Part 2: Our epic journey to 3 colleges in 3 states in 9 days; First Stop--Benedictine College

St. Benedict's Abbey

Benedictine College, nestled on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, on the eastern edge of Kansas, in the farming community of Atchison, has been around for 150 years.

There are seven Benedictine institutions in Atchison, Benedictine College, St. Benedict's Abbey of approximately 53 Benedictine monks whose monastery is on the campus grounds, a monastery of approximately 150 Benedictine nuns who live at nearby Mount St. Scholastica, the parish church of St. Benedict's, a high school, an elementary school, and another parish church, Sacred Heart.

All this in a farming town of roughly 17,000.

I had visited Benedictine last year, about the same time of year, with my other daughter, Kateri. She had also participated in the Presidential Scholars competition. We were very impressed with the college, though she ultimately decided not to attend. In fact, it was at the urging of Kateri, that Lizzy decided to give it a try.

Lizzy and I began our visit to Atchison with a lovely afternoon walk around cornfields with an email friend that I had never met, but corresponded with since my visit last year. Maria and her family homeschool their kids and live outside of town in an old farmhouse. Her husband is on the faculty at BC, her son is a freshman, and she has taken classes there, so she has a unique perspective on BC and the Catholic life there. She confirmed that BC has embraced their Catholic identity much more strongly in the past 10 to 15 years, and as a result, their enrollment has nearly doubled.

We arrived a day early so Lizzy could sit in on some classes and take a tour of the campus. There were many students arriving that morning, so the admissions office had set up tables on the ground floor of the Student Union. They provided coffee, juices and pastries for the scholarship competitors and their families.

Lizzy's first-hand account follows:

A group of prospective Benedictiners and I followed a pair of sophomore guides across rain-washed concrete sidewalks, beneath towering hemlocks that shed olive-gray shadows on the ground. The Kansas mud yielded a faint stench of rotting worms and bettles, like an insect graveyard rent by floodwaters. I stayed on the path to spare my shoes.

Once we arrrived at Westerman, one of the science buildings, we navigated our way through unassuming staircases and several winding halls that looked like they had been punched out of the same sheet of white plastic.

At last we reached the Organic Chemistry II classroom, identifiable by three faint numbers on the door. The lecture room itself looked like a miniature theater: staggered seating encircling a small stage. (This was the first time I'd seen a school lecture hall; as a homeschooler, I'm accustomed to dining rooms.)

The chemistry professor, Dr. Aileen Beard, was delighted to share her knowledge with a roomful of bleary-eyed college students (many of whom were eating bagels, drinking Pepsi, or trying to finish their homework). Most of what she said escaped my faded knowledge of tenth grade science, though I was proud to be able to understand one word in twenty.

I recieved a bit of a jolt fifteen minutes into the class, when Dr. Beard mentioned that they wouldn't be meeting the following Tuesday (the feast of St.Scholastica, the patroness of Benedictine College), since there would be an all-school Mass during their alloted time.

"I know it's Friday," she added with a small laugh, "and you're all eager to go to Confession." The students laughed at the good-natured joke.

At the co-op I attend twice a week for science and calculus class, the teachers are too wary of separation of church and state to mention religion, except in passing. I guess a name-brand Catholic university doesn't have to worry about the ACLU suing them into financial oblivion.

(Sounds more like an English Lit major, eh?)

After Lizzy's morning class, we had a walking tour of the campus with student guides. They showed us the one of the oldest buildings on campus, Ferrell Hall, built in 1893. That doesn't make it the oldest building on campus. That honor falls to Bishop Fink Hall, which was built in 1878. Ferrell Hall certainly holds first place for being one of the most lovely (and mysterious) buildings on campus. It was orignally the monastery for the early monks, whose abbey church is the present day parish of St. Benedict's, which adjoins Ferrell Hall. Recent renovations, after more than 30 years of being empty, have completely transformed the ancient monastic dwelling into modern dormitory rooms, including some lofts with skylights. Atchison is known as one of the most haunted cities in America, and Ferrell Hall is chief among the so-called haunted abodes of Atchison.

Also on the tour, we saw the new Abbey church, (see pictures at the top and below),which was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. The interior of the church is quite large, probably seating at least 1000. We attended an weekday evening Mass there and there were probably at least 200-300 people in attendance for a regular weekday Mass. (I suspect about 75-100 of those present were students and families there for the scholars weekend).

interior of St. Benedict's Abbey church

As you can see in the picture above, the Abbey church is rather sleek and modern. The acoustics are great, and they have a wonderful pipe organ, with pipes on all sides and both ends of the huge nave, giving you a total "surround sound" experience. The large hanging crucifix over the altar has the corpus with head bowed toward the monks' choir stalls, signifying their death with Christ.

