Inauguration of Rev. David T. Tyson, C.S.C.

T H E I N A U G U R AT I O N

OF

Rev. David T. Tyson, C.S.C. AS THE

5th President of Holy Cross College

S IXTH

OF

O CTOBER, 201 7

Biography of Reverend David T. Tyson, C.S.C.

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ather David T. Tyson, C.S.C., Ed.D., is the fifth president of Holy Cross College. He assumed the office as interim president on April 7, 2017, and was appointed president on July 31, 2017.

Born and raised in Gary, Indiana, Father Tyson is a 1970 graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in sociology. He went on to receive a Master of Theology degree from Notre Dame in 1974 and a doctorate in higher education administration from Indiana University Bloomington in 1980. Father Tyson took his final vows in 1974 and was ordained at Sacred Heart Basilica at Notre Dame in 1975.

Father Tyson served at the University of Notre Dame in a variety of positions on the staff and faculty during the 1970s and 80s. He joined the faculty after completing graduate studies where he served as an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Management.

During that decade he also served as executive assistant to the university president, Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., and as vice president for Student Affairs.

In 1990, Father Tyson was elected president of the University of Portland. During his 13 years at Portland, Father Tyson oversaw a major expansion of the campus, a tripling of its endowment, and improvement of the University’s regional and national standing.

In 2003, he was elected the provincial superior of what was then called the Indiana Province of Holy Cross, the largest Holy Cross province in the world. During his nine-year tenure, Father Tyson choreographed the reincorporation of the Southern Province into the

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Biography of Reverend David T. Tyson, C.S.C. Indiana Province. In 2009, he began a process which led to the merger of the Eastern Province into the Indiana Province. That process was completed in 2011 with the title of the province being changed to the United States Province with over 500 members serving on three continents. He led the US Province until the end of his term in 2012.

In 2014, the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame named Father Tyson the St. AndrĂŠ Bessette Director of Nonprofit Professional Development.

He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Notre Dame for his contributions to the university, the Congregation of Holy Cross, and Catholic higher education. The University of Portland awarded Father Tyson its highest accolade, the Christus Magister Medal, for outstanding service to the University and Catholic higher education in the United States. Over these years, he served on a variety of different boards, including the Holy Cross College Board of Trustees, the University of Notre Dame Board of Fellows and Board of Trustees, the Air Force Board of Visitors of Air University. He was also received the highest civilian award, the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, from the Department of the Army in providing guidance and support for military education in the context of a university.

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Inaugural Address Rev. David T. Tyson, C.S.C. Remarks of the President October 6, 2017

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hank you, Bishop Rhoades, for being with us on this occasion.

As we greeted one another for the Mass, I welcomed you as the pastor.

So, it’s good to have you here as our pastor. I’d also like to thank Fr. Epping for being present on behalf of the Congregation. I also would like to thank all of those who gave me more than generous greetings for coming here as president of Holy Cross College. I would have to say that hearing all of them, I feel tired! Fr. Epping did spare me talking about my age. That usually goes with energy and all those sorts of things, but I’m actually feeling quite animated by the time I have spent here so far.

I was originally thinking of what I might say today, and I have been all over the ballpark about this. There’s someone in the room who will go unnamed, but he’s probably saying, “Oh my God,” as I say that right now.

We lived together many, many years ago in Bloomington, Indiana, when we were doctoral students. At the end of our time there, he was back in South Bend finishing his dissertation and I was finishing mine in Bloomington, and I was asked to say something on behalf of the doctoral students. I just simply said to him, “You know, I have no idea what to say to these people; I just don’t know what to say.” My colleague Holy Cross priest just looked at me and said, “David, you could talk to a doorknob for 30 minutes. You will have no trouble finding something to say.”

Obviously, I’m not over it yet! But, I was thinking of that the other night, which distracted me even more because there’s so much to say. Then two nights ago, I was finally getting focused and I received notice from Jodie that for the student Presidential Picnic there was going to be table tents including clever little details on them. And so, she sent me this list of questions like what’s my favorite color, and all those kinds of things. I was

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Inaugural Address not responding with a high level of positive emotion at that time, but as I got weary and decided to go to bed, I just decided I was going to fill some of the list out. I had been in the car earlier, listening to the radio, and one of the songs that was quite rhythmically adaptable, even to me, played and came into my mind. So, I was literally going to bed when I took the list out, and for my favorite song I wrote Uptown Funk. I got into bed and as soon as I realized I must really be distracted, I flew out of the bed, went to my laptop, and looked up the lyrics of Uptown Funk. I told the Bishop that after I looked at the lyrics, I crossed out Uptown Funk and I put in two favorite songs: one from the classics and the other one, for those of you old enough, The 59th Street Bridge Song, which was Simon and Garfunkel. I thought that would be a quiz to most undergraduates today. So, I put those songs there.

