v Find Out More at hofstra.edu Innovations in Education

The Hartman Model of Catholic Studies atHofstra UniversityJust a year after it established a Department of Religionin the fall of 2005, Hofstra University celebrated theinstallation of Dr. Julie Byrne as its new Msgr. ThomasJ. Hartman Endowed Chair for Catholic Studies. Thiswas the second of three planned endowed chairs in thedepartment, the first being for Sikh Studies, and thethird for Jewish Studies.

Dr. Byrne used the occasion to introduce “The HartmanModel” of Catholic Studies at Hofstra University, ameans of integrating the study of religion into thecontext of the larger university and of the world throughteaching, research, study-abroad programs, seminars,conferences, speaker series and other ongoingprogramming. And she argued that Hofstra was ideallysituated at this point in time to putits distinctive mark on Catholicstudies.

History of CatholicStudies

The study of Catholicism atAmerican Universities dates backto 1958 when Harvard seated itsfirst Charles Chauncey StillmanChair of Roman Catholic Studies.The field expanded as Catholicuniversities underwent asecularization and Catholics in theUnited States increasingly attended non-Catholiccolleges.

Throughout the late 80s and 90s, American highereducation as well as society in general roiled with theso-called “culture wars,” which are perhaps most simplyseen as the latest of many historical moments whenAmerican society struggled to come to terms withincreasing diversity, according to Dr. Byrne.

From the 90s into the new millennium, as Catholicscholars increasingly taught and published in non-Catholic venues – and as non-Catholic scholars began totake an interest in Catholicism – the study ofCatholicism was mainstreamed in the liberal artsacademy.

Department of Religion at HofstraUniversity

“Hofstra University can have ahand in shaping Catholic Studies,present and future,” said Dr.Byrne, in part because Hofstra’snew Department of Religion iscommitted to the study of religionin a liberal arts context. “Thisreligion department is uniquelysituated to have a platform forpublic education about religion in,of course, one of the mostimportant centers of influence inthe country and the world.”

projects that address student interests in whatevergraduate school or career path they choose to pursue inthe future, as well as study-abroad options intraditional places for Catholic history, such as Romeand Ireland, or in a largely Catholic non-Europeancountry, such as Belize, Brazil, Uganda or theSeychelles.

Eventually, Catholic Studies at Hofstra could include agraduate component, with a Master of Arts degree inthe Religion Department, as well summer seminars andconferences to which graduate students in religionprograms across the country are invited.

Lecture Series in Catholic Studies

The Hartman model will also engage the communityon and off the Hofstra campus. To that end, HofstraUniversity will hold its first annual Hofstra ReligionDepartment Lecture Series in Catholic Studies:Catholicism and Literature this spring (2007).

Catholicism and Literature will feature artists whosework touches upon some aspect of Catholic faith or culture:

• Peter Manseau, author of the critically acclaimedmemoir, Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, andTheir Son, (New York: Free Press, 2005, the author’sstory of growing up as the son of a former nun and acensured priest. Feb. 28, 2007.

• Mary Gordon, the award-winning novelist, essayist,and critic whose works include The Short Stories ofMary Gordon, Final Payments, The Company ofMen, Women and Angels, April 18.

In addition, the Department of Religion hascoordinated a two-day visit to Hofstra by noted New Testament Scholar Bart Ehrman Feb. 15-16. Heis the author, most recently, of Peter, Paul, and MaryMagdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History andLegend, and Misquoting Jesus: The Story of WhoChanged the Bible and Why.

For more information on Hoftra Universtiy's CatholicStudies program and Department of Religion and towatch a video of Dr. Byrne's installation speech, pleasego to:

www.hofstra.edu/catholicstudies

Innovations in Education

“This religion departmentis uniquely situated to

have a platform for publiceducation about religionin, of course, one of the

most important centers ofinfluence in the country

and the world.”

v Find Out More at hofstra.edu Innovations in Education

Dr. Julie E. Byrne, the Monsignor Thomas J.Hartman Chair in Catholic Studies at HofstraUniversity, is the author of the critically acclaimedO God of Players: The Story of the ImmaculataMighty Macs. (Columbia University Press, 2003),which examines the ways religion, class, genderand athletic identities intersected in the basketballprogram at Immaculata College, an all-femaleCatholic college outside Philadelphia.