While I'm on the subject of Mass, I noticed the students at all the colleges we attended were very reverent before, during and after Mass. Unlike my home parish, and all the surrounding parishes we attend, there was no grab-across-the-aisle-and-contort-to-connect-the -chain-hand-holding during the "Our Father," nor was there applause after the final hymn (despite the fact that the music was certainly worthy of applause, especially after Sunday Mass at the Abbey), nor was there the low din of chatter after Mass that accompanies all the post-Mass crowds at my local parishes. The students waited until they were in the vestibule of the church to gab with friends.

The tour also included a brief stop at the library and St. Benedicti's Hall, which houses the administrative staff and the Theatre Arts Department.

St. Benedict's Hall

We ended the tour at the Haverty Center, which is a great place for students to grab a quick snack or a cup of the college's own "Raven's Roast" coffee at the Monte Cassino Inn, or find a souvenir at the campus book store.

We had lunch in the student cafeteria and chatted with Maria's son, who is a freshman there. We also saw some other friends from Colorado who are students at BC, as well as my niece from Virginia, who was also attending the scholar's weekend.

Lizzy and her cousin from Virginia

In the afternoon we attended presentations on their mission, financial aid, residence life, study abroad and FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students).

All of the presentations were impressive. We heard a lot over the weekend about the mission of Benedictine College. The mission of the college is to be a Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts, residential college, and to educate men and women within a community of faith and scholarship. I would agree with President Stephen Minnis when he says that Benedictine does all four of these things exceedingly well.

I really like the way their core curriculum is set up to give all students a solid, liberal arts education. For example all students, even science majors, must take two semesters of a foreign langauge. Likewise, all students must take a core of courses in Theology, Philosophy, English, History, Science and Physical Education.

Their study abroad programs are varied, but their gem, in my opinion, is their campus outside Florence, Italy. The students in this program live in a villa together and have a faculty member accompany them to teach them and travel with them.

FOCUS got its start at Benedictine, then quickly spread to the University of Northern Colorado and now thrive on 39 college campuses in 21 states. Today there are active FOCUS missionaries serving full-time at Benedictine and working with the Catholic campus ministry team to disciple students so they can be effective Catholic leaders and witnesses to Christ.

So what's not to like?

First, let me say that my complaints about Benedictine are minor and insignificant compared to the wonderfully supportive community, rigorous academic standards and vibrantly Catholic life that abounds on campus.

I have three concerns, or, I should say, there are three things that Catholic parents should be aware of when sending their child to Benedictine.

1. I would have liked to have heard more from the science departments about the integration of faith and reason. The biology department is rightfully proud of the their awards and achievements. One of their biology majors, Wangari Maathai, is a 2004 Nobel Laureate. (More on Wangari Maathai in #3). They have a high success rate of graduates being accepted into medical schools. But in today's technologically advanced society, where biology and ethics often collide, I would like to know they are at the cutting edge of not only the science, but also in preparing their graduates for making ethical decisions. When I asked the head of the biology department, Dr. Martin Simon, last year, to please discuss his evolution class, he dismissed my question without answering me, simply by stating that "Evolution is science. God is not. I don't bring God into the classroom." I avoided any confrontational questioning this year (not that I thought my question was confrontational last year, I simply asked him to "discuss" his course), and I just listened to him discuss the biology program at BC. It is impressive. And there are crucifixes in each classroom. But, I suspect Dr. Simon, who was named "Educator of the Year" in 2008, still doesn't bring "God into the classroom."

I know BC offers a top-notch education in Theology and Philosophy, and that all students must take classes in these areas, however, I think BC is doing a disservice to it's biology, biochemistry and other science majors by not helping them integrate the knowledge they acquire in these courses to better prepare them for the bio-medical fields many of them hope to enter.

2. Of lesser concern to me, but still something that bugs me, is the fact that the 150 or so sisters at Mount St. Scholastica, who are closely associated with the college, don't wear habits. (Okay, some of the ones in their 90's do, but they don't get out much). They ditched them sometime in the 60's, which coincidentally, seems to be the youngest age of many of their sisters.

Having worn a uniform 9 years, I understand that people expect something out of one who wears a uniform. If I got on an airplane and saw the pilot and crew were all wearing jeans and t-shirts, I'd be tempted to get off the plane before it took off. A uniformed crew tells me they are trained and know what they're doing. Once when I was flying home on leave, wearing my Navy blues, I was asked by a flight attendant to escort an elderly lady to her gate. I don't know if the flight attendant thought I was another flight attendant, or if she just thought I was more trustworthy than other 19 year-olds, but I felt proud to have been asked to escort the lady to her gate. If I had been wearing ordinary clothes, I seriously doubt I would have been asked to help. Even the servers at McDonald's wear uniforms!