What I thought I might do is not talk to you for 30 minutes at all, but to share with you my experiences in the time that I’ve been here at the college, which would be since last April. And, I will share with you what I’ve learned about the college, what I’ve learned about its constituents, what I’ve learned actually, about me and what I’ve learned about what the future might hold for us as a college community.

I came in April, and as we all know, those were difficult times. I was talking to many people, lots of times during the day, sometimes on sidewalks, never with appointments — management by wondering around — and I kept five little notebooks: one for faculty, one for staff, one for students, one for the Board, and one miscellaneous. I was very worried that I would lose those around, so I bound them together and put a cover on them, and I just referred to it as the Book of Revelation. I still have that book. I keep it with me at home and I use it from time-to-time.

What I’d like to begin with, if I could, is to talk for just a moment, about the original foundational inspiration of Holy Cross College. The College was established and built to educate Brothers for two years; to prepare them for the next level of their studies; to prepare for their ministry. Two years later, they invited lay-women and men to participate as students at Holy Cross College. They too, wanting to be educated, to get to the next level. And, that next level wasn’t always the same for each of

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Inaugural Address them. For some, it was trying to transfer into places like our sister institution across the street, or other places, and they just didn’t make it because of one grade, or a test score, et cetera. It became clear after a number of years, and I’ll share with you that 10 years after the College was established, I was working in undergraduate admissions as a very young priest. All of a sudden a memorandum came to us from the director of admissions and it said if anybody, which was primarily my area, receives an application from Holy Cross College and Br. John Driscoll has personally done the letter of recommendation, you are to move it forward for review by the full committee. In those years that I was there — three to be exact — every one was admitted. And, I think, every one succeeded.

That made me curious about the place at the time because it was this little place across the street that was 10 years old and people came because they wanted to go to Notre Dame.

When I arrived here in April, I had already had a sense, as a Trustee, that something really interesting took place here. And, that interesting thing was much more than content. It was more the people who taught them. There is, what I have recently put in my own brain, a pedagogy of presence by the faculty here at Holy Cross College, that is absolutely palpable. To come in as I did with new eyes and a certain set of filters, et cetera, to be able to feel that and see that instantaneously was astonishing to me and made me very, very happy about the potential for the future. I was invited to attend a couple of the Capstone presentations. One of those seniors was known to me since he was a freshman. I was utterly astonished when he gave that presentation, of his competence, his self-confidence.

That was not the young man I knew four years before and I thought to myself, I was pretty nervous at 29, sitting in front of a panel in my oral exams for a doctorate. And here, there were people sitting from outside the college, to listen to his presentation and to speak with him afterward.

Wow! What a uniqueness that is.

Throughout the College’s history, including when we established the four-year baccalaureate program, the data seems to show that Holy Cross College never lost, in the eye of the public or the church, that special charism because half the students were moving on. But, that was hard for

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Inaugural Address us then. Dr. Watson and Dr. Griffin could tell you that one day I came to work and I said, “You know, at Portland I had a button made that read ‘Discover the Secret’. Now, the button I am really interested in for Holy Cross College is ‘Return to the Future.’” It struck me, what is it that we do best, because of this ministry, if you will, or a pedagogy of presence. There is a presence to the students here that teaches them not only content, it teaches them discipline. It teaches them, even if they’re not used to it, and they don’t particularly like it, there is merit in itself to study. They know that the very people that push them like this are the people who care about them the most.

A word about the students: I was walking down the sidewalk while we were at a Board meeting in March, and it was a difficult one. I wasn’t sure what all was going to happen and I said to myself, “I hope I don’t run into any students on the way to the meeting.” And I did. I did run into them.

There is a certain, what can I say, aura of gratitude around a Holy Cross College student that I don’t think we see much. I think that when you look at our numbers, over 20 percent are first generation college students. This is a new thing for them and they have aspirations for which this place might be an instrument to achieve that aspiration. It may not be a degree, but there’s something here that makes them ready for that next thing. I thought to myself, “Well, that was our foundation.”