O God of Players identified Dr. Bryne as a scholarat the forefront of a movement to view religioustraditions “from the bottom up.” Through heavyreliance on ethnographic studies and archival data,this approach is presenting a new portrait ofCatholicism in America, one that is based on what the people in the pews are actually sayingand doing.

Dr. Byrne earned a B.A. at Duke University withconcentrations in Medieval and RenaissanceStudies and Religion (1990). Continuing at Duke,she earned an M.A. in Religion in 1996, and a Ph.D.in 2001, where she focused primarily on Americanreligion with special concentrations in Catholicism,African American Religion, cultural studies andcritical theory. Dr. Byrne taught at Texas ChristianUniversity in Fort Worth Texas from 2000-2004.She returned to Duke University in 2004 andcame to Hofstra in September 2006.

Dr. Byrne has been a recipient of the CharlotteNewcombe dissertation award, was selected to bea participant in the Lilly Young Scholars inAmerican Religion seminar, and was a winner ofthe Society for the Scientific Study of Religionresearch award.

• Hofstra’s new Department of Religion iscommitted to the study of religion in a liberal artscontext and is developing precisely at a moment inthe academy when, in a post-9/11 world, the needfor the broad religious literacy of all Americans,regardless of faith affiliation or no faith affiliation,is being increasingly recognized and called for.There is also a need for that religious literacy toextend beyond the boundaries of the United States,to understand Sikhism, Islam, Confucianism,Judaism, Christianity, and other faiths in all theirtransnational and diasporic contexts.

• Hofstra’s religion department is interdisciplinary,with textualists and sociologists and historians andphilosophers among us, and all of us working,teaching, and researching with other disciplinesand colleagues across the arts and sciences. “Insuch a department and in such a university, thecontext for studying Catholicism is rich—thecontext for the best of what ‘Catholic Studies’means is there—that is, studying Catholicism asthe historic, international, multifaceted, complexphenomenon that over two millennia it has cometo be.” Dr. Byrne said.

• Hofstra’s religion department draws from andtouches New7 York City. While there are notmany religion departments in the universities ofNew York, there are many religions in New York,Catholicism prominent among them.

Dr. Byrne will develop a cycle of courses on Catholicthought, practice, and history that will be offered atregular intervals. This cycle would form the basis of aneventual concentration in Catholic Studies forundergraduates that could involve capstone research

Hofstra’s Department of Religion offers students theopportunity to explore the central role religion plays insocial, political and economic events, as well as in thelives of individuals and communities. Courses examinethe history of religions, the rituals that mark importantlife events, the human beliefs that underlie those ritualsand the sacred texts and stories that shape the way somany people experience each other and the world.

In a world where religion plays so central a role insocial, political, and economic events, as well as in thelives of communities and individuals, students need toreflect upon and understand religious traditions,according to Dr. Warren Frisina, the department’s chair.At Hofstra, the study of religion cultivates in studentsthe intellectual resources to navigate a world partlyshaped by religious experiences, communities, andinstitutions. Religion courses:

• Provide the tools students need to thinkcritically and constructively about religiousissues, questions and values.

• Train students to recognize the many differentroles religion plays in public life, especiallythe ways it shapes social, political andeconomic discourses.

• Enable students to experience and understandthe ways religions interact with and shape oneanother.

• Orient students to the many different forms ofhuman religious expression from antiquity tomodernity.

In all of these ways, the study of religion preparesstudents for future careers in fields such as diplomacy,business, politics and law. While a few Hofstra studentsmay chose to enter the ministry, the vast majority willtake their knowledge and skills into secular careers thatrequire people who have an acute ability to recognizeand appreciate dissimilar points of view.

