UPS is starting to apply greater pressure on me, urging me to stay and become part of the faculty full-time. Almost by instinct Dave Purdy wrote me a letter today telling me that I must not stay. Oh yes! It is fun to be wanted, but I am not sure if I'm really more than a warm body at this point.
Looks to me that Berkeley has no support from the Formation office at the Pisana, or from anywhere else for that matter. We are no longer able to attract folks for the renewal course, and provincials have been told that the only place to do degree programs in Salesian spirituality is the UPS (even though our accredited courses allow us to offer a degree program in Spiritual Theology with an emphasis in Salesian Tradition at the GTU in English).
A committee has been meeting monthly in San Francisco to examine the problems and come up with a plan. I've not been made aware of these discussions, so I don't know where it is going. My own feeling is that the "Berkeley On Wheels" proposal of Michael Winstanley, made at the last team visit in Lysterfield in 1993, has really undone us more than helped. It has allowed us to offer mini-experiences, but not to do the kind of deep study and producing of resources that comes from research and scholarship.
So here we are, a decade after the dissolution of the Anglophone region, dissolving into thin air.
No comments:
Post a Comment