Tresphord defends his MA thesis

Today Tresphord Chisanga successfully defended his thesis. He wrote on Pope John Paul II, World Youth Day, and the effect of this movement on the youth of Zambia. He did a masterful job. Now all that his left for him to do is complete his courses, and his graduation is a shoe in at DSPT.

Fr Tresphord Chisanga, Salesian of the Zambia Province

On Tresphord's thesis committee were Sr Marianne Farina, Fr John Roche as readers, and myself as coordinator. I might add that he passed with honors.

Tresphord's stay at Don Bosco Hall has been a good one for all of us. He gently reminds us always of the African perspective in all that we undertake. Hopefully his last two months with us will be useful and enjoyable for him as well.

Ending three semesters

Today the course on ecclesiology came to an end at DSPT. That is to say that we finished the sessions, did the wrap-up, had a chance for evaluation… A lot of things happened during this course and I think in some ways this influenced the mood.

What happened?

For one, two of the students had their laptops stolen and one suffered a major setback when the motherboard burned. In fact, one of the students suffered the theft yesterday, so you can imagine that we took 10 minutes to process the feelings at the start of today's class. Not very conducive to concentrating on content.

One of the students participated in the RCIA program and made the profession of faith as a Catholic during the Easter Vigil.

One of the students moved toward solemn profession as a Dominican, with all the stress such discernment entails.

And there were techincal difficulties. I was never sure whether the media connections in the Smart Classroom would work, and so had to be prepared for other stategies to get across the materials.

Still, all of these elements helped to create a very human environment. In all my classes I found I was giving more input here, but the exchange among the students was also continuous and profound. They read, they worked, they shared their findings. I suppose that is what it is all about in the end. Through all of this we spoke of our very different experiences of Church, and therefore of our very different expectations for Church. We used Avery Dulles' book, Models of the Church, as the basis for a lot of our study, and the student assignments brought in other works as well, both scholary and popular. The discussions were rich, thoughtful and thought-provoking.

With all of this, in spite of the stolen and burnt iBooks, I come away from this ecclesiology course quietly satisfied with what we were able to accomplish.

On another front – in a land far, far away, my nephew Salvatore Boenzi graduates from the University of Arizona School of Music. I thought that the date is 16 May… but the invitation says 14 May… so today? Well a three-day graduation is not something totally unusual. He has had a very strenuous course of studies (education and music) and has done student teaching this last semester. Needless to say I am very happy for him and proud of his accomplishments.

Sal has said that he wants to spend a year or so abroad, perhaps in Italy. He would go to deepen his knowledge and capacities in music (as well as his cultural parameters). Certainly, I wish him all the best in this project and hope he finds the means to pull it off. I have known many students who have done something similar. There is much to gain if one finds the right program, enough funding, and the support of family and true friends.

But let him get through his graduation first. Good luck, Salvatore!

DSPT in a good position by default

Crisis at the GTU! The schools that were most solid two years ago (PSR, SFTS) are now in peril. These are the schools that are the best endowed, but the endowments have diminished by 46%. The Presbyterian School (SFTS) has 19 fulltime professors, and they must immediate reduce the full-time faculty to 13 by next Fall. The Jesuit School (JSTB) will have the gradual retirement of three Full Professors with no plan to replace them.

All of this came out during our faculty meeting this afternoon. Fr Michael Sweeney reported to us the needs of the school in terms of advertising and increasing our donor base, but then he spoke frankly of the general difficulties being faced by the GTU and the other member schools. The situation is dire.

Michael Sweeney, OP, President of DSPT, speaks during an all-school meeting

DSPT has always struggled for finances, but in the struggling has not lost the money of investments and endowments that it never had. Suddenly we find our struggling school in a better position than most of the others of the GTU. It is not that our fortunes have reversed. What has happened is that the wealthy cannot attract the foundation dollars that they once did and their stock portfolios are a fraction of their former value. DSPT has never had any of this, so in maintaining its usual struggling fiancial position, the school actually comes out ahead. So much so that we are talking about making a hire (possibly two) for the new academic year.

If nothing else can be said, we can at least affirm that this is an interesting turn of events.

Pizza for planning

Aldo Giraudo, Marco Bay and I went out to the Pizzeria Falco Matto for pizza last night. It is more than a month that we keep telling each other that “we need to get together and catch up on the news among us.”

Both Aldo and Marco have spent some time at Don Bosco Hall in Berkeley and are acquainted with the workings of the ISS, the DSPT and the GTU. Their interest goes beyond tourism, however. Aldo has been the one to push for the publication of Arthur Lenti’s monumental study of Don Bosco, and Marco has been the one to make set in motion our own ideas about distance learning. They have spoken; they have acted. All this interest needs to be reaffirmed with the serious planning for the future that can only take place while tasting bruschetta and sharing pizza. So, for the advancement of both the arts and the sciences, we braved the rain storm and the intense darkness, and made our visit to Falco Matto.

First on the agenda was a briefing on latest developments in our respective … um, respective? can I say departments? No, that is not right. Habitats? ummm… well, you work on the bruschetta for now and I will come up with the correct word. What I mean is, I let them know of the latest developments at the ISS and DSPT, and the concrete determination of both Gael Sullivan and Michael Sweeney to affiliate with the UPS through the School of Theology (facoltà di teologia).