One more anecdote: There are those who were here in the early to middle 1980’s when I was what was called the Director of the Sophomore Year in the College of Business Administration at Notre Dame, working with Fr. Hesburgh. The dean didn’t tell me that along with that went my advising responsibility for 500 sophomores. They did give me help after a while, but I got to know a lot of Notre Dame alums who now have children here and at Notre Dame, and at other places. Well, I was here a week when I was asked if I would be available to see this young man. I said sure and asked the purpose. His father told him that he should come and say hello, and he did. I then mentioned his grandfather. He said, “You even know my grandfather?” I told him yes and said, “So, you’re a freshman here?” He said yes. I asked whether he was a Gateway. He said “No.” And I asked whether he got in Notre Dame. He said “No.” I looked at him, and

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Inaugural Address probably rather pushily, said, “Oh, and you went to Dallas Jesuit.” He replied, “Yes.” “So, what were your numbers?” He said they were like a 2310 composite SAT and he was a National Merit semi–finalist. I just looked at him across the desk and he said, “Well, my father told me I was a knuckle head. You know, I just screwed up, Father.” So, I pointed at him across the desk and I said, “Do you know what, Liam? You’re the reason Holy Cross College was founded.” Liam will be a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame. After his experience here he called me up from Texas to tell me what that meant. I have spoken to literally scores of people — four-year, but also people who are older, who were in those early years that moved on to that next level, whatever that was, telling me that it would have never happened if it weren't for this faculty, and this place, and this community.

So, what did that say to me? You know, David, you’re getting a little long-of–tooth. However, this could be an interesting place to be. I didn’t know where that was going; it was even two months later that I was asked to stay on here. But, then I started to think of what could be in front of us.

One of the things I already know is that the educational process here at Holy Cross College is transformative. It’s a big word now, and there are lots of ways that college can have transformation and transformativeness. I noticed, though, and I was thinking this when Fr. Poorman was speaking, what you read about an awful lot is transformation has to do with the place.

It’s about resources, it’s about endowments, it’s about adjuncts, it’s about tenure systems, it’s about...well, I have to tell you, when we talk about transformative here, we’re talking about our students. We’re talking about those qualities of our faculty, and I will say, our staff, which is kind of the sinew of the place, that engages students to increase their capacity; their capacity at the intellectual level, the capacity for their character, the capacity for their faith, and engaging them, the capacity for relationships, and the capacity for creating community.

As the President of the College I thought to myself this morning after prayer; I thought, you know, I would love to see us as a country, a republic, recapture our sense of common good. And it’s places like this, and places like other Holy Cross institutions, that provide that education. We’re

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Inaugural Address counter-cultural now. We have something to offer that isn’t just typical.

We’ve heard one of the mantras of Holy Cross, The Competence to See and The Courage to Act, and that’s what it’s about. To give them the opportunities and the instruments to be competent. And to be able to go to the next level of their education and their formation. In the future we need to look at the ways that we can be distinctive and how the college does education. We have a lot of creative people here, and as I say, all you have to do is sit in, watch a class, watch interaction with students. Within Vincent Hall there is a circular area in which most of our entire faculty is located, and in the middle of that, in these modules, are learning centers.

Every time I go there, more often than not, there’s faculty and students working there. It’s a busy place, it’s a nurturing place, but it’s a growing place that pushes people. How is it that we might be able to be distinctive — it’s one of the things we’ve been talking about. I don’t think it’s new to — I hope not new — to the internal college community, is that a set of curricular options to allow us to be able to better meet that foundational purpose of helping each student get to the next level for them. And so, as many of you know, we engage in a collaboration with the University of Notre Dame called the Gateway Program. We call those students Gateway Scholars. They come to Holy Cross College to engage our honors program.

When it first started, I heard about it, and I was on the faculty over there (Notre Dame). I didn’t know what it was going to be like. But, I can tell you now, when on the Notre Dame campus and in the residence hall I live, I literally have students come up to me and say, “Hey, Fr. Tyson!

Congratulations on Holy Cross College! My name is Mary and I’m a Gateway.” They don’t say I’m Mary and I’m in engineering, or I’m Mary and I’m a sophomore. I was invited by a group of Notre Dame students to meet with them about what the Gateway Program did for them, and it’s the same story: “I’m so happy to be here; I would have never had this opportunity if Holy Cross College didn’t change me.”

A Gateway grandmother came up to me at orientation and said to me, “My grandson, who’s a junior, told me that he’s a better man because of Holy Cross College.” Those are things that make us distinctive. We need to tell our story better, but we may need to make ourselves more available.

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Inaugural Address So, we are proposing and ready to move on in this next admissions cycle, the Driscoll Scholars, in honor of our founder. Besides having the one-year Gateway Scholars, we are allowing and inviting Driscoll Scholars to come here for a two-year liberal arts honors program. I also sat at commencement and saw five students walk across the stage, all of whom graduated with highest honors and four of them graduating a year early. I thought to myself, what does it mean for them to go to the next stage?

