Director of Religion, Ethics and Culture Earns High Honors for Work in Jesuit Education

WORCESTER, Mass. – Thomas M. Landy, director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross, will receive the John Henry Newman Medal from Loyola College in Maryland at its commencement on May 16.

The Medal, named after John Henry Newman, a Roman Catholic priest from England who had a large influence on the development of the Catholic philosophy of higher education, recognizes individuals who have distinguished themselves as exemplars of Jesuit Catholic education.

Landy was named director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture in March, after serving a year as interim director. He was associate director of the Center since its inception in 2000. Landy is also director and founder of the Collegium, a consortium of 63 Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada that sponsors faculty development programs on issues of faith and intellectual life. A project of the Collegium, Landy was editor of the book As Leaven in the World: Catholic Perspectives on Faith, Vocation, and the Intellectual Life (Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward, 2001), comprising 32 chapters by Collegium alumni/ae on Catholic thought, spirituality and on personal intellectual and spiritual journeys.

From 2003-08, Landy was director of the College’s Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative, which sponsors a number of programs including convocations, summer internships, parish ministry internships and lectures to encourage students to reflect on faith and commitment as they consider their career paths. A lecturer in the sociology and anthropology department, he serves on numerous committees at the College including the Senior Convocation, First-Year Convocation and Kraft-Hiatt committees, and was a core committee member of the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel Enhancement Program.

Landy holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Boston University, an M.Div. from the Weston School of Theology, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in history from Fairfield University.

Past recipients of the John Henry Newman Medal include Dorothy M. Brown, Ph.D., former professor, chair, administrator and provost at Georgetown University; Rev. Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University; and Rev. William Byron, S.J., former president of the University of Scranton and The Catholic University of America.