3. Lastly, I have grown weary of hearing the BC tour guides cite with glowing terms the fact that Wangari Maathai is the only Nobel Laureate to graduate from a Catholic college in the United States. The truth is, she graduated from Mount St. Scholastica in the 60's, when orthodoxy to the faith wasn't highly valued. She went on to plant some 40 million trees in her native Kenya. She is highly educated and has received numerous awards and accolades, but her Catholic credentials are nil. She is first and foremost an environmental activist, but for some reason feels compelled to comment on relgion on her official website, "The Green Belt Movement", where she says that the Christian priesthood had in mind the destruction of her culture so that they could colonize and impose their own will on the native peoples. Is this the sort of rhetoric that a Catholic college should endorse? Obviously not, but the good folks at BC choose rather to ignore this part of Wangari Maathai's persona.

To summarize, the above three objections pale in comparison to the immense good that is Benedictine College.

We departed Atchison on Sunday after Mass at the Abbey church and drove to the airport in Kansas City, Missouri, to begin the next leg of our epic journey: DeSales.

Part 1: Introduction to our epic journey to visit 3 colleges in 3 states over 9 days

Introduction: Or why we would spend 9 days visiting 3 colleges in 3 states.

My daughter, Lizzy, (not her real name), is a senior in high school. She's been home schooled her entire life, but has taken some classes outside the home for the past 5 years. She's an excellent student, and has done very well in all her classes and on her college entrance exams, taking both the ACT and the SAT. As a result, she was invited to attend scholarship competitions at both Benedictine College (BC) and Franciscan University of Steubenville (FUS). The competitions were spaced a week apart; the first two weekends of February. Our family had to decide whether or not it was worth the effort to attend one or both of the competitions. BC is much closer to home, but doesn't currently have the nursing program that she was interested in pursuing. FUS is further from home, typically has less financial aid than BC, but has an excellent nursing program.

In the meantime, around Thanksgiving time, we were re-reading the Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College for the upteenth time, when we noticed the note in the back about DeSales University having an excellent 5-year Physician Assistant's program. Lizzy completed the online application on December 1st, which was their deadline for priority consideration of scholarships. We figured it was a long shot, but worth investigating.

Fast forward to January 24, 2009 (the feast of St. Francis de Sales, by the way), and Lizzy received an offer of full tuition scholarship to DeSales University, which increased her interest exponentially.

By the time she received the offer from DeSales, we had already made plans to attend both scholarship weekends at BC and FUS. Since they were both fairly far away and there was only about 5 days between them, we decided to fill in the time in the middle visiting DeSales.

God Moments

Have they ever happened to you? I had one of my own last night.

My husband and went to see Les Miserables at the Arvada Center for the Performing Arts last night. It was an impluse purchase...$45 tickets on a weeknight. We took along 13 year-old budding actress, Joan, and her friend, M. (They paid for their own tickets...I figured teenage girls who would pay that kind of money to see a show deserved to go...)

Shortly after arrival, as we were standing in the lobby, me sipping Merlot from a plastic cup, dh sipping Coors from his, I spotted a face in the crowd that struck me as a face from my long-ago childhood. I was not going to let this moment pass. Having let moments like these pass before, I've learned in my mature years to capture the moment. So I purposely left my husband and strode up to the man (whose face I noticed) and his wife.

I asked them if they were Mr. and Mrs. C...they said "yes," and I introduced myself with my maiden name. They remembered me! Their daughter had been my best friend from 1st grade through 4th grade. In 5th grade we moved from Denver to Del Norte, a small town in a remote part of Colorado. Their daughter and I had kept in touch, sporadically. I think I last saw her when I was in high school and the two of us attended Girls' State at the same time.

I had many lovely childhood memories of being at their home. They were the only Catholic family that I knew. Their home was different from mine. First of all, there were twice the number of children...four! Second, the walls had religious pictures on them. I distinctly remember one in the kitchen of a peasant praying before eating his meal. And I remember seeing pictures of their girls in white communion dresses and wondering what that was all about.

Their home was always open and was always a place of love and joy.

I still can't believe I recognized them after 35 years...or that they remembered me! Perhaps my memory isn't as bad as I thought it was...

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While I'm on the subject, I have to tell about a couple other God moments I've had.

One was about two years ago, when I was working in the nursery of my kids' school. In walked a tall blonde women who introduced herself as D... She and I chatted for a few minutes about Guatemala, as she noticed my two boys were Guatemalan. She told me she had lived there for over 7 years, working as a nurse in a mobile medical unit. Her husband was the business side of it, she said. They had just moved to Colorado and were homeschooling and using the same option school we were using.

I said goodbye and began driving home. But it suddenly hit me and I turned around, parked and went back into the nursery.

