market ourselves with that in mind
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Post by CHC8485 on May 14, 2021 11:51:01 GMT -5
Ask yourself this: do we want people who hate the Catholic church attending Holy Cross? KY - I think that's the point. there are 2 groups to consider - For the reasons outlined by Chu Chu there are a lot more people today (vs. 30 - 40 years ago) who do indeed hate Catholicism and therefore will never even look at Holy Cross (or another Catholic school) as a possibility. There are also people I'd group into this category who are biased against a Catholic schools (think many protestant Christians who simply don't trust Catholics)
- There are many more people today (vs. 30 - 40 years ago) who may not hate Catholicism but are indifferent to it for the reasons Chu Chu outlined or just plain lack of a strong Catholic/spiritual life. Some portion of this group do not consider or apply to Holy Cross (or any other school) because it is Catholic. Their experience of the Catholic Church in many cases comes down to, I hated CCD as a kid and honestly who needs more of that, so I won't even look any further.
No one (or exceedingly few anyway) from category A are applying to HC or any other Catholic schools. By their name, BC, Villanova, etc. do not automatically turn off applicants in category B and so they at least navigate to the website to learn about the school and by the time they learn it is Catholic affiliated, they have discovered other things about the school that are attractive and The days of parents sending a child to college because it is a Catholic college are gone for the vast majority of the population. The College needs to recognize and acknowledge that, as Chu Chu put it, those things are headwinds that the college must overcome, not by changing their name but by working harder to reach more of group B and demonstrate that the bias is not accurate and Holy Cross is school worth exploring. I do not believe the admissions office has not been working hard, just they have been working hard on the same things they did 20+ years ago. They need to work hard on a different approach that includes some of the things they have done historically, that is drastically different from what worked 20 years ago.
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Post by newfieguy74 on May 14, 2021 12:15:02 GMT -5
A lot of good points have been made here. I think the term "headwinds" is an accurate term. Although HC's name is loudly Catholic it would be disastrous I think to change the it. I grew up awash in Catholicism. Of the thousands of Catholics I know or have known there are maybe a handful who attend Catholic Mass on a regular basis. I'm not counting the Christmas Catholics. Church attendance overall is down. Fewer than 50% of Americans identify as members of a church. On top of that indifference you have active anger toward the Catholic Church, some of it well deserved. For HC these headwinds are going to be a long term problem without an easy solution. However, I don't think any of this prevents HC from prospering if leadership does its job. I have a lot of confidence in incoming President Rougeau.
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Post by gks on May 14, 2021 12:22:44 GMT -5
As a parent who recently had a kid go thru the college application and have one coming up....I think the name of Holy Cross is a non-factor.
Just one parent's opinion.
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Post by rgs318 on May 14, 2021 16:09:28 GMT -5
That name is why I ended up at HC. My mother wanted me to go to a school that "sounded Catholic." Providence, Georgetown and certainly Yale and Brown did not fit that requirement. The other reason was my desire to attend a school with football. The first time I saw Holy Cross was the day I registered back in 1963. The best choice I have ever made. I loved my Jesuit education and it has been a valuable asset for lo these many years.
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Post by matunuck on May 25, 2021 10:12:29 GMT -5
May 25 and we still have Class of 2024 info on our website. It's really absurd how long it takes HC to update basic information.
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Post by matunuck on Jun 2, 2021 8:38:52 GMT -5
May 25 and we still have Class of 2024 info on our website. It's really absurd how long it takes HC to update basic information. June 2 and still no update on our site.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jun 2, 2021 9:16:13 GMT -5
May 25 and we still have Class of 2024 info on our website. It's really absurd how long it takes HC to update basic information. June 2 and still no update on our site. I think Ann has left the building.
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Post by higheredguy on Jun 2, 2021 19:11:39 GMT -5
Maybe someone could just email admissions politely asking for this year's stats
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