Karen Eifler, professor of education and co-executive director of the Garaventa Center, has been named as the next executive director of Collegium after founding executive director Tom Landy’s retirement on June 30, 2022. Collegium was founded in 1992 to help faculty at Catholic colleges and universities better understand the mission of Catholic higher education, and to invite and help prepare them to become leaders in advancing that mission in creative ways. The administration of Collegium will be transitioned from College of the Holy Cross to University of Portland.
Collegium is best known for its annual week long summer colloquy on faith and intellectual life, where faculty of all religious backgrounds and disciplines can learn about the legacy and priorities of Catholic higher education, think about their own vocation as teachers and scholars, and discern how their commitments and talents can enhance the mission of their institution. Nearly 2,000 faculty have participated in these colloquies over the last 27 years. Keynote talks, intensive small group discussions and opportunities for reflection and prayer are interwoven in ways that leave participants feeling intellectually invigorated, with a renewed sense of purpose.
Members of the Collegium search committee unanimously brought Eifler forward for board ratification finding her deep integration of the Catholic intellectual tradition, her humility, and her commitment to Collegium made her the obvious and natural choice for the next executive director.
For more information contact Norah Martin, philosophy and environmental studies, at martin@up.edu.
The Faith and Intellectual Life Discussion Group will have its only meeting of the fall semester on Friday, October 23, 3:30 to 5 p.m., on Zoom, according to Norah Martin, philosophy. We will be discussing “Sacrifice, Race, and Indifference” from Send Lazarus: Catholicism and the Crisis of Neoliberalism by Matthew Eggemeier and Peter Fritz (Fordham University Press, 2020). The reading and the Zoom link can be found on the 
The next meeting of the Faith and Intellectual Life Discussion Group will be Friday, January 31, 3:30 to 5 p.m., in the Murphy Room. We will discuss Thomas Merton’s essay “Rain and Rhinoceros,” Andrew Guest’s essay in Oregon Humanities, “Pursuing a Science of Happiness,” and the poem “Happiness,” by Jane Kenyon. All readings are available 
The next meeting of the Faith and Intellectual Life Discussion Group will be on Friday November 8, from 3:30-5 p.m., in the Murphy Room. The group will discuss Phillip Goff’s “
The first meeting of the Faith and Intellectual Life Discussion Group for the 2019-2020 academic year will be Friday, September 13, 3:30-5 p.m., in the Murphy Room in Franz Hall. We will be discussing “Is There a God?” by Stephen Hawking, “What about God?” by Martin Rees, and the poem “If There Is No God” by Czeslaw Milosz. All readings are available on the 
The University of Portland 2018-2019 Faculty Awards were presented on Tuesday, May 7, at the Faculty Awards Dinner, with the following results:
The next meeting of the Faith and Intellectual Life Discussion Group will be Friday, March 22, 3:30 to 5 p.m., in the Clark Library Conference Room (please note the change of venue from previous meetings this year). We will be reading “Archbishop Desmond Tutu: The Essence of What It Means to be Human” by Keymanthri Moodley and the Introduction and Chapter 6 of “Ecological Education and Spirituality” from Laudato Sí by Pope Francis. Readings are available on the 
The next meeting of the Faith and Intellectual Life Discussion Group will be Friday, January 25, 3:30-5 p.m., in the Murphy Room. The group will be discussing “The Poison We Pick” by Andrew Sullivan, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” by Jean M. Twenge, and the poem “What We Want” by Linda Pastan. Readings can be found on the 
The next meeting of the Faith and Intellectual Life Discussion Group will be held on Friday, November 9, at 3:30 p.m., in the Murphy Room, according to Norah Martin. The group will be discussing “Seeing is Believing: What Flannery O’Connor Meant by ‘Vision” by Cassandra Nelson, “Practice Makes Reception: The Role of Contemplative Ritual in Approaching Art” by Joanna Ziegler, and the poem “Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians” by Matthew Minicucci. All readings can be found at 
The first meeting of the Faith and Intellectual Discussion Group for the 2018-19 year will be Friday, September 28, at 3:30 p.m., in the Murphy Room of Franz Hall. The group will discuss the article “A Burnt-Out Case: Aquinas and the Way We Work Now” by Jonathan Malesic, and Chapter 1 from Mary Rose O’Reilley’s The Garden at Night: Burnout & Breakdown in the Teaching Life, “Practicing the Koans of Professional Life.” Readings can be found on the Garaventa Center