“With the establishment of a Department of Religionlast fall, the endowment of chairs in Sikh, Catholic andJewish studies and a growing expertise in Islamicstudies, Hofstra is quickly becoming known as a centerfor secular religion studies,” said Hofstra PresidentStuart Rabinowitz.

The Hartman Model of Catholic Studies

The Catholic chair, the second in the Department ofReligion at Hofstra, was funded through money raised ata 2004 testimonial gala in honor of Msgr. Thomas J.Hartman, better known to Long Islanders as “FatherTom” or one-half of “The God Squad,” for which he hasteamed up with Rabbi Marc Gellman to host a localtelevision show, write children’s books and newspapercolumns, and make numerous appearances on LongIsland and in New York City.

The model of Catholic studies that bears Father Tom’sname will be characterized by several components,according to Dr. Byrne:

“First, Catholic studies continuing its short historysquarely as part of the liberal arts tradition; that is, thetradition of situating all subject matter in the wide-castfields of inquiry and subjecting it to critical appreciationand inquiry, toward the end of forming minds thathabitually both honor and question received truth, andaim, finally, at arriving at real wisdom.

“Second, Catholic studies integrated into the study ofthe United States and the study of the whole world: sothat not only the church and its people, but also theirinteractions with cultures in which they find themselves,as well as those cultures’ interactions upon them, findroom for discussion.

“Third, Catholic studies integrated with the study ofother religions, even to the point of questioning theboundaries between them. My own current research inthe historiography of Catholicism, for example,investigates how the label ‘Catholic’ has been used inAmerican religious communities, not only by RomanCatholics, but by non-Roman Catholics in communionwith Rome, Eastern Orthodox churches, certainAnglicans and Episcopalians, and Old Catholic,traditionalist, and independent Catholics, as wellProtestants from the Unitarian-Universalists toCongregationalists to Lutherans to contemporaryemerging church evangelicals.

“Fourth, Catholic studies as a useful vantage point fromwhich to understand U.S. and global phenomena morebroadly. There is no single institution so long-lasting,complex, and multilayered to have touched on almostevery aspect of Western and often non-Western life forthe last two millennia, including the late ancient world,medieval Europe, the dawn of modernity, thetransatlantic slave trade, immigration, colonialism, theindustrial revolution, the scientific revolution, the Ageof Aquarius, and the age of the Internet.”

Hofstra University’s Contribution toCatholic Studies

For all of those reasons, Catholic Studies at Hofstra willbe designed for all students, Catholic and non-Catholic,and for the publics beyond Hofstra, both Catholic andnon-Catholic.

According to Dr. Byrne, Catholic Studies can bedistinctive at Hofstra because Hofstra is a distinctiveplace in at least four ways.

• Hofstra is a university whose overall institutionalidentity is newly recommitted to and refocusedaround liberal arts education.

v Find Out More at hofstra.edu Innovations in Educationv Find Out More at hofstra.edu Innovations in Education

Catholic Studies at Hofstra willbe designed for all students,Catholic and non-Catholic, and for the publics beyond

Hofstra, both Catholic and non-Catholic.

Catholic Studies at Hofstra University

Fall 2005 – Money raised at a 2004 testimonial gala inhonor of Msgr. Thomas J. Hartman funds theestablishment of an endowed chair in Catholic studiesin the Department of Religion at Hofstra.

June 2006 – Dr. Julie Byrne named to hold the Msgr.Thomas J. Hartman Endowed Chair in CatholicStudies.

October 2006 – Dr. Byrne installed as the Msgr.Thomas J. Hartman Endowed Chair in CatholicStudies.

December 2006 – Hofstra Religion DepartmentLecture Series in Catholic Studies: Catholicism andLiterature unveiled as part of the new Catholic Studiesprogram. Peter Manseau, author of the criticallyacclaimed memoir Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun,and Their Son, and Mary Gordon, award-winningnovelist, essayist, and critic whose most recent worksinclude The Stories of Mary Gordon and the novelPearl, are scheduled to speak at Hofstra on Feb. 28 andApril 18, respectively.