I asked her what her last name was and she told me. I told her that I had met her husband when we were in Guatemala to visit our boys before we adopted them. We had brought with us two suitcases full of shoes and medicines for their medical mission. I had totally forgotten about it when I first met her!

A month or so later, I was on retreat at the Abbey of St. Walburga, for a knitting retreat. It was my first retreat at the new abbey location (they had been located in Boulder before moving to northern Colorado). The retreat leader introduced herself on Friday evening and thus we began our knitting retreat. Her name didn't seem familiar to me at the time. It wasn't until later the next day, when she was talking about being raised in a small town in Colorado, but also moving to Africa, where her dad was a missionary doctor, that I had a clue. I asked her the name of the small town in Colorado. She said "Del Norte," and I realized who she was! Her mother was my Girl Scout leader and I remembered going to her house sometimes for meetings. Her dad had been a doctor in our small town, but had gone back to Africa with his family. The funny thing was that she was not Catholic, (nor was I when I lived in Del Norte). And she had never led a retreat before. Yet, here she was, at a Catholic Benedictine monastery, leading a retreat. And here I was, someone who knew her from her childhood.

Those are God moments to me. I think God gives us these glimpses into the mystical body of Christ...or maybe they're just glimpses into our humanity and how we're linked to one another. I am constantly amazed when this happens.

I'm thinking of more God moments as I write...but they'll have to wait until next time...

A Glorious Autumn Retreat: Then Comes the Fall

This past Thursday and Friday I spent a glorious day and a half at a Benedictine monastery retreat house in northern Colorado. I took my daughter, Elizabeth (16), and we attended a day retreat on Lectio Divina, given by the Mother Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael.

We thoroughly enjoyed the refreshing solitude, the exercise (walking 3/4 mile from the retreat house to the chapel several times a day for retreat sessions, liturgical prayers and Mass), and the spiritual renewal. We also enjoyed several walks on the grounds. We saw three bobcats when we walked the stations of the cross on Thursday afternoon!

We were also pleased to be able to visit with two groups of novices and their novice masters, who attended the same retreat as we. The Dominican novices from Denver, and the Holy Cross novices from Cascade.

We returned on Friday to a husband and 6 kids who were really happy to have us home.

But

Just when you think you have life under control.....

There goes the plumbing!

We spent the entire month of July and well into the month of August repairing major water damage in our downstairs study which was caused by the upstairs bathtub faucet malfunctioning. Water poured into the room below, and also caused damage to the interior closet in the master bedroom, which is adjacent to the bathroom.

We paid our huge deductible (ouch!) to our insurance company and let them assign a general contrator to oversee the reconstruction. This was after we hired a plumber to repair and replace the worn out tub fixtures.

WELL...Saturday night, dear Edmund (15, who is now residing in blessed solitariness in the former downstairs study), called our attention to some water that had mysteriously appeared on his floor. We immediately looked up to see if we could find the source of the water, since nearly all our children had bathed that day (in preparation for the Sabbath...aren't we squeaky clean?) It was quite a mystery, since there was absolutely no water stain on the ceiling or walls, but there was a definite pool of water in the middle of the floor, as if someone had spilled an entire glass of water! (This was the option I chose, since it seemed most likely).

Additionally, there was water on the carpet, underneath the radiator by the window. We haven't had the heat on since last winter, so it seemed unlikely that there was a radiator leak.

Even more bewildering, there was a small pool of water outside the window, on the stone ledge, and we'd had no rain, nor had anyone turned on the outside faucet...

I held to my opinion that it had been a small child with a wayward cup of water who had perhaps dropped the glass, splashing some toward the far wall, underneath the radiator, with the bulk of it on the floor.

But yesterday afternoon we discovered the real source of all that water. We decided to re-enact the scene of the crime by filling the tub with water (no children this time), and letting it drain, to see if any water reappeared. We filled it to the overflow spout and could hear the water draining down the pipes in the wall, but no water leaked. We then drained the entire tub, listening and watching all the while for any leaks. Still nothing.

"It must've been a cup of water," we thought.

Blogging momentarily interrupted by insurance company calling back to tell me I get to pay another deductible!

About 30 minutes later, Edmund calls me to come and take a look. There is water pouring from the ceiling fan (with light) in the center of his ceiling. It collected on the floor, the same spot we found the water the day before. ARRGGHH!

Update: the insurance company is notified; they in turn, notify the water mitigation crew, who is prepared to come out today and help dry out the ceiling and the wall and check the wiring on the electric fan. I try to get a hold of the plumber, so he can come out and locate the source of the leak.

God certainly has a unique sense of humor.

Sts. Michael, Gabriel and Raphael! Pray for us. Please watch over our house and guide the workmen as they seek to find and repair the cause of the leak. And please, help them fix ALL the problems so we don't have to do this again!