RESEARCH & SPECIAL REPORTS
The Faith Factor
An Exploration of the Formation of Religious Identity
Among Notre Dame Students
Scholastic Magazine,
February 24, 2005
by Nick Kolman-Mandle
This article on the “formation of religious identity among Notre Dame students” reports that a 2003 survey of seniors by the Office of Institutional Research disclosed that their four years had more often lessened faith than increased it. Thus, only 15 percent reported a “slight upward” change (and only one percent “much upward” change), whereas 29 percent reported a “slight downward,” and eight percent a “much downward,” change. The balance reported no change. The article also describes a Georgetown survey of uncertain date of the religious practices of an undisclosed number of alumni of 24 institutions 10
years after graduation. About 77% of the Notre Dame alumni polled
said they regularly practiced their religion while 23% did not. While this may be roughly consistent with the later "diminution of faith"
survey of 2003 seniors, the proportion of Notre Dame practicing Catholics was at the same time markedly higher than the average 24% of alumni of the other institutions.
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Are Catholic Colleges Leading Students Astray?
A Nationwide survey raises concens about the impact that
American colleges have on the faith and morals of Catholic Students
The Catholic World Report, March 2003
by Patrick J. Reilly
This article reports the results of a 2001 study by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) of the effect of four years of Catholic higher education on the religious practices and moral judgments of students of 38 Catholic colleges and universities including Notre Dame. The results are aggregated, and therefore nothing can be said about Notre Dame specifically. However, the disturbing picture that emerges underscores the need for the University either to release the results specific to Notre Dame if it has them or to have a similar study undertaken now. The data disclose the weakness of religious education at the secondary level and the its ineffectiveness, or worse, at the university level. To
illustrate: Over the four years, support for legalized abortion rose from 45% to 57%; for legalizing homosexual marriage from 55% to 71%; and for casual sex from 30% to 49%.
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Making Sense of a “Religious” University
Faculty Adaptations and Opinions at
Brigham Young, Baylor, Notre Dame, and Boston College
Seminars in Christian Scholarship, September 27-29, 2001
by Larry Lyon and Michael Beaty
This report, which was presented at a 2001 conference of Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture, describes the unsettling results of a survey of the faculty of four religious Universities respecting their attitudes toward their school's religious mission and how they adapted to it. Notre Dame was one of the institutions. The others were Boston College, Baylor, and Brigham Young. Among the revealing findings are, for example, these: Fifty-seven percent of Notre Dame faculty believe that no preference in hiring should be given to Catholics. Instead, they said, "academic promise or prominence"
should be the sole factor. Only 13.7% strongly disagreed. And 57% couldn't "create a syllabus" for his or her course "that includes a clear, academically legitimate, Christian perspective on the subject"
even if he or she wanted to. For that matter, almost a third evidently don't want to, for thirty percent don't believe that Notre Dame "should provide an academic environment that encourages students to develop a well-thought-out Christian philosophy of life."
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