Penley: UD needs to work on its 'coherent story'
Heather Nelson
Issue date: 11/17/09 Section: News
Dr. Larry Penley, University of Dallas presidential candidate, met with representatives from the Student Government Executive Council, the Braniff Graduate Student Association and The University News on Nov. 10.
Penley was first asked about his previous role as president of Colorado State University, and he replied, "I'm very proud of what we accomplished at Colorado State under my leadership, so there's really a whole set of accomplishments that I think speak for themselves. We increased the number of freshmen; we increased the number of honors students by more than 40 percent; we doubled fundraising to $300 million in five years."
Penley then went on to describe CSU and UD as "very substantially different."
He said, at UD, "the degree to which you can create a perspective, a critical thinking perspective, through the integration of that [liberal arts] coursework and the rigor of the materials is much greater than you can at a public university."
"It's very different, too, in that it's a Catholic school and so it has an aspect of the Church associated with it that creates a rich view of the human as a spiritual person as well as an intellectual thinking person," Penley added.
There were, however, certain similarities between UD and CSU, Penley said. Quoting from John Henry Newman's "The Idea of a University," Penley said, "The goals of a university have to do with the final end of the individual and the good of society … but I believe that [end] is better served in a private, smaller school."
Penley said that the ends of education should provide one "an integrative experience that gives one the kind of complex critical thinking skills that enable one to be a contributor to society in very fundamental ways."
Penley then described what he considered to be the uniqueness of UD's mission. "Most Catholic private schools do not have the degree of dependence on Western civilization, original works and deriving from Western civilization and the study of it a perspective on our future in quite the way that the University of Dallas does," he said.
Penley was first asked about his previous role as president of Colorado State University, and he replied, "I'm very proud of what we accomplished at Colorado State under my leadership, so there's really a whole set of accomplishments that I think speak for themselves. We increased the number of freshmen; we increased the number of honors students by more than 40 percent; we doubled fundraising to $300 million in five years."
Penley then went on to describe CSU and UD as "very substantially different."
He said, at UD, "the degree to which you can create a perspective, a critical thinking perspective, through the integration of that [liberal arts] coursework and the rigor of the materials is much greater than you can at a public university."
"It's very different, too, in that it's a Catholic school and so it has an aspect of the Church associated with it that creates a rich view of the human as a spiritual person as well as an intellectual thinking person," Penley added.
There were, however, certain similarities between UD and CSU, Penley said. Quoting from John Henry Newman's "The Idea of a University," Penley said, "The goals of a university have to do with the final end of the individual and the good of society … but I believe that [end] is better served in a private, smaller school."
Penley said that the ends of education should provide one "an integrative experience that gives one the kind of complex critical thinking skills that enable one to be a contributor to society in very fundamental ways."
Penley then described what he considered to be the uniqueness of UD's mission. "Most Catholic private schools do not have the degree of dependence on Western civilization, original works and deriving from Western civilization and the study of it a perspective on our future in quite the way that the University of Dallas does," he said.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 4
Concerned
posted 11/19/09 @ 9:03 PM CST
This is deeply troubling for several reasons.
Penley says that the proper approach to fundraising at UD is "finding a philanthropist who already has a dream and presenting an opportunity at the university to fulfill that dream. (Continued…)
Reiner Z
ReinerZ
posted 11/23/09 @ 2:26 PM CST
"UD must not allow its identity to be compromised."
Looking around it seems as if it might not be such a bad idea to re-work our business/fundraising structure a bit. (Continued…)
Frog Leg
posted 12/02/09 @ 9:11 AM CST
Regarding UD's "coherent story," UD never had one. It wants to pretend it can be both an orthodox Catholic school and a Great Books school. However, these two strands have always fundamentally in conflict. (Continued…)
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