friday,feb. 3, 1989
vol. XXXV, no. 13
cabrini college, radnor,pa 19087
Reher reachesgoal, publishesbook by Marian Armstrong Dr. Margaret Reher, chairperson of the religion · department, recently had her first book published, Catholic Intellectual Life In America: A Historical Study of Persons and Movements.
Reher said. The topic of women in the Church had already been assigned to one of the other writers. Reher said it was disturbing that she couldn't write about women. Previous to writing the book, Reher had written and published articles on inte11ectual history. Most of her articles were published
in scholarly journals. Reher said that writing the book was not easy. "It was harder than I thought it was going to be." It involved "a tremendous amount of research.'' There were two times when she didn't think she was going to get through it. "My
God, there is no way that I can finish this, but all these people expect me to," she said, speaking of her thoughts at the time. The support she received from people at Cabrini motivated her to finish what she had set out to do. After taking a year's sabbatical,she didn't want to have to come back and say she
The book discusses the----------------------------------------American Catholic intellectual tradition over the past 200 years. "You· have an ongoing debate about whether being an American Catholic and an intellectual Catholic are compatible," Reher said. The book, fifth in a six part series, is in honor of the 200th anniversary of the establishment of bishops in the United States. John Carrol of Baltimore, who was appointed in 1789, was the firSt Cath01ic bishop in America. ~~~~~ the Knights of Columbus and sponsored by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops. Reher was first asked to writethe book about four years ago by the book's editor, Chris Kauffmann, a U.S. Cath01ic historian. The six-part series was written by two priests, two nuns, and two lay people. "The truth is I had hoped to be asked to write about women,,, Family members help Dr. Reher celebrate the publication of her new book. (Photo by Marian Armstrong)
.. couldn't do it. "I think the hardest part was to come back to my classes with enthusiasm and know that this was hanging over my head." Reher said it was very hard to write about the history of a 200 year span. .. The last chapter was the easiest because I was writing about things I remembered." Reher said that one of the most pleasant aspects of the three-year project was the friendships she formed with the other authors and the editor. ~~~~~ would gettogether for two-day meetings in which they would really get to know each other. Reher said she might someday consider writing another book, but her book wouldn't cover such a long period of time and her deadlines would not be as rigid. "I learned a lot. It forced me to learn how to use a computer, to which I will always be grateful."
Minorities
More rnformation neededto recruit by Barbara Wilson
Cabrini College has targeted racial and ethnic minorities as an important goal in various official reports, but both Director of Admissions Nancy Gardner and Director of Public Relations Diane Kolodzinski admit that more needs to be done to recruit minority students. Since Cabrini is a private institution, there is no state regulation that it must follow regarding minorities, according to Gardner. Although there is no law, Cabrini is looking toward the future. ''One of the educational goals of the college is to allow students to be exposed to different people and cultures," Kolodzinski said. ''The idea behind recruiting minorities is to give the student a more realistic environment to learn from," Gardner said. Cabrini has a 7 percent representation of minorities, which is almost equal to the 8 percent and 9 percent average for large state institutions. Last year Cabrini had a marketing survey done by a company called Consultants for Educational Resources and
Research. The survey did not prove to be a great source of information because there were not enough people to come up with accurate results. However, the company made three suggestions. The first suggestion was that Cabrini should not lower admission standards to allow a minority student into the institution. The second was to target more people who are of Hispanic origin, because Cabrini is a Catholic colfege and Hispanics are usually Catholic. The third suggestion was that Cabrini target the "yuppie-minority,'' which are middle-class minority students who go to high school in an environment similar to Cabrini's. Since the survey did not pinpoint any specific aspects that the minority student is looking for in a college, Cabrini's administration is merely going on intuition. At the present time, Cabrini does not have a specific game plan that it uses to promote the college to minorities. The basic things that they try to do is sit down with the students and show them what Cabrini has to offer, rather than point out the differences between the students.
Other ways that Cabrini tries to promote itself to minorities is by joining different organizations such as the American Foundation for National Affairs, Urban League of Philadelphia and The League of UnitedAmerican Citizens. These organizations support minorities in a number of ways, either by referring students to colleges or just by helping them get ahead. The college has faced a few problems when it comes to promoting minorities. One problem is the lack of minority faculty and staff. At one time Rita Calicat, director of student activities, was the only minority staff person. However, Cabrini has recently hired Dr. Antoinette Schiesler, academic dean, and Tyrone Carr, assistant director of resident life, who in many ways may serve as role models for minority students. Both Gardner and Kolodzinski said they realize there is more to be done to recruit minorities to this campus, but they feel it will take time before they can collect all the information they need to make a decision on how to approach such changes.
inside features .............. 4, 5
What's going on in Xavier's Great Room?
sports.................. 7, 8
(see page 5)
perspectives .......... 2 news.................... 3, 6
Athletics loses key to college entrance (see page 7)