• Hofstra’s new Department of Religion iscommitted to the study of religion in a liberal artscontext and is developing precisely at a moment inthe academy when, in a post-9/11 world, the needfor the broad religious literacy of all Americans,regardless of faith affiliation or no faith affiliation,is being increasingly recognized and called for.There is also a need for that religious literacy toextend beyond the boundaries of the United States,to understand Sikhism, Islam, Confucianism,Judaism, Christianity, and other faiths in all theirtransnational and diasporic contexts.

• Hofstra’s religion department is interdisciplinary,with textualists and sociologists and historians andphilosophers among us, and all of us working,teaching, and researching with other disciplinesand colleagues across the arts and sciences. “Insuch a department and in such a university, thecontext for studying Catholicism is rich—thecontext for the best of what ‘Catholic Studies’means is there—that is, studying Catholicism asthe historic, international, multifaceted, complexphenomenon that over two millennia it has cometo be.” Dr. Byrne said.

• Hofstra’s religion department draws from andtouches New7 York City. While there are notmany religion departments in the universities ofNew York, there are many religions in New York,Catholicism prominent among them.

Dr. Byrne will develop a cycle of courses on Catholicthought, practice, and history that will be offered atregular intervals. This cycle would form the basis of aneventual concentration in Catholic Studies forundergraduates that could involve capstone research

Hofstra’s Department of Religion offers students theopportunity to explore the central role religion plays insocial, political and economic events, as well as in thelives of individuals and communities. Courses examinethe history of religions, the rituals that mark importantlife events, the human beliefs that underlie those ritualsand the sacred texts and stories that shape the way somany people experience each other and the world.

In a world where religion plays so central a role insocial, political, and economic events, as well as in thelives of communities and individuals, students need toreflect upon and understand religious traditions,according to Dr. Warren Frisina, the department’s chair.At Hofstra, the study of religion cultivates in studentsthe intellectual resources to navigate a world partlyshaped by religious experiences, communities, andinstitutions. Religion courses:

• Provide the tools students need to thinkcritically and constructively about religiousissues, questions and values.

• Train students to recognize the many differentroles religion plays in public life, especiallythe ways it shapes social, political andeconomic discourses.

• Enable students to experience and understandthe ways religions interact with and shape oneanother.

• Orient students to the many different forms ofhuman religious expression from antiquity tomodernity.

In all of these ways, the study of religion preparesstudents for future careers in fields such as diplomacy,business, politics and law. While a few Hofstra studentsmay chose to enter the ministry, the vast majority willtake their knowledge and skills into secular careers thatrequire people who have an acute ability to recognizeand appreciate dissimilar points of view.

“With the establishment of a Department of Religionlast fall, the endowment of chairs in Sikh, Catholic andJewish studies and a growing expertise in Islamicstudies, Hofstra is quickly becoming known as a centerfor secular religion studies,” said Hofstra PresidentStuart Rabinowitz.

The Hartman Model of Catholic Studies

The Catholic chair, the second in the Department ofReligion at Hofstra, was funded through money raised ata 2004 testimonial gala in honor of Msgr. Thomas J.Hartman, better known to Long Islanders as “FatherTom” or one-half of “The God Squad,” for which he hasteamed up with Rabbi Marc Gellman to host a localtelevision show, write children’s books and newspapercolumns, and make numerous appearances on LongIsland and in New York City.

The model of Catholic studies that bears Father Tom’sname will be characterized by several components,according to Dr. Byrne:

“First, Catholic studies continuing its short historysquarely as part of the liberal arts tradition; that is, thetradition of situating all subject matter in the wide-castfields of inquiry and subjecting it to critical appreciationand inquiry, toward the end of forming minds thathabitually both honor and question received truth, andaim, finally, at arriving at real wisdom.

“Second, Catholic studies integrated into the study ofthe United States and the study of the whole world: sothat not only the church and its people, but also theirinteractions with cultures in which they find themselves,as well as those cultures’ interactions upon them, findroom for discussion.

