Update XXXII.3
Monika's Farewell Letter
Monika K. Hellwig
President
ACCU
As I leave the leadership of the Association this summer, what I most want to do is to
thank you heartily for your support and interest, for your trust in me and for your
continued effort and creativity in exploring and implementing the mission of Catholic
higher education in the world in which we find ourselves at this time in history. It has not
been an easy time because of the far-reaching changes in technology and
communications, in society at large, in the realm of higher education, and not least in the
Church.
It has been a time of many adaptations, and many new initiatives, and therefore
necessarily a time of trial and error in the efforts to realize our mission. We have been
attacked both from the right and from the left. But we have tried to understand and to
realize in practice the great vision unfolded for Catholic higher education in the first part
of Ex corde ecclesiae, even while we struggled to find the appropriate application of the
norms in the second part of that document.
In other contexts I have been able to say my goodbyes to the presidents, with special
thanks to those who served at various times on the board of directors of ACCU.
However, I want here to mention also with much gratitude all those involved in planning
directing and implementing our various sponsored and co-sponsored programs inlcuding:
Collegium summer faculty colloquy, The Institute for Student Affairs at Catholic
Colleges (ISACC) and its outgrowth the Association for Student Affairs at Catholic
Colleges and Universities (ASACCU); The Institute for Administrators in Catholic
Higher Education hosted at Boston College; The First-time Presidents’ Seminar
hosted at the University of Notre Dame; The Trustees’ Mission and Identity
Workshops co-sponsored by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and
the Association of Governing Boards; the Rome Seminar in partnership with the
Lay Centre Foyer Unitas; the whole range of Catholic Social Justice Teaching
programs, and the one-time Lay Leadership in Catholic Higher Education Summer
Conference hosted by Sacred Heart University.
In addition to those formally involved in these programs I want to thank administrators
and faculty members of our institutions who made such programs, as well as local ones,
possible. I want to thank the leadership of the Catholic Higher Education Research
Cooperative and the National Catholic College Admissions Association for their creative
initiatives in support of our member institutions. I want to thank the many librarians of
our institutions who have helped us in many ways to maintain solidarity and to cultivate
the Catholic intellectual tradition in our institutions.