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Culture and academic life in PhD programs at Catholic universities?

In our new “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

I was recently admitted to a PhD programme at the University of Notre Dame and will be starting this autumn. However, an American professor I know mentioned that since it’s a Catholic university, there might be some cultural differences that could take time to adjust to.

As an international student with no background in or prior exposure to Catholicism, I’m not entirely sure what that actually means in practice. I’m starting to feel a bit anxious about it.

Does anyone here have concrete experience with Notre Dame or with studying at a Catholic university in the U.S.? I would really appreciate any insights about what to expect, especially in terms of campus culture and academic life.

Does anyone have helpful insights to share?

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20 responses to “Culture and academic life in PhD programs at Catholic universities?”

  1. Anonymous

    I took courses at a Catholic college at a Canadian University. Be open minded and respectful. You are knowingly and willingly going into a Catholic space, so be respectful of the culture (as you would if you went to another country). What to expect: it is not uncommon if there are crosses on the walls in classrooms, or priests and nun on the campus (and employed as lecturers/professors), or no meat is served on Fridays at the cafeterias. There are some basic points for you. The undergraduate philosophical education at North American Catholic colleges and universities is more concerned with the character development of students than secular colleges and universities. Part of their mission is to make good citizens with good values. Where I was EVERY undergraduate was required to take a course in either philosophy or religion (you should take a look at ND’s mission statement). That is typical for these institutions.
    But with that said, you meet a great range of people with a typical distribution of virtues and vices.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous

    Some faculty are Catholic and devoutly so. The CIT will be taken seriously. A higher percentage of the people around you will be Catholic or Christian of some denomination than compared to programs at secular universities. More people will openly express interest in, and devote time to discussing, primarily theological topics, e.g., the Trinity.

    But Notre Dame is an exception re Catholic schools. It is a Catholic university, but it is also one of the most elite universities in the world. This makes it very different than other Catholic schools, e.g., CUA, FUS, or some run of the mill Catholic SLAC. At CUA or FUS, for example, practically everyone around you will be *devoutly* Catholic and flatly presume you are too. Saying something negative about Aquinas will be seen as a no-no. At your dime-a-dozen Catholic SLACs, it varies: some are seriously Catholic and feel more like CUA/FUS, others seem like a standard SLAC but happen to have a chapel also.

    In general though, I suspect one needn’t be too worried about some overwhelming Catholic force at a place like ND (or Georgetown), especially as a graduate student. I say all this as a quasi-Catholic who teaches at a fairly Catholic SLAC and attended a Catholic university as an undergraduate.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    I had to laugh at comment 2 … op will not know what the cit is

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      This could have been a more helpful thing, while still getting the laugh in. Catholic Intellectual Tradition.

      Reply
    2. acronyms galore

      OP, as a fellow international you may also find US people overestimate how much the rest of the world already knows and uses acronyms about their tertiary education system… “SLAC” means a small liberal arts college, which are schools that tend place greater emphasis on a teaching a rounded liberal education and Great Books courses than larger state schools. Some examples are Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Amherst. CUA and FUS (I assume) are Catholic University of America and the Franciscan University of Steubenville. I can’t speak very directly to your question but in my dealings with the philosophy department at ND I have found them to be unfailingly thoughtful, intellectually rigorous, kind and well-rounded, and that the Catholic aspect shows up mainly in knowledge of particular intellectual tradition. My outside impression is that it is first and foremost an elite philosophy program. One upside of a it seeming like a nice place is I expect you could ask a professor or two for guidance about this aspect of your time on campus and get helpful insight

      Reply
      1. Anonymous

        For what it’s worth, and as an international reader, I know what an SLAC is but not what CUA or FUS are. (I do find that Americans overestimate how many American colleges the rest of the world has heard of.)

      2. Daniel

        For what it’s worth, as an American who was born in America and who lived in America until my late 20s, I knew what SLAC meant (I learned this at some point in graduate school) and had to Google CIT, CUA, and FUS. I am not Catholic and did not go to any Catholic schools at any point.

  4. Anonymous

    Unrelated to culture, but as an ND grad in metaphysics who has no interest in phil religion / is a staunch naturalist, I find it striking that all of my TT interviews have been at places where a significant percentage of people work on phil religion–a greater percentage than the average department. I feel like I’ve been typecast. Make of that what you will (n=1 after all), but I figured I should at least speak my mind about it. Fwiw I don’t think this affects phil science grads as much.

    Reply
  5. Anonymous

    I am at a catholic university nearby other large non-catholic universities with philosophy PhD programs. One thing I have noticed is that many, many more graduate students in my program are married, whereas in other programs students are mostly single. So, in terms of culture, that may be a difference. I also find that many of my students have more knowledge about philosophy because more of them come from catholic schools where they may be familiar with Aristotle and Aquinas.

    Reply
  6. Anonymous

    I was a grad student at ND. You will absolutely feel the Catholic presence in the department as a non-Catholic grad student. Although, your experience will vary quite a bit depending on who you work with and what you study. This does not mean you shouldn’t go to ND as a non-Catholic person. Still, asking a range of grad students about their experiences (particularly grad students in their later years in the program) will give you a better sense of how much the Catholic culture might impact you and what to anticipate.