“Third, Catholic studies integrated with the study ofother religions, even to the point of questioning theboundaries between them. My own current research inthe historiography of Catholicism, for example,investigates how the label ‘Catholic’ has been used inAmerican religious communities, not only by RomanCatholics, but by non-Roman Catholics in communionwith Rome, Eastern Orthodox churches, certainAnglicans and Episcopalians, and Old Catholic,traditionalist, and independent Catholics, as wellProtestants from the Unitarian-Universalists toCongregationalists to Lutherans to contemporaryemerging church evangelicals.

“Fourth, Catholic studies as a useful vantage point fromwhich to understand U.S. and global phenomena morebroadly. There is no single institution so long-lasting,complex, and multilayered to have touched on almostevery aspect of Western and often non-Western life forthe last two millennia, including the late ancient world,medieval Europe, the dawn of modernity, thetransatlantic slave trade, immigration, colonialism, theindustrial revolution, the scientific revolution, the Ageof Aquarius, and the age of the Internet.”

Hofstra University’s Contribution toCatholic Studies

For all of those reasons, Catholic Studies at Hofstra willbe designed for all students, Catholic and non-Catholic,and for the publics beyond Hofstra, both Catholic andnon-Catholic.

According to Dr. Byrne, Catholic Studies can bedistinctive at Hofstra because Hofstra is a distinctiveplace in at least four ways.

• Hofstra is a university whose overall institutionalidentity is newly recommitted to and refocusedaround liberal arts education.

v Find Out More at hofstra.edu Innovations in Educationv Find Out More at hofstra.edu Innovations in Education

Catholic Studies at Hofstra willbe designed for all students,Catholic and non-Catholic, and for the publics beyond

Hofstra, both Catholic and non-Catholic.

Catholic Studies at Hofstra University

Fall 2005 – Money raised at a 2004 testimonial gala inhonor of Msgr. Thomas J. Hartman funds theestablishment of an endowed chair in Catholic studiesin the Department of Religion at Hofstra.

June 2006 – Dr. Julie Byrne named to hold the Msgr.Thomas J. Hartman Endowed Chair in CatholicStudies.

October 2006 – Dr. Byrne installed as the Msgr.Thomas J. Hartman Endowed Chair in CatholicStudies.

December 2006 – Hofstra Religion DepartmentLecture Series in Catholic Studies: Catholicism andLiterature unveiled as part of the new Catholic Studiesprogram. Peter Manseau, author of the criticallyacclaimed memoir Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun,and Their Son, and Mary Gordon, award-winningnovelist, essayist, and critic whose most recent worksinclude The Stories of Mary Gordon and the novelPearl, are scheduled to speak at Hofstra on Feb. 28 andApril 18, respectively.

v Find Out More at hofstra.edu Innovations in Education

The Hartman Model of Catholic Studies atHofstra UniversityJust a year after it established a Department of Religionin the fall of 2005, Hofstra University celebrated theinstallation of Dr. Julie Byrne as its new Msgr. ThomasJ. Hartman Endowed Chair for Catholic Studies. Thiswas the second of three planned endowed chairs in thedepartment, the first being for Sikh Studies, and thethird for Jewish Studies.

Dr. Byrne used the occasion to introduce “The HartmanModel” of Catholic Studies at Hofstra University, ameans of integrating the study of religion into thecontext of the larger university and of the world throughteaching, research, study-abroad programs, seminars,conferences, speaker series and other ongoingprogramming. And she argued that Hofstra was ideallysituated at this point in time to putits distinctive mark on Catholicstudies.

History of CatholicStudies

The study of Catholicism atAmerican Universities dates backto 1958 when Harvard seated itsfirst Charles Chauncey StillmanChair of Roman Catholic Studies.The field expanded as Catholicuniversities underwent asecularization and Catholics in theUnited States increasingly attended non-Catholiccolleges.

Throughout the late 80s and 90s, American highereducation as well as society in general roiled with theso-called “culture wars,” which are perhaps most simplyseen as the latest of many historical moments whenAmerican society struggled to come to terms withincreasing diversity, according to Dr. Byrne.

