President Interviewed on Catholic Forum
Dr. Marianne Evans Mount was interviewed on Relevant Radio’s Catholic Forum show to discuss CDU and the Year of St. Joseph. Click here to listen to the show.
Assessment Reveals Growth and Results
Institutional outcomes are regularly assessed using multiple strategies that include both direct and indirect measures of student learning. The assessment program indicates that CDU’s degree programs produce their intended outcomes, are educationally effective, and produce satisfied students who are well-equipped to teach the Faith. The results of the latest assessment are a testament to our mission to communicate the mind and heart of the Church in a digital world using distance education.
MA (Theology) students who graduated in 2020 achieved an average GPA of 3.90 over an average of 4.9 years. Eighty-nine percent of those who graduated from 2014–2020 are currently in Church-related ministries. For the 2019–2020 terms, students successfully achieved each MA program outcome, and the retention rate was 93.3% for the MA (Theology) degree program and 100% for the MA in Theology and Educational Ministry degree program.
The 2020 graduates of the BA in Theology degree completion program fulfilled program requirements with an average GPA of 3.61 over an average of 3.8 years. Most students who enroll in the program either are seeking a Church-related ministry or desire to study the Faith more deeply to participate in volunteer ministries in their parishes in the future. Of the 2016–2020 alumni, 80% of undergraduate alumni are working or volunteering in Church-related ministries. For the 2019–2020 academic terms, students successfully achieved each BA program outcome, and the retention rate was 87.2%.
In 2020, those who received the Associate of Arts degree in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Catholic Studies were awarded the degree with an average GPA of 3.76 over an average of 3.8 years. For the 2019–2020 terms, students successfully achieved each AA program outcome, and the retention rate was 84.4%.
One-hundred percent of students completing end of program surveys in 2020 stated that they had achieved their learning goals, would recommend CDU to another, expressed satisfaction with their studies, and indicated that they are equipped to teach the Faith.
From fall 2019 to December 2020, the number of program students increased 11.2%. Beyond the numbers, outcome must ultimately be measured in the way that alumni use their gifts and talents in service to the Church — whether that be formally or informally. Perhaps the most significant effectiveness statement is that CDU has been an accredited distance education institution for more than 37 years, being the first to offer online Catholic education in the United States, and is committed to educating students in Catholic theology, catechetics, and evangelization for years to come.
Prison Ministry
Incarcerated Catholics are not immune to the impact of COVID-19; the pandemic has only increased their isolation. Despite the challenges, many of our brothers and sisters behind bars are using their time to learn and grow in their faith.
CDU’s enrollments in free digital courses for the incarcerated have grown 110% in 2020 to 345,000 free courses taken.
CDU now offers 30 courses in English, seven in Spanish, and three certificate programs to the incarcerated. We are grateful for your support of the underserved.
From Our President
While the CDU headquarters in Charles Town is generally quiet these days with only our IT director, director of operations, and local staff onsite, most of us are working from home. Our university chapel remains quiet with the red sanctuary light reminding us that our Lord Jesus is present and watching over CDU even with very few staff there to offer worship and love.
The work of CDU continues, and the staff are at home with technology and daily meetings via Zoom and Google Meet. The Board of Trustees is preparing for transition as we welcome Mr. Stephen Pryor as Board chair on March 15, 2021. The staff leadership is finishing an implementation plan for the first year of our new 3.5 year strategic plan, which focuses on growth and financial sustainability, institutional effectiveness, and program development. With new staff and procedures in admissions, we have seen 11% growth in student enrollment in the last few terms. The implementation of Populi, the new cloud-based student information system, is moving forward and will be ready to launch by the end of June.
CDU’s partnership with the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU) will continue as CDU teaches international faculty to excel in distance education and online pedagogy. Faculty at universities in the Philippines will take the next training module in April. Two additional modules are planned for universities in other global regions in 2021.
With so much energy and hard work devoted to accreditors in 2020, we now await the decisions of their accrediting boards in late February and early March. The Student Life Center that is home to our co-curricular programs has added significant activities and opportunities for student interaction. One of our students’ favorite instructors, Alissa Thorell, a moral theologian, serves as faculty advisor to Student Life. She works with Mary McKay, director of Student Life, to oversee the programs and assessment.
I could not mention Student Life without thanking George Muñoz for stepping up as alumni president. He is a recent MA graduate who is planning a great event for alumni and the university. Stay tuned! We are also reaching out to alumni to help support our fundraising goals.
Finally, the new year has also reminded us that we live in the shadow of the cross. Our longtime board leader, brilliant strategic thinker, benefactor, friend, nuclear physicist, business executive, and cheerleader for this university and its mission, Dr. Joseph V. Braddock, stepped into eternity very quietly on Saturday, February 6. We keep bombarding him with intentions and favors, and we have great confidence that he continues to work overtime to ensure the success of this unique university.
May the entire CDU community encounter our Lord in life-changing ways in this Lenten journey of 2021.
Professor Bonagura Publishes Second Book
Undergraduate Theology professor David Bonagura, Jr., has published a new book: Staying with the Catholic Church: Trusting God’s Plan of Salvation, which explains the mystery of the Church and why we need her to encounter Christ in light of contemporary challenges. The book can be ordered on Amazon.
Professor Bonagura, who also teaches Theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., was inspired to write the book in 2018, after the revelation of a new wave of scandals within the Church hierarchy. “So many Catholics were angry, confused, and questioning how such things could happen in God’s Church,” he says. “These reactions are understandable–I shared them. But, if the Church is what we know in faith that she is–the Body of Christ, the temporal extension of the Incarnation–then there has to be more to her than the sins of her members.”
