Franciscan Father Jonathan St. Andre encountered the Third Order Regular of St. Francis — the order to which he now belongs — when he was a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville (FUS). 

“I had one or two teaching me, and one was my chaplain in my residence hall,” Father St. Andre told the Register. “As I came to know these men, I saw that they had a deep openness to the Holy Spirit, and they were also just regular guys. There was something about this combination that really attracted me to consider the vocation.” 

After graduation, as he discerned, he realized that God was leading him back to the friars. Today, he serves as the vice president for Franciscan life at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, which was founded by his order in 1946. For the past century, the friars have run the university, serving in the administration, faculty and various other positions throughout the school. 

“We do all sorts of things,” Father St. Andre said. “Our president, Father Dave Pivonka, is a friar, and I serve on his administrative team. We have friars who serve, who are teachers, campus ministers, athletic chaplains or residence hall chaplains. We all serve the pastoral needs of the students.” 

Just as academic, spiritual and student life at Franciscan University of Steubenville is shaped by the charisms of the Third Order Regular — encounter, conversion and community — many other Catholic universities are similarly shaped by the ongoing presence of their founding religious orders. 

 

Religious Orders at the University

Catholic higher education in America dates back to 1789, when Jesuit Father John Carroll established Georgetown University. As the young nation developed and its Catholic population grew, religious orders established colleges throughout the country. Today, assessing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) list of Catholic colleges and universities sees the vast majority founded by religious orders. 

Despite the continued presence of these orders at the schools they founded, changes during the 1960s transformed the relationship between religious orders and their universities. The president of the University of Notre Dame, Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh, took action to end the Congregation of Holy Cross’ sole ownership of the university, which it had founded in 1842. Father Hesburgh transferred university ownership to a shared governance model consisting of six Holy Cross priests and six lay fellows, who then delegated governance power to a newly formed board of trustees composed mainly of laypeople. 

Notre Dame was the “first major Roman Catholic university in the world to move from clerical to lay control,” The New York Times reported. In the wake of the monumental shift, other religious institutions followed suit. In 1998, Father Hesburgh reflected that his changes at Notre Dame “affected … almost every Catholic university and Catholic hospital in the country.”

Each Catholic college and university handled the changing role of religious orders and the increased pressure from secular pressure differently. Though the University of Notre Dame is run under the shared governance model, the Congregation of Holy Cross has remained deeply involved in leadership, teaching and pastoral ministry, and a Holy Cross priest has always served as president of the university. Other universities, like Jesuit-founded Georgetown or Benedictine-affiliated Belmont Abbey College, among others, are currently led by lay presidents. 

Shaping Academics, Spirituality and Student Life

At schools where the founding religious order remains present and active, faculty and alumni attest to the influence of the orders’ particular traditions on student life. 

“The charism of our order — and of the university — is ongoing conversion,” Father St. Andre said. “For St. Francis, his understanding of penance was … this idea of ongoing conversion. And so the friars try to incarnate that on campus. We invite the students, faculty and staff to grow in ongoing conversion by emphasizing devotion to Jesus Christ, openness to the power of the Holy Spirit, and claiming our identity as sons and daughters of the Father.” 

“And friars have a lot of fun,” he added. “We laugh a lot with the students. And I think that's good because one of the big Franciscan charisms is joy.”

At Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, academic and social life are similarly shaped by the charism of the college’s founding order. Benedictine alumna Rori Richardson told the Register that the Benedictine monks and sisters were an “integral part” of her college experience. 

“They set the tone of the campus atmosphere. Benedictines pride themselves on hospitality, and so part of that was just the fact that they were physically present — and not just in the monastery, but all over campus,” Richardson said. She recalled Benedictine monks greeting her as she and her classmates arrived on campus for freshman move-in. 

As a freshman, Richardson took a required nine-week seminar that integrated core values from the Rule of St. Benedict with core “habits of mind” at Benedictine College. 

“The fact that the college said, ‘Hey, freshmen, you need to know what it means to be a Benedictine, Catholic, liberal arts school because we expect you to do great things with that’ — that made an impression on me,” she said. 

Ella Sullivan Ramsay, an alumna of the University of Dallas, said that her college experience was influenced by the Cistercian monks who were instrumental in founding the school. 

“Cistercian spirituality is deeply influential on campus life in general,” she told the Register, naming contemplation, humility and simplicity as charisms that she saw reflected throughout the university. Ramsay took several classes taught by Cistercian monks. 

As an assistant professor of theology at Providence College, Dominican Father Dominic Verner shares his order’s charism with the students he teaches. “I believe that our joyful fraternity can itself serve as a witness to the Gospel and serve as an invitation for students to pursue a deeper form of friendship and community,” he told the Register. 

In addition to teaching courses in theology and the college’s Development of Western Civilization program, Father Verner serves as the chaplain for the women’s field hockey team and a men’s freshman residence hall, in addition to assisting with Mass, confession, adoration and OCIA sacramental preparation. 

“With over 30 friars actively serving Providence College, the Dominican presence on campus can’t be missed,” Father Verner said. “It would be an odd day to visit campus and not catch a glimpse of the distinctive white habit.” 

 

Seeing the Fruits of Religious Life on Campus

Undergraduate students who interact with religious speak highly of their impact on vocational discernment, spiritual growth and authentic Catholic identity. 

For Father St. Andre, the active presence of Franciscans on campus during his time in college sowed the seeds of his later vocation. And though Father Verner did not attend a college run by a religious order, he first met the Dominican friars through their campus ministry at his university. 

“The presence and witness of these priests and religious helped sustain and deepen my faith through my college years, and I owe them all a debt I could never repay,” Father Verner told the Register. 

As a student at Benedictine, Richardson worked in campus ministry alongside several Benedictine monks who were in formation with the order. 

“It was lovely to have those interactions with them and to see people who were not terribly much older than we were loving God and falling more in love with God,” she reflected. 

Her first weeks of college coincided with the release of the 2018 Pennsylvania grand-jury report chronicling 70 years of clerical sexual abuse, and Richardson was impressed by the earnest and thoughtful way in which the Benedictine monks addressed the topic. 

“It meant a lot to me that they cared to engage with us — not just by playing pickup soccer with students, but also acknowledging, ‘Hey, here’s a really hard thing that probably shook your faith in the Church, and we want to process that with you,’” she said. 

Ramsay, too, appreciated the depth of faith cultivated on her campus. “I often think back to my experience of the Catholic community at UD when I feel alone in my post-grad experience as a practicing Catholic,” she said. “The best part of my [college] experience was the Catholic identity and community.”