From the 90s into the new millennium, as Catholicscholars increasingly taught and published in non-Catholic venues – and as non-Catholic scholars began totake an interest in Catholicism – the study ofCatholicism was mainstreamed in the liberal artsacademy.

Department of Religion at HofstraUniversity

“Hofstra University can have ahand in shaping Catholic Studies,present and future,” said Dr.Byrne, in part because Hofstra’snew Department of Religion iscommitted to the study of religionin a liberal arts context. “Thisreligion department is uniquelysituated to have a platform forpublic education about religion in,of course, one of the mostimportant centers of influence inthe country and the world.”

projects that address student interests in whatevergraduate school or career path they choose to pursue inthe future, as well as study-abroad options intraditional places for Catholic history, such as Romeand Ireland, or in a largely Catholic non-Europeancountry, such as Belize, Brazil, Uganda or theSeychelles.

Eventually, Catholic Studies at Hofstra could include agraduate component, with a Master of Arts degree inthe Religion Department, as well summer seminars andconferences to which graduate students in religionprograms across the country are invited.

Lecture Series in Catholic Studies

The Hartman model will also engage the communityon and off the Hofstra campus. To that end, HofstraUniversity will hold its first annual Hofstra ReligionDepartment Lecture Series in Catholic Studies:Catholicism and Literature this spring (2007).

Catholicism and Literature will feature artists whosework touches upon some aspect of Catholic faith or culture:

• Peter Manseau, author of the critically acclaimedmemoir, Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, andTheir Son, (New York: Free Press, 2005, the author’sstory of growing up as the son of a former nun and acensured priest. Feb. 28, 2007.

• Mary Gordon, the award-winning novelist, essayist,and critic whose works include The Short Stories ofMary Gordon, Final Payments, The Company ofMen, Women and Angels, April 18.

In addition, the Department of Religion hascoordinated a two-day visit to Hofstra by noted New Testament Scholar Bart Ehrman Feb. 15-16. Heis the author, most recently, of Peter, Paul, and MaryMagdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History andLegend, and Misquoting Jesus: The Story of WhoChanged the Bible and Why.

For more information on Hoftra Universtiy's CatholicStudies program and Department of Religion and towatch a video of Dr. Byrne's installation speech, pleasego to:

www.hofstra.edu/catholicstudies

Innovations in Education

“This religion departmentis uniquely situated to

have a platform for publiceducation about religionin, of course, one of the

most important centers ofinfluence in the country

and the world.”

v Find Out More at hofstra.edu Innovations in Education

Dr. Julie E. Byrne, the Monsignor Thomas J.Hartman Chair in Catholic Studies at HofstraUniversity, is the author of the critically acclaimedO God of Players: The Story of the ImmaculataMighty Macs. (Columbia University Press, 2003),which examines the ways religion, class, genderand athletic identities intersected in the basketballprogram at Immaculata College, an all-femaleCatholic college outside Philadelphia.

O God of Players identified Dr. Bryne as a scholarat the forefront of a movement to view religioustraditions “from the bottom up.” Through heavyreliance on ethnographic studies and archival data,this approach is presenting a new portrait ofCatholicism in America, one that is based on what the people in the pews are actually sayingand doing.

Dr. Byrne earned a B.A. at Duke University withconcentrations in Medieval and RenaissanceStudies and Religion (1990). Continuing at Duke,she earned an M.A. in Religion in 1996, and a Ph.D.in 2001, where she focused primarily on Americanreligion with special concentrations in Catholicism,African American Religion, cultural studies andcritical theory. Dr. Byrne taught at Texas ChristianUniversity in Fort Worth Texas from 2000-2004.She returned to Duke University in 2004 andcame to Hofstra in September 2006.

Dr. Byrne has been a recipient of the CharlotteNewcombe dissertation award, was selected to bea participant in the Lilly Young Scholars inAmerican Religion seminar, and was a winner ofthe Society for the Scientific Study of Religionresearch award.