A prominent Catholic university is backpedaling after a decision to mute its religious mission for staff and faculty was met with public backlash, including from students and alumni. Earlier this month, the University of Notre Dame publicized “new” values for staff. Touted as “a refresh of longtime organizational principles,” the “new” values notably failed to include the university’s historic Catholic mission. The “new” principles, published on November 10, included:

“Community: Treat every person with dignity and respect.

Collaboration: Work together with honesty, kindness, and humility.

Excellence: Pursue the highest standards with a commitment to truth and service.

Innovation: Embrace opportunities with creativity and dedication.”

Prior to the change, the Catholic university’s staff values included:

“Accountability: Takes responsibility and ownership for decisions, actions, and results. Accountable for both how and what is accomplished

Teamwork: Works cooperatively as a member of a team and is committed to the overall team objectives rather than own interests

Integrity: Demonstrates honest and ethical behavior that displays a high moral standard. Widely trusted, respectful, and honorable

Leadership in Excellence: Demonstrates energy and commitment to improving results, takes initiatives often involving calculated risks while considering the common good

Leadership in Mission: Understands, accepts, and supports the Catholic mission of the university and fosters values consistent with that mission.”

Students, alumni, and Catholics around the globe were outraged at the school’s revised values, particularly the decision to strike Notre Dame’s commitment to understand, accept, and support “the Catholic mission of the university” and foster “values consistent with that mission.” Posting a screenshot with a headline on the updated values, one Catholic social media user asked the school, “What’s your problem?” A Notre Dame student quipped, “This ain’t it. People all over the world love Notre Dame BECAUSE of our unapologetically Catholic identity, not in spite of it. Pray for courage for Catholic schools to be boldly Catholic.” Another social media user posted, “Can we please, please, please, just get one institution that is unapologetically Catholic and only doubles down when questioned.”

Notre Dame Human Resources Vice President Heather Christophersen did, however, tell staff that the “new” values were intended to be “an expression of how we seek to advance Notre Dame’s mission as a global, Catholic research university.” In an interview with the Notre Dame Observer, Christophersen explained that the prior set of values was deemed generic and not distinct to the university. “They could be values anywhere. They could be a value at Northwestern or Duke or Stanford, or they could be in the corporate world,” the university official said. She also explained that the decision to remove the “Leadership in Mission” value, including its explicit commitment to the school’s Catholic mission, was meant to reframe that Catholic mission as an overarching theme guiding the school’s values. “It’s in everything we do. We strive to be the best global Catholic research institution, to be a force for good. So that kind of phrase frames these values,” she said. Christophersen also admitted that the “Leadership in Mission” principle “often caused confusion of what that really means, and what these [new values] are trying to do is have all of them reflect the mission,” adding that it was more difficult to track how staff adhered to Catholic values than how professors did while teaching in the classroom.

In response to the public criticism, Notre Dame President and Catholic Priest Father. Robert A. Dowd announced that a fifth item would be added to the staff values to explicate the school’s Catholic values. The “Catholic Mission” value reads, “Be a force for good and help to advance Notre Dame’s mission to be the leading global Catholic research university.” Dowd reiterated Christophersen’s claim that the university’s Catholic mission was meant to be an overarching theme throughout the new staff values. “In that version of our Values, our commitment to our Catholic mission — which is the primary value that grounds all that we do — was referenced in the preamble to the four values as a way to show its overarching importance,” he wrote in an update. “Thanks to some constructive feedback we received, we now realize that placement is causing confusion, and that some could interpret that not as elevating our mission as we intended, but as a sign of diminishing commitment.”

“To avoid any further confusion, we have now included the language on Catholic mission as the first of our five core Values,” Dowd shared. “I hope this change makes clear what I believe we all understand: Our Catholic mission guides and informs all that we do and how we work together,” he continued. “I invite each of us to reflect more deeply on how we can be a force for good in the context of ND’s mission to be the leading global Catholic research university. Our Catholic mission has animated our common work from the University’s founding, and it will always be our guiding force.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Bill Dempsey, president of the Sycamore Trust, an independent organization of mostly Notre Dame alumni dedicated to preserving the university’s Catholic identity, said, “The university’s response to the widespread criticism of its revision of the ‘Values’ guiding some 4,500 staff employees is both strange and wholly inadequate.” He explained, “The criticism was directed at the university’s scrapping the requirement that employees ‘understand, respect, and support the Catholic mission of the university.’” Dempsey continued, “That mission as defined in the school’s Mission Statement provides a rich description of Notre Dame as ‘a Catholic academic community of higher learning,’ ‘animated by prayer, liturgy, and service,’ and ‘committed to pursuing the religious dimensions of all human learning’ in a ‘community graced by the Spirit of Christ.’”

“In professed response to the tsunami of criticism of the elimination of this employee responsibility, the university simply added in its place ‘to be a force for good and help to advance Notre Dame's mission to be the leading global Catholic research university,’” Dempsey noted. “But only a handful of staff have anything to do with research, and this ambition of the university does not appear in its Mission Statement,” he added. “Why the university adopted such an obviously inapt ‘Value’ is a mystery. Perhaps simply to get the word ‘mission’ back in. In any case, what is clear is that staff employees are no longer required to ‘understand, accept and support the university’s Catholic mission.’”