    To reassure you a bit, I’m glad that I went to ND as a non-Catholic person. There were times when I thought my life might have been easier had I picked a more “typical” department. But I also had excellent professors, mentors, and friends at ND— both religious and not. Plus, I was meaningfully impacted by seeing how, for some philosophers, their religious identities shape how they engage in the discipline, and I’m a better teacher and philosopher as a result. I’m not sure I would have had the (appropriate) level of appreciation for them or for other religious philosophers had I gone somewhere else.

    Reply
  7. Anonymous

    As an international student, you will be experience some cultural differences anyways. I do not think there is anything especially concerning about Catholicism. For example, you may have more culture shock from everything around college sports than Catholicism at ND, just saying…

    Reply
  8. Anonymous

    I also was a grad student at ND. I was not an international student and I was raised Catholic, but I was an atheist and a naturalist while I was there. The strangest experience for me was when a professor started class with a prayer. That only happened one time during my entire experience there, though. Besides that, like other commentators said, religious issues and religious beliefs are taken seriously and not dismissed out of hand as is common in many secular universities. But I think that is a good thing. By the time I arrived at ND, I was a militant atheist and had an extremely low opinion of religion. I think the real problem was that I had never encountered someone who was intellectually serious about their faith. ND fixed that problem, and I am profoundly grateful for it.

    It was a bit awkward for me that there was so much overlap between metaphysics and philosophy of religion. But maybe that shouldn’t be seen differently than any other specialty. NYU has a lot of overlap with philosophy of physics, Duke with social ontology, etc.

    Reply
  9. Prof

    ND is recovering what in philosophy has so long been lost: an integrated, I dare say true, view of the universe.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      This is an unhelpful reply, regardless of if you’re right or if this is how you feel.

      Reply
      1. Prof

        It helps to know, if one is thinking about whether (or not) to be part of it.

  10. Anonymous

    I am skeptical that Catholic schools like Villanova, Georgetown, Fordham, and Boston College would generate culture shock for a non-Catholic/non-religious person coming from Europe. But, yes, ND will definitely generate culture shock. I’m not sure it’s due to Catholicism per se, though. If that were true, then Villanova, Georgetown, Fordham, and Boston College would also generate culture shock. Don’t get me wrong: the Catholicism at ND is pervasive (e.g., the chapels in every dorm, priests and nuns living in every dorm, most students attending mass on Sundays, the theology and philosophy embedded in the core curriculum, the relentless fights among the liberals and conservatives there about whether American Catholics should vote Democrat or Republican, Touchdown Jesus on the library, the Grotto, the Basilica, and Mary on top of the Golden Dome). But it’s much more than the Catholicism that makes ND so bizarre. I mean “bizarre” as a compliment, not an insult. I went there for undergrad, and while in many ways it’s a ridiculous place, it’s hard not to come to love the ridiculousness of it if you attend there. My friends from Villanova and Northwestern used to visit me in college and always said ND is like a cult. They meant it as insult, and yet, they came back every year because they liked visiting it so much. The love of football and tailgating, the heavy drinking, the prominence of theological and philosophical debates, the prominence of political debates that are explicitly tied to theology and philosophy, the prominence of debates about what it means to be Catholic (or Christian, or theistic), the cold and gray winter weather, the lack of a city outside the school (South Bend is fine as far as it goes, but it is very small), and the strange ferocity with which ND people defend ND — all of these things seem to me to be central to the culture of ND. I personally loved it there, and even though I can look at a tailgating scene at an ND football game and see, from a Nagel-like third-person point of view, how utterly crazy and pointless it all appears to be, I can simultaneously find myself, from a Nagel-like first-person point of view, wholeheartedly enjoying and glorying in the scene.

    It won’t matter all that much that you’re not Catholic (and, I assume, not religious at all). Yes, you’ll be an outsider in that respect, and you’ll bond together with the non-religious professors and grad students over that. Ultimately, though, you’ll still be an insider at ND, because once you’re in the club, you’re in the club for life, like it or not. You can try to dis-identify or distance yourself from it, but ND is like a hook that brings you back against your will: you’ll love it in spite of yourself.

    All of which is to say: go, have a good time, glory in the ridiculousness of the place, and then go live somewhere warmer once it is all finished. You’ll have paid your cold-weather dues after the seven or so years it takes to get through.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      This may be true of the undergrad experience, but the undergrad culture is entirely different from the grad student culture.

      Reply
      1. Anonymous

        “Somewhat” is probably more accurate than “entirely.” I didn’t see a major difference between undergrad and grad life either at ND when I was an undergrad or at Georgetown when I was a grad student. Grad students are in their own department much more than undergrads are, and the pressures of professionalization are much stronger for grad students. But the basics of life — that is, studying a lot and having a lot of fun in one’s late teens and 20’s, before one has kids — are the same, regardless of whether one is an undergrad or grad student. Also, all the people I know who have ND grad degrees have the same feelings toward ND that I have: they don’t romanticize the place, but they do think of it fondly, in large part because of how bizarre a place it is. It is not like any other school.

      2. Anonymous

        All I can say is that I went to ND for grad school does not resonate with my experience. I didn’t go games or tailgate, didn’t get involved in theological debates, and don’t have any particular love of the institution as such. I think the same is true of many secular people in my cohort. There are some faculty I appreciate for their mentorship, of course, but I certainly didn’t get swept up in the kind of culture you’re describing.

  11. Anonymous

    Thanks for clarifying. Hopefully our exchange will help the OP.

    Reply

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