Catholic Historian, John T. McGreevy, to Visit CSB/SJU

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February 13, 2004

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. -- John T. McGreevy will visit the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University as a guest lecturer sponsored by the CSB Koch Chair in Catholic Thought and Culture. His presentation, "The Eliot School Rebellion, Boston, 1859: Education, Slavery and the Nineteenth Century Catholic Revival," will be at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday March 9, in the Alumnae Hall, Haehn Campus Center on the CSB campus. The presentation is free and open to the public.

McGreevy will present the inaugural lecture of the Koch Chair, said Jayne Byrne, associate professor of nutrition and chair of the Koch steering committee. McGreevy's visit offers an opportunity for faculty, staff and students to engage in conversation about Catholic life and scholarship, Byrne said. "Our goal is to invite scholars who appeal to a wide audience to increase awareness of and appreciation of the Catholic intellectual tradition," she said.

McGreevy will visit the campus over a two-day period, March 8-9. He is scheduled to visit two classrooms. Opportunities also are planned to allow him to engage in conversation with small groups of interested faculty and students.

McGreevy is the John A. 0'Brien Associate Professor of History and chair of the department of history at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of "Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth Century Urban North" (University of Chicago Press: 1996), which received the John Gilmary Shea prize for the best book in Catholic history from the American Catholic Historical Association. His more recent book is "Catholicism and American Freedom: A History" (W.W. Norton: 2003). He has received major fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Louisville Institute and the Erasmus Institute and has published articles and reviews in the Journal of American History, Commonweal, the Chicago Tribune and other venues.

He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and his doctorate degree from Stanford University. Prior to Notre Dame, he served as the Dunwalke Associate Professor of History and Literature at Harvard University.

The Koch Chair was endowed in the spring of 2002 by a gift from CSB Board of Trustees member Barbara Gray Koch and her husband David Koch to enrich understanding of Catholicism's contribution to intellectual life. The intention of the Koch Chair is to provide professional development opportunities for faculty who, in turn, will offer students, regardless of their major, the opportunity to gain an enriched understanding of the heritage of Catholic thought that has shaped not just the faith tradition but also knowledge across disciplines.