Steubenville Honoree

FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY OF STEUBENVILLE , April 28 — Former Reagan administration official Kenneth Whitehad received an honorary doctorate from Franciscan University of Steubenville, the school reported.

University President Father Terence Henry, TOR, proclaimed Whitehead a Doctor of Christian Letters “for his dedication to the common good and service of the Church.” Whitehead is an influential advocate for Catholic universities, and, Father Henry noted, a tireless defender of the unborn, the weak and the vulnerable.

In his remarks, Whitehead explained the contemporary dangers of secularization for Catholic universities and the great value of Pope John Paul II's vision for higher education.

For Black Seminarians

FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY , April 28 — The university in Steubenville, Ohio, is offering St. Benedict the Moor scholarships for black men who think they might have a vocation to the priesthood.

Recipients of the scholarship must be accepted by the university and its pre-theologate program.

The scholarship is available for both undergraduate and graduate students who maintain a 3.0 grade point average. For more information, call (740) 283-6495.

Other Things

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER , April 25 — James Gearity has resigned after less than two years as college president of Belmont Abbey, the North Carolina daily said.

“Trustees said they were caught off guard by Gearity's decision and said the president was not asked to leave,” but that he is leaving to do other things, the Observer reported.

He is to be replaced on an interim basis by Father Placid Solari, Belmont Abbey's college chancellor and the abbot of the Benedictine community that administers the college.

Obscenity Protected

CHRONICLE.COM , April 25 — Citing academic freedom, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has vetoed a provision in a budget bill that would have prohibited public universities from using state funds for the purchase or display of videotapes considered obscene under Kansas law, reported the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The measure was apparently directed at an undergraduate course on human sexuality offfered at the University of Kansas because of its use of X-rated materials.

Under the amendment, violators would have lost state appropriations for their department or division.

Fray Angelico

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES , April 25 — A proposed book on the life and works of Franciscan Father Angelico Chavez has earned a National Endowment fellowship for Ellen McCracken, a professor of Spanish at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Father Chavez, a writer and intellectual, is well known in his native New Mexico for his contributions to painting, poetry, fiction, history and architectural renovation. Known as Fray Angelico, he served as archivist for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe from 1975 to 1982. He died in 1996.

SARS at Seton?

THE NEWARK STAR LEDGER , April 23 — A Seton Hall University undergraduate is one of two American college students who might have become infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The female student at the South Orange, N.J., university had a fever and upper-respiratory infection in early April when her father, who might have been exposed to SARS, visited her.

The student is not sick or showing any symptoms of the illness.