“I set out to explain what the Church is, why Christ founded her, and what her mission is in the hope that Catholics would understand that the Church is a great mystery, a collection of sinners ministering divine healing to sinners, that is worthy not only of our continued support, but our faithful love,” Professor Bonagura says.
People are turning away from the Church in increasing numbers today. “Cascading waves of secularism and radical individualism have caused people to move away from organized religions. Added to this are the Church scandals and lack of understanding the essential truths of our faith,” Professor Bonagura says. “The way to return Catholics to the Church is the same way in which people have been brought into her for centuries, all across the globe: bold proclamation that Christ and His Church are necessary for our salvation, coupled with a tireless witness of Christ-inspired charity toward other people. Scandal draws people away from the Church. Holiness attracts them. The degree to which we live out our baptismal call to holiness will predict how successful we are in bringing people back into the Church.”
Professor Bonagura published the highly rated Steadfast in Faith: Catholicism and the Challenges of Secularism in 2019, which is also available on Amazon.
MA Grad’s Love of Reading Led to His Conversion
Daniel Kelly (MA, Theology, ‘20) lives in rural Mora County, New Mexico, on a small farm where he raises livestock and chickens, goats, and peacocks. Married to a second grade teacher, he has a beautiful and intelligent stepdaughter, and he and his wife are expecting a son in March. A professor at Luna Community College, Daniel is using his theological education to teach a course on The History of Christian Thought. He also teaches a continuing faith formation class at his parish and along with his wife has been placed in charge of the local Newman Center. “Pray for us!!,” he says. “It is so weird with the COVID restrictions.”
Raised in a household that believed in a philosophically sophisticated form of Hinduism, Daniel was attracted to Catholicism in his late teens by Catholic acquaintances and religious. At first, it seemed to him then that Jesus fit in perfectly with the Hindu schema of thought that he had been taught but that Catholicism was intellectually unsophisticated. However, that changed through his love of reading.
“Then, as now, I am completely unable to resist reading any book near me,” Daniel says. An avid reader, delving deeply into the Fantasy genre works of C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien moved him toward the Catholic Faith. He particularly remembers receiving a copy of In Defense of Sanity, the collection of G.K. Chesterton’s essays. “Chesterton completely demolished my preconceptions that Catholicism was unsophisticated and laid the groundwork for all my Catholic thinking,” he says. “Chesterton was obviously superior to any of the other writers I had read, and his explanations of Catholic thought were clear and thought provoking. He led me to purposely seek out and read other Catholic writers, and I soon came to see that the Catholic thought system really is in a league of its own.”
G.K. Chesterton–and his grandmother, who had been raised a Seventh day Adventist—led him to read C.S. Lewis’ works on Christianity. “It was refreshing to see that he had met Hindu philosophy on the way to Christianity, and it had almost detained him as well. So C.S. Lewis and Chesterton really built my understanding of Christianity,” Daniel says. “Tolkien soon came to my aid as well. I was prepared to completely cut off contact with my roots of fantasy reading, which had had an enormous impact on the formation of my world view, but I read Tolkien’s Tree and Leaf at this time, and I saw that I didn’t have to discard the good of the literature I had consumed. Indeed, novels can and should be a positive good for Catholic minds.”
As a convert, Daniel pursued an MA degree in Theology because he wanted to deepen his knowledge of the faith and teach. With CDU, he was able to continue to work for his archdiocese while earning his degree. Daniel has served as director of religious education and parish secretary of St. Gertrude the Great, his home parish, and continues to serve in a variety of ministries there and in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
“I came to CDU because I loved–and love–academia and growing academically, but I was tired of the abrasive effects of pagans and heretics in the academic world I had been in,” he says, adding, “although I loved, and still love, many of them dearly.” “CDU certainly allowed me to grow in this regard. I especially liked my Philosophy (and English) classes with Fr. Bramwell and Dr. Urbanczyk. Never have I been pushed harder to clarify my thoughts, and never has my brain grown more–not even in stats class.”
“CDU has benefited me in so many ways, it is impossible to count them all,” Daniel says. “I have grown in my faith, in my knowledge, and in my intelligence.”
“I know for myself that much of the good of my upbringing came from voraciously reading fiction–and maybe all of the bad,” Daniel says. “If we want to capture the hearts and minds of the youth, it needs to be the way Chesterton and Tolkien did, through the popular culture.”
Daniel’s MA thesis, “My Very Self You Know: A Personalist Examination of Vocation,” was published in the Easter 2020 issue of Digital Continent.
Faculty Member Publishes Book on Catholic Priesthood
Professor Rev. Bevil Bramwell, OMI, has published a new graduate textbook on the philosophical and theological aspects of the priesthood. The bishops and their assistants, the priests, participate to different degrees in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. This book focuses more on the priest, exploring the rich and profound theological background of the priesthood as well as the shattering distraction of scandal. The liturgy, spirituality, the intellectual life, and even the life of Saint John Vianney, the Patron of Pastors, are also covered. The Catholic Priesthood: A 360 Degree View can be purchased on Amazon.com.
President Interviewed on Iowa Catholic Radio
On January 28, 2021, President Dr. Marianne Evans Mount appeared on “Jon Leonetti in the Morning” to discuss CDU and the Year of St. Joseph. Click here to listen to the show.
