New Yorker by birth, lawyer by training, and most recently, center director at Santa Clara University, I’m delighted to be the new President of The University of Scranton. This new job excites me because our University takes its Jesuit mission and identity seriously. While many question the continuing vitality of the “Ignatian tradition” on contemporary Jesuit campuses, Ignite|Faculty work in the Ignatian tradition unapologetically celebrates that vitality. And a closer look at this issue on Scranton’s commitment to culture and the arts just might allay the fears of many naysayers.

Why highlight this commitment to culture as characteristically “Jesuit” or “Ignatian”? An institution in the Jesuit tradition—The University of Scranton, for one—ought to be the place that reverences culture. So says Jesuit historian Stephen Schloesser from Boston College. For him, the Jesuit way of proceeding “is marked by a strong, perhaps even extreme, belief in the compatibility of Christ and culture. This Jesuit accommodation departs from other Catholic voices that hold for a strong division, distinction, or even opposition between Christ and culture, between the Church and world. If Catholicism is a big tent, Jesuits stand somewhere close to the door with at least one foot jutting out into the world. This isn’t an accident or an aberration. It’s essential to the church’s institutional location of the Society of Jesus.” ¹

How does The University of Scranton reverence culture? This issue of Ignite provides an answer: culture expressing itself in art, theatre and music prospers on this campus. And the cultural focus here extends into our local community and even beyond to other countries. St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, long ago challenged his companions to go and set the world on fire. Scranton faculty and staff take this challenge seriously, and provide a learning experience in the arts that ignites the minds and hearts of our students.

As the University’s new President, I’m quite proud to acknowledge and to celebrate the work of colleagues, both faculty and staff, in the Ignatian tradition of reverencing culture, especially through the arts. I can frankly attest that the spirit of St. Ignatius is alive and well at Scranton. While this is most welcomed, it is only our starting point.

¹ Stephen Schloesser, S.J., “Jesuit Hybrids, Catholic Modernities, Future Pasts,” Inaugural Lecture, LoSchiavo Chairin , Catholic Social Thought, University of San Francisco, September 1, 2005: 7, http://www.usfca.edu/uploadedFiles/ Destinations/Institutes_and_Centers/Lane/Events/documents/Schloesser_JesuitHybrids_InauguralLecture.pdf.