Over time, administrators using a different set of furniture find themselves in a very uncomfortable position. Unless college presidents, through their administrative subordinates and department chairs, play a very diplomatic game of guiding faculty hiring committees to desirable ends, the character of a faculty reproduces itself generation after generation, only to be reinforced by their students. Few college presidents, given the strenuous demands of constant fundraising and other obligations, have the time or energy to focus on the strategic problems of guiding faculty hiring and shaping curriculum. College presidents understandably claim success merely by virtue of keeping their institutions afloat. All appearances to the contrary, it is probable that Catholic college presidents are looking for a graceful way to re-establish relations with their bishops.
Boards of trustees are very likely of the same mind.
Faculty, however, operating as they do in a highly politicized intellectual environment, one which actively enforces conformity, will need the greatest help in seeing that a stronger relationship to the Church will, as history attests, provide a clearer vision of the realities it is their vocation to understand.