Maybe they should be done in three years. We’re small enough, we work hard, but these are real, important possibilities for us. So we’re looking at, and hope to enjoin in another year, an intensive three-year baccalaureate program, limited number of majors, highly selective. Our Driscoll Scholars will be interviewed before they come. This isn’t about elitism; it’s about fit and who we can do the best for, and how. I can tell you, I don’t know many places that could do this, but after getting a load of this faculty and staff for three months, it went from musing late at night before I went to bed, to asking the senior people if they thought I was crazy to say these things or whether we could give it a shot, because I think that’s what we’re about. I look forward to this next level. We have an admissions staff that is gearing things that way. I hope to be able to speak in more detail on it to our Board.

Besides transformative and distinctive, the third characteristic we must have for a successful future is to be intentionally Catholic. I don’t believe in this day and age, and even where issues of religion and Christianity and the Church are, we can afford to accept the historical footnote of a foundation of a religious community, or a diocese. We have to be robust and creative in the way we engage students in the curriculum about our Catholic character. So, for us to be intentionally Catholic means that we have to be able to engage students with the beauty of the Catholic intellectual tradition, which was the Western intellectual tradition for centuries, and demonstrate how that can broaden the other aspects of their education. Not just in a history class or in the non-curricular parts of the College. I have to admit, I’ve been on all the Boards, and I don’t know of a college that articulates Catholic character in a way that students get, as well as this one does. Someone else mentioned this evening that they’re not going overseas to Angers or Salzburg, et cetera. They’re going to

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Inaugural Address Kyarusozi to spend three months in a Holy Cross bush parish. They’re going to Canto Grande to work with some of the most handicapped children, and they’re going with our faculty. They’re going to northeast India to do that. I met with a group of students, I believe that our student body president may have been one of them, who had spent a number of weeks in Canto Grande, Peru this summer, and I thought to myself, I was seven days in Canto Grande and I was ready to get on Delta and come back home! So, I just want those of you who are not familiar with the College to know that the place does have a special, distinctive, transformative role it can play in the lives of students.

I’ll tell you the final thing that made me interested in doing this; it’s different. What an interesting thing to see somebody — gosh, we have them in our community, we have them up here — people who were here, and we’ve engaged for two years. What a wonderful opportunity for us as a Catholic college to provide them with something that helps them get here, even if it doesn’t have the president’s signature on it. That’s our challenge.

That is what really excited me, to have a comprehensive college that surely will educate people in a baccalaureate program, but we can do it in more than one way. We can also get them ready for programs at other places. I don’t want to get too market driven by this because I don’t believe in it at the undergraduate level. But, wouldn’t it be great to have a couple established programs for students at other Catholic colleges and universities that are research universities. Or, wouldn’t it be interesting to have a 3/1 program. We have a student who’s in the graduate school at the Mendoza College of Business; he finished Holy Cross in three years and he’s now in a one-year program, and I though, wow! But, he had to wait for the fourth year. So, these are not structural things, these, for me are actually ways that we can make a difference with college students today, with respect to the development of their intellect, the development of their character, and the development of their faith. I leave you with that.

I am very grateful to have been considered to help the college to begin with. I can’t begin to tell you the people that would come up on the streets in South Bend, who would say, “Are you Father Tyson? You know, we need Holy Cross College on the landscape?” I can’t begin to tell you the

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Inaugural Address employees at the University of Notre Dame who said, “Father, you’ve really got to do what you can to keep the place open.” It initially scared me to death, but I got used to it. When people would ask, “How are you?” I used to say, “Well, we’re in week three.

We’re just off the respirator, but we’re ok...we’re ok.”

I threw that talk right our because I really believe strongly that we can refashion — not a mission, it’s the same — but we can refashion how we DO that mission. Not just to get more students, but to be able to have a capacity for educating in a comprehensive liberal arts college, in a world, as Father Mark said, that isn’t exactly welcoming to that as much as it used to be.

So, again, for those of you who have supported me and helped us all get to this place today, I thank you very much. I know I’m going to try to live up to all these things people have said about me. I’ve thought for a while, when I die, the community can skip the wake service — just bring the greetings out. But, I can promise you that I will give it my best shot — there is no doubt about it, and I can’t do that without the faculty, the administration, our Board, and all of you who support us. I thank also, the delegates from other college that were here today, and also from the Independent Colleges of Indiana. I’m realizing what all this means after a long time of being away. I’m a native Hoosier; I’m all Hoosier trained, so I’m getting back at learning about my roots here in the state of Indiana. So, thank you very much for being here today.

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