Dean of the College Begins His Second Year at Holy Cross

Timothy R. Austin, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College used the opportunity of the dean’s address to Academic Affairs to welcome 17 new professors to the campus that was new to him about a year ago. Austin arrived at Holy Cross in the summer of 2006, from his previous position as dean of Creighton University’s College of Arts and Sciences and professor of English.

His speech was delivered in the Hogan Ballroom, filled to capacity with all the faculty, administrators, and support staff who work in the area of Academic Affairs at Holy Cross. During the speech, he also announced the name of the new first-year experience curriculum — Montserrat — also with some personal reflection on the choice.

In June, Austin, along with other Holy Cross administrators went on the fourth iteration of the College’s Ignatian Pilgrimage. The primary objective of the pilgrimage is to allow Holy Cross faculty and staff to draw closer to the life and influences of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, by visiting important sites in northern Spain and Rome.

In his speech, Austin offered the following context for the First-Year Experience Coordinating Committee’s decision to name the program Montserrat.

After undergoing his initial conversion, Ignatius searched for a way to capture, almost sacramentally, the moment at which he would formally commit himself to his new way of life. He hit on a centuries-old tradition in which a candidate for knighthood would hold an overnight vigil at a local or national shrine to consecrate his future feats of arms to God, to the Virgin, or to a patron saint. Ignatius planned to stand that tradition on its head, arriving at nightfall in his soldier’s garb, holding vigil overnight, but then leaving the next morning dressed as a humble pilgrim, having left his sword and armor hanging on the wall of the chapel behind him. Where, though, should he carry out this plan? To a native of the northwest of Spain, the answer must have been obvious: the mountain monastery of Montserrat.

Our new program for first-year students will not involve swords, or armor, or overnight vigils. But it will come at a time in the lives of these young women and men when they are asking potentially life-defining questions as they move from adolescence to young adulthood. Like the young Ignatius, many of them will be weighing the life they already know against a different life that they feel drawn to, wondering whether to pursue rewards measured solely in terms of money and power or to lay equal or greater emphasis on the sense of satisfaction that one derives from living a life of service to others. Like the young Ignatius, they will be asking themselves what additional education they will need if they are to achieve their goals and where the energy will come from to enable them to do so. Figuratively, in fact, they will all be undergoing their own Montserrat experiences.

Earlier this summer, those on the Ignatian Pilgrimage visited Montserrat as it is today. Montserrat means “Serrated (or Saw-Toothed) Mountain,” and as you drive toward it, the mountain range rises abruptly from a landscape otherwise characterized by gently rolling hills. The monastery itself is perched a little less than halfway up the side of the mountain, though it already offers spectacular views. As one climbs higher, the vistas expand steadily, and at the top of the range one does indeed feel “on top of the world.”

By the time Ignatius came calling in March, 1522, Montserrat had already been a site of great cultural and religious significance for centuries, and it remains so to this day:

* Located in the heart of Catalonia, it has offered an almost impenetrable refuge to generations of regional rebels against various rulers and occupiers of Spain from early medieval times, through the days of Napoleon’s peninsular campaigns, all the way down to the twentieth century’s Francisco Franco. * Montserrat is a place of ethereal music making, as the world-famous boys’ and men’s choir, the Escolania, carry on a tradition that dates back to the middle ages. * The very rock formations themselves are amazing, more conical than serrated once you get closer to them, and formed of a sedimented material called conglomerate. * Some of local flora are unique to these mountains, which also offer secluded habitat to a number of endangered species of wildlife.

In short, Montserrat is a place of interest to botanists, zoologists, geologists, historians (of many periods), modern linguists, political scientists, sociologists, musicians, students of architecture and of art, and, of course, scholars in religious studies. What better metaphor could one hope for to capture the interdisciplinary emphasis that lies at the heart of our new first-year program?

Related Information:

• Press Release: Holy Cross Announces Integrated Living-Learning Curriculum for First-Year Students • Read more about Montserrat on the Admissions Web site • Holy Cross Announces New Tenure-Track Faculty Hires