Episode 10 - Understanding the Open Circle: The Future of Catholic Higher Education with Jim Heft

In episode 10, we talk with Father Jim Heft, an Alton M. Brooks Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California and Founder and President Emeritus of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies (IACS). Father Heft was also honored with the Theodore Hesburgh Award for long and distinguished service to Catholic Higher Education in 2011.  He served on the board of the American Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities and chaired that board for two years. He spent many years at the University of Dayton, serving as chair of the Theology Department for six years, Provost of the university for eight years, and then Chancellor for 10 years. He left the University of Dayton in the summer of 2006 and founded the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies (IACS) at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Father Heft has written and edited numerous books and has written more than one hundred and fifty articles and book chapters. Most recently, he co-edited Empty Churches: Non-Affiliations in America with Jan Stets and wrote and published with Oxford University Press, The Future of Catholic Higher Education. Topics discussed in this episode include the challenges of Catholic Universities such as commercialism and secularism, communication between the disciplines, the idea of the open circle, identifying universal concerns, Catholic social teaching, traditions and traditionalism, and academic freedom and fidelity.