Professing in the Postmodern Academy: Faculty and the Future of Church-Related Colleges

A Sense of Place and the Place of Sense

A Sense of Place and the Place of Sense 73 A few years ago the institution where I teach, Saint John’s in Minnesota, put together a collection of reminiscences by alumni, faculty, and friends entitled A Sense of Place. It is an apt title, for one of the things that comes through loud and clear as a characteristic of our institution and our community is a strong sense of place. Located in the midst of the rolling fields of rural Minnesota, not far from Lake Wobegon, Saint John’s property consists of 2400 acres of woods, lakes, and reclaimed prairie that many find peaceful and nourishing. The campus proper is noted for its distinctive architecture that includes some of the oldest major buildings in the state and some striking modern ones by Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer. Significant and enriching as all that is, there is more to this sense of place than the physical location. It is intimately connected with the presence and habits of the monastic community that founded the school, continues to own it, and is still a strong presence on campus. In addition to being a college, Saint John’s is their home and has been for almost 150 years. It is their place of worship and work; the place where they seek and find God; the place where they are buried; the place where their communal memories and hopes reside. Integral to the monastic life—and our sense of place—is the vow of stability. A Sense of Place and the Place of Sense WILLIAM J. CAHOY 74 WILLIAM J. CAHOY A Benedictine is not a wanderer, but pledges fidelity to a particular community in a particular place. Applying this vow to the community as a whole, Benedictines are to sink their roots in their place and be nourished and clothed by it. This is evident at Saint John’s in the bricks of the older buildings that were made on the premises from local materials. It is evident in the woodwork and furniture that to this day is made on campus from oak cut from our own forests. More recently, it is evident in the pottery formed from local clays and fired in the country’s largest wood-fired kiln. All of this and more, particularly when coupled with the monastic virtue of hospitality , conspires to give us a strong sense of place—a sense of permanence, belonging, rootedness, community. I mention this not merely to introduce Saint John’s or because I think this is somehow unique to us. Quite the contrary, I suspect that something like this sense of place characterizes many small liberal arts colleges. In a host of different ways, these are special places. Moreover, they typically enter the lives of students at special times, providing an extended rite of passage , which is an important element of their significance in the lives and affections of their graduates. Rather, I mention this sense of place because I think we can see something more here than fond remembrances of special places, special times, and special people in our lives. In this essay I will explore the idea of this sense of place as both example and allegory of the importance of location in our knowing and in the way we institutionalize this knowing in colleges and universities. Specifically , place will be used as an allegory for one’s location in a particular community and a particular tradition. The thesis of the essay is that this location, the place for sense-making, matters. Where one stands affects what one sees and how one makes sense of what one sees. Would one see different things or, what is not quite the same, would one see things differently , if one stood in the community and tradition of a churchrelated college than one would in the community and tradition of a non-church-related college? Should one see differently? Or is any difference traceable to the church relation, a sign that the college has not yet attained full collegiate status? Of A Sense of Place and the Place of Sense 75 particular interest to its identity as a college, does this located seeing count as knowing? The essay advances a four-point thesis: 1. The modern university is rooted in a distinctly modern, specifically Enlightenment epistemology that makes the role of place irrelevant. 2. This epistemology makes the idea of a churchrelated college a...