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Post by Young Ireland on Mar 19, 2014 19:51:08 GMT
This has been the talk of the town lately. Apparently, there is a group being spearheaded by Kathy Sinnott who want to set up a Catholic liberal arts college in Cork. They're looking for 3.5 million Memorares to help them at the moment. I certainly wish them well in this endeavour, though I'm not sure that setting up such a college will be easy. First, I think the market for such a college in Ireland is limited as only devout Catholics who wish to study liberal arts and who afford the probably onerous fees (though Sinnott did promise to offset some of this via scholarships.) Second, there is the question of authorisation from the local Bishop, which I presume (and am open to correction) would be necessary, especially given that we already have a Catholic liberal arts college in Limerick. Thirdly, third-level in this country is mostly affordable (for now), unllike the States where going to college is very expensive and thus it is more practical to go to a Catholic college there since you will have to fork out anyway. Fourthly, I don't think making the college residential is a good idea as it is an unnecessary expense, since Irish students usually rent apartments off campus, and the US room and board model will need to be eased in gently to avoid any culture shocks. Personally, I know I'm being a pessimist here, but the only way that this college will survive is if the fees are low enough to attract American students wanting to save money, while high enough to break even. What do other people here think?
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 19, 2014 20:48:46 GMT
Wasn't there an attempt to set up a Catholic university in Mayo some years ago? How did that pan out? I have my doubts about whether this will work out unless they can get a brand-name American college to back them. How much will their degrees be worth in the jobs market? There may be a religious element in the idea of making it residential (Newman's idea of an university is big on the university's responsibility for the moral formation of students through residential halls, and some of the conservative US Catholic colleges still uphold the old view that the university is in loco parentis over its students.)
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 24, 2014 20:27:29 GMT
The Newman Institute in Ballina was a flop. There were a number of reasons behind this. I spoke to Bill Stainsby, who was president for a time and he had his ideas which I would gladly share over coffee with any of you, but which I will not publish on the internet without first hand information. It seems the establishment of the Western Institute of Theology put pressure on the Ballina Institute though.
I think this college is based on the likes of Christendom College, which is hardly a blazing model of success. This is small and can survive in a big market like the US, but the likes of Christendom or St Thomas Aquinas College or Steubenville haven't really scored. They are the sort of thing a small circle like the traditionalists congratulate theirselves on, but they are just fortifications on the ghetto which can be ignored. Nobody else notices. By brandname colleges, I take it Hibernicus would mean Notre Dame or St John's or Fordham or Boston College or Georgetown. But with these, there will be questions raised over their Catholicism.
I think that it might be better to concentrate on supplementary secondary formation, to create the sort of robust Catholicism which can survive in secular institutions which are good. Maybe we should look beyond this island. Like at continental Europe.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 1, 2014 9:30:01 GMT
Some of the small Catholic liberal-arts colleges in the US burn out very quickly - the current plight of Fisher-More College in Texas would be an example. I have also seen complaints by some Catholic bloggers that they turn out students who are mostly unemployable except as priests/religious or in the Army - I don't know how reliable these claims are but I suspect there is something in them. This effect would be even greater here because in the US there is enough of a conservative-Catholic subculture to make their degrees marketable within it, just as a degree from Bob Jones University or Jerry Falwell's Liberty University is worth something in the Evangelical-Fundamentalist subculture but not outside it. I was indeed thinking of Notre Dame and similar colleges. (BTW if Clongowes et al existed in America they would have become liberal-arts colleges along those lines. It would be interesting to parallel their development with those of the big-name American Catholic colleges; I wonder how long it is since a Clongowes student joined the Jesuits or a Blackrock student the Spiritans?) One of our recurrent problems is the desire to start at the top and build down, rather than from the ground up a brick at a time.
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Post by Ranger on Jan 6, 2015 16:32:27 GMT
Just an update on this from the US-based Regina magazine... reginamag.com/newman-college-ireland/On the positive side, the people involved seem to be having a positive experience of living out their Catholic faith in a young, vibrant community. That said, while I am trying to remain optimistic I am nonetheless sceptical about certain areas. For a start, there is very little about the academic standards (there is a page on their website under 'Academic Life' but it seems a bit vague and doesn't list any of their lecturers or their qualifications), and the accreditation comes from St. Thomas More College in the US, a college in New Hampshire of about 100 students: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More_College_of_Liberal_ArtsAlso, I'm not certain if they've found a site for the college in Ireland; I had heard that the year in Rome was meant to be a once-off to get it off the ground. On a side note, one of the commenters on the Regina article says that they were in the Newman Institute in Ballina which Alaisdir mentions and had a positive experience; so positive experiences like those of the new students in NCI might not be too relevant to viability. Speaking of the Ballina institute, where could I find any info on it?
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Post by Ranger on Jan 6, 2015 16:37:29 GMT
Actually here are some of the people involved in some respect: www.newmancollege.ie/calendar/It would appear that award-winning artist Dony MacManus, an Irish member of Opus Dei who has set up an excellent school for sacred art in Florence, is on the board, and Cardinal Pell appears to have lent his support. Can't find anything about Professor Gilson online though, which I find very unusual for modern academia; anyone ever heard of him?
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 5, 2019 21:41:28 GMT
I hear that it is currently (or was recently) based in Limavady, Co Londonderry, and that Fr Dermot Fenlon, late of the Birmingham Oratory, is involved. (Before anyone asks - I follow the convention of calling the city Derry because it existed long before the Plantation, and the county Londonderry because it was created at the Plantation.)
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 8, 2019 19:08:27 GMT
The Limavady project seems to have entered a hiatus, from what little I hear
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Oct 10, 2021 21:02:41 GMT
Appears this college closed its doors in 2018. Sad, but predictable.
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