A Message to the Notre Dame Community from Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C.
Dear Members of the Notre Dame community,
To those who are new to campus, welcome. To those returning to campus after a summer away, we are glad you are back. I look forward to the year ahead with great anticipation, and I hope you do as well.
Amid the excitement we all feel at the start of a new academic year, we are mindful of the many challenges facing our nation and the world. War continues to rage in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and elsewhere. The suffering is immense and lamentable. Our own politically polarized nation is also preparing for a hotly contested presidential election.
In this context, it has never been more important for the Notre Dame community to find ways to engage in respectful dialogue across differences of opinion and perspective. This is the reason I have chosen “What Do We Owe Each Other?” as the theme of this year’s Notre Dame Forum. While this question is timeless, it is especially worthy of our collective consideration now. How can we at Notre Dame channel our individual and collective energy in the most thoughtful and constructive ways? How can we foster fruitful dialogue, bridge social divides, and promote healing? How should we think about our responsibilities to one another, while also respecting our individual rights and freedoms?
We have planned Notre Dame Forum events throughout the year, including a keynote session September 12 in connection with the Presidential Inauguration. Other events will touch on topics such as the role of Catholic social teaching in this current moment and the challenge of holding honest conversations about difficult topics. Others still will focus on issues of more immediate concern, such as the presidential election and the conflict in Israel and Palestine. I hope you will attend as many of these Forum events as possible this year.
Beyond your attendance at these events, I hope you will seek out the opportunities available to each of us, whether in the classroom, lab, studio, residence hall, or workplace, to listen to and learn from those who do not share your convictions. Obviously, it is important that we each feel free to express our views and to work diligently for those causes we believe in. At the same time, we are diminished as individuals and as a community if we engage only with the like-minded, and most especially, if we fail to treat with respect those with whom we disagree.
Based on a document originally authored by my predecessor, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., in March 2023, I share this Statement on Freedom of Expression, which articulates the University’s unwavering commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression, and the rights and responsibilities that accompany these freedoms. These principles are and must be foundational to our life as a community of scholars dedicated, in the words of the University’s mission statement, “to the pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake.”
Importantly, the statement calls us to go further than creating an environment, as described by colleagues at the University of Chicago, that offers “the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn . . . without shielding individuals from ideas they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.” Instead, we seek to build a community that combines passionate pursuit of truth through inquiry and dialogue with respect and charity toward those with whom we disagree. Given the seriousness of issues in this country and beyond, and the human cost of the wars I mention above, it is understandable that passions run high. We all want an end to the suffering. We all want an end to the wars that continue to rage. And so, we must channel our passions in the most constructive way possible.
At Notre Dame, our words and actions must be grounded in charity. Speech that incites violence, involves threats, or constitutes harassment will not be tolerated. In addition, compliance with Notre Dame’s policy regarding the time, manner, and place for free expression is essential so that the work of the University—the teaching, learning, research, and intellectual exchange core to our mission—can continue even as we grapple with important issues. Over and above these basic parameters, as members of this Catholic university community we hold ourselves to a higher standard in that we will not treat those who disagree with us with contempt or seek to vilify them because of their perspectives, no matter how passionate our disagreement.
In this way, we have the opportunity at Notre Dame to be a model of vigorous but respectful dialogue for a society greatly in need. Let us rise to meet this challenge throughout this academic year and into the future.
Be assured of my prayers for you all as we work together to exemplify the spirit of Notre Dame and pursue the truth in love.
Sincerely Yours in Notre Dame,
Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C.
President
August 27, 2024