James McCartin, Ph.D.
James McCartin, Ph.D., Associate Professor of the History of American Christianity at Fordham University, has been named the new Chair of the National Seminar on Jesuit Higher Education. His term begins immediately.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to be rejoining the Seminar, this time as its chair,” McCartin said. “I was a member of the Seminar from 2013 to 2016, and I learned how important its publication, Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, is in cultivating local and national communities to ensure a vital future for the great project of Jesuit higher education. As Chair, I aim to carry forward the excellent stewardship of past Jesuit luminaries who have led the group: Fathers Pat Howell, Jack O’Callaghan and John Padberg. Let the conversation continue.”
The National Seminar on Jesuit Higher Education meets three times each year by rotating through the 27 Jesuit campuses. Seminar members are drawn from the 27 Jesuit colleges and universities on a three-year cycle. Conversations is published twice per academic year, and is jointly funded by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) and the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.
McCartin succeeds the late Rev. Patrick Howell, S.J., who served as chair for nearly ten years at the time of his death in November. He was happy to know of McCartin’s selection and shared his thoughts soon after the selection was made last fall: “I’ve known Jim for a long time. He ran an excellent program as Director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture for six years, and has a wide network of contacts with leading national scholars. I know he’ll be superb in continuing the probing inquiry and the tackling of tough issues that Conversations has promoted.”
Rev. Michael J. Sheeran, S.J., president of AJCU, expressed his confidence in McCartin as successor to Fr. Howell. He said, “Jim will continue to lead the Seminar forward and build upon the formidable work of his predecessors. The Seminar is in very good hands under his leadership, and Conversations will continue to serve the faculty, staff and administrators at our nation’s Jesuit colleges and universities.”
Click here to view the Spring 2020 issue of Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education.