Seton Hall Magazine, Winter 2000 - Seton Hall University

BY MONSIGNOR ROBERT SHEERAN ’67
Although I’m a bit millennium weary at the
moment — convinced, despite predictions, that
the sky will not fall on New Year’s Day — I was
intrigued recently by a book that addresses some
of the challenges we all face at Seton Hall in the
year 2000, and beyond. The Lexus and the Olive Tree by New York
Times Foreign Affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman looks
at the tension between tradition and change in an increasingly
global economy. How does a sense of community
survive in a world of crumbling borders, e-commerce, Coca-
Cola from Boise to Beijing? It’s a question
easier to ask than to answer. For Friedman,
the “Lexus” symbolizes the human drive for
enrichment and the “Olive Tree” a desire for
identity, stability and belonging. Those conflicting
hopes have always been at the heart
of the human story, but today they have
acquired a new urgency. Equipped with
modems and laptop computers, we are at
home everywhere and yet nowhere.
Connected to others, we are too often disconnected
from ourselves. That, more than Y2K
glitches, is what ought to make us anxious
about our brave new world.
It’s no wonder that, as president, I was
drawn to the book. Friedman’s analysis works for Seton Hall as
well as for the larger world. Every day, as we seek to improve
the University, we find ourselves embracing an unknowable
future guided only by an unchangeable past. Soon the
University will be 150 years old. What lessons can we learn
from our history that will shape our destiny? My vision is that
Seton Hall will become one of the world’s great Catholic universities.
If we are to succeed in this collective endeavor we
must recognize that change for its own sake is foolish but that,
equally, uncritical attachment to the past is not the sign of
spiritual health. The trick is to get the balance right.
One rather obvious question is: What signs and symbols are
worth keeping? Students in every era want to know their
school traditions. Interestingly, it is our more recent alumni
who have been responsible for establishing two new symbols
— the Alumni Clock by the Walsh Library and the Pirate statue
in front of the Recreation Center. And each new class is offered
the traditional caution that to step on the University seal at the
center of the Green is to impede graduation. Generally those
things that each of us likes about the University we hold dear
and refer to as traditions.
44 SETON HALL UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE
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Endpaper
Tradition and Change: The Balancing Act
On the other hand, those things we dislike, despite their
age and venerability, we regard as innovations that have outstayed
their welcome. Earlier this year, when the University
unveiled its new logos, I received a message from an alum
who was annoyed that we had discarded our old Pirate. That
logo, he said emphatically, was part of Seton Hall’s “tradition.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the pirate in question
had only represented our athletic teams since 1988!
These attachments — to signs and symbols, traditions and
rituals — are forms of affection. They are ways of saying that
we feel at home. Yet, we all know that no
home ever stays the same. How should Seton
Hall define itself as an institution in the
coming years? As we strive to enhance our
academic reputation, will we measure ourselves
only by national college rankings, SAT
scores, endowment per student, annual percentage
of alumni giving? These things are
important, of course, but somehow they miss
the distinctiveness of education at a great
Catholic university. Looking at Seton Hall,
I am conscious that others see in us much to
envy. But I hope they see that our greatness
lies not in bricks and mortar, a fine faculty, a
dedicated staff, a wonderful student body.
I give thanks for all these gifts. But scholarship, properly
understood, is a matter of the soul. We achieve very little if
we produce only graduates and not good people.
Yet is this anything new? Hardly. We’ve been there already,
many times before. Our future will look surprisingly like our
past. There will be mistakes and false starts, as with any
human enterprise, but there will be splendid achievements
too. I am convinced that the dramatic changes in technology at
the University — our effort to climb into Thomas Friedman’s
Lexus — will usher in many of those achievements. We should
be proud of what we have done so far and excited by the
prospect of doing more.
All the same, there is a deeper sense in which the past offers
a signpost for what lies ahead. The great English author
G.K. Chesterton wrote “tradition is the democracy of the
dead.” Older generations do not cease to offer us lessons
simply because they are no longer around. Think of our own
tradition. When Bishop Bayley founded Seton Hall in 1856, his
hope was that it should be a “home for the mind, the heart and
the spirit.” That was a good principle then and is a good principle
today. Something tells me it will also work tomorrow.
Monsignor Robert Sheeran ’67 is president of Seton Hall University.