More Monologues

CARDINAL NEWMAN SOCIETY, Jan. 17 — The organization that seeks to promote Catholic identity in Catholic colleges and universities has announced a protest of planned per formances of “The Vagina Monologues” at Catholic schools around the country this semester.

Cardinal Newman Society said 40 campuses are planning the production and more will likely schedule the play, which contains vulgar language and descriptions. The number is already more than the 32 campuses that staged the production last year.

Among the schools listed are Boston College; College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.; DePaul University in Chicago; Fordham University in New York; St. Louis University; and Seattle University.

For more information about the organization's protest, visit www.cardinalnewmansociety.org.

Not Recognized

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 16 — A homosexual student group was denied recognition in December at Seton Hall University in New Jersey because administrators said the group contradicted the school's Catholic mission.

While denied recognition, however, the group is still able operate on campus, apply for funds from student government and host educational events.

The compromise appears to be modeled after a similar incident at Georgetown University in 1987, the Associated Press noted, in which courts ruled in a similar lawsuit that a private university is not required to recognize a group but must allow it access to “tangible benefits,” including funding.

For Sale?

WBBM-AM (Chicago), Jan. 18 — Three years after Chicago's DePaul University acquired 100-year-old Barat College, a small liberal arts school in north suburban Lake Forest, the university is rethinking whether or not it still wants the college.

After pouring $16 million in renovations at Barat, trustees of the Vincentian-run DePaul were set to review how much more money would be needed to boost enrollment and bring Barat's buildings up to the same standards as DePaul's.

The review, the radio news station noted, could lead to the sale of the 30-acre Barat property.

Gift-Giving

BUSINESS WIRE, Jan. 15 — Jesuit-run Santa Clara University in California announced it has exceeded its halfway goal of $350 million for scholarships, new facilities and academic programs.

The campaign had received $204 million by the end of last year. It began in October 2002.

Jesuit Father Paul Locatelli, the school's president, said the recovering economy contributed to an upsurge in gifts, especially in the last six months. He noted there was a considerable increase of gifts in the $50,000 to $150,000 range.

Speculative Theology

AVE MARIA UNIVERSITY, Jan. 19 — Father Matthew Lamb, a theology professor at Boston College, has been named director of the speculative theology program at Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla.

The program will begin offering graduate degrees in the fall semester.

Speculative theology, according to a press release from the school, “does not refer to hypothetical explorations but rather reflects the program's aim of promoting scholarly expertise in Catholic theological wisdom as it has developed over the two millenia of Church history.”

Father Lamb specializes in foundational, doctrinal and systematic theology, particularly in the study of the Church Fathers, including St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.