Marco Bay surveys the Menu

Marco Bay spent the summer of 2000 at Don Bosco Hall, and has kept close ties with that community ever since. Last night he shared about his work in the School of Education in the area of adult learning packages, videocasts, and the steps he is taking to create distance-learning units for various courses and programs; clearly, Salesian spirituality is to be part of this, in Marco’s mind.

Aldo Giraudo on the terrace balcony of Don Bosco Hall: San Franciso Bay in the background

Aldo Giraudo visited Don Bosco Hall in 2003 and then again in 2006. He made his last visit to Berkeley in January of this year. Since then he has done a lot to talk up the ISS, even addressing the delegates of the General Chapter last March. As we nibbled on our mushroom salad last night, he told us of the developments at the Centro Studi Don Bosco, the courses for those doing spiritual theology with a specialization in Salesian Studies, and the final hurdles to clear for publishing the last three volumes of Arthur Lenti’s work on Don Bosco.

These three topics were nearly exhausted when the pizzas arrived.

Our conversation calmed for a few moments, as we cut into the hot pizza and took abundant care not to burn our mouths on the hot cheese. However, with heroic determination, we continued through our grueling agenda.

Aldo commented on how significant he found the symposium in 2007 on the motto of Don Bosco, Da mihi animas, coetera tolle. He had, in fact, been one of the participants in that week-long event organized at Don Bosco Hall by Ian Murdoch of Australia and Thomas Prendiville of San Francisco. Twenty Salesian scholars from Europe, Asia, Australia and America participated in the study symposium, and the acts were published. A follow-up should be taking place at Berkeley next summer, but Aldo also feels that we should plan an international, day-long seminar at the UPS. The theme of that could well be the Introduction to the Devout Life. The year 2009 will be the 400th anniversary of the publishing of that important work by Francis de Sales. This cannot be neglected, said Aldo.

As we waited for dessert, we brainstormed the names of Salesian scholars in Europe. Marco wrote down names and topics on a piece of the newsprint table cloth, and before we could spoon into the lemon custard, he was promising to enter all these names into his computer and email us with an outline of a proposal.

Espresso and a little glass of grappa ended the planning session. Ah, such rigor. With the second glass of grappa, we simply exchanged pleasantries, and ended the evening gathering… not without a lot of laughter.

Youth ministry or youth pastoral or youth apostolate?

This morning I had breakfast with Cryil de Souza and Francis Vincent Anthony. I have known both of these professors since my student days at the UPS in the early 1990s, at which time Cyril was new to the faculty and Francis, like myself, was completing his studies. Cryil is now the head of the Department of Youth Pastoral and Catechetics. Francis is Associate Professor of Foundational Theology.

Cyril told me that today the core team of the Youth Pastoral Department would begin to go over the minutes and notes of the Research Seminar held some days ago, and start to evaluate how to carry the reform of the department forward. In fact, there are two more weekends scheduled that will work as parts 2, 3 and 4 of the seminar. These take place in February, March and April. By that time I will have returned to California (or at least, this is the plan). However, as I told Cyril and Francis, I am very interested in how things develop. I also told them of the hopes of Michael Sweeney and Gael Sullivan to develop a youth ministry component both for the ISS and the DSPT.

Cyril stresses that studies in this area are constantly challenged by the every changing trends in culture and approach — and that these trends and shifts are most noticeable for those who are close to the young.

My own comments reflected conversations that we have been having in Berkeley over the last couple of years, particularly with Michael Sweeney. Michael stresses the need to recuperate the word Apostolate rather than speak only of Ministry. I said to Cyril and Francis that I have the feeling that the adoption of the word ministry in English to translate the Italian pastorale tends to create some difficulties. Ministry is very much an church word, and tends to keep us working within the confines of structure, Cyril agreed. Apostolate, instead, is all about being sent out into the wider world and is not tied down by structures, but is about being sent into the world, even the world of the unchurched.

Francis, who works a lot with language, observed that words can mean anything we define them to mean in a given context. While I agreed that this is true in the close confines of an academic environment, I also disagreed in terms of the application of this in a wider cultural context. The language we use, I feel from my own experience, has a way of shaping us, just as we stretch and shape language. What a word means in the wider experience of the folks determines how our words are received and our message interpreted and applied (or not). And this is where I see the wrestling with the theme of the renewal and reshaping of the Youth Pastoral Catechetics Department at the UPS. Pastoral means something much wider to the Rector Major Pascual Chávez than it does to the professors and many provincials.

Well… we had to leave it at that. Even after two cups of caffelatte and an extra roll, we had to get on to the work of the day. There are classes to be taught and students to see… this is a university after all.

Photos - Top: Cyril De Souza and Gianfranco Venturi at Seminario of 8 November (photo by Joe Boenzi); below: Michael Sweeney, OP, speaks at Salesian Province Feastday in Richmond, 2007 (photo by Duoc Le)

Rain and pre-registration

Well, good old St Martin did not hold off the rain. It came again last night and continued through the night in Rome. In fact, this morning we were greeted with more thunder and lightening as we sipped our latte in the staff dinning room at the UPS. This morning as I walked to my office I kept to the porticoes as the rain continued. Now there seems to be a little bit of a break, but more rain is forecast for the final days of this week.

Yesterday evening I did a lot of e-mailing with my students from DSPT regarding the pre-registration now underway for Spring Semester 2009. One of the responsibilities of every instructor at DSPT is to help a group of students in a personalized way as academic advisor. I have 22 advisees this semester at DSPT… and the trick is to keep up the advising process even when I am away from Berkeley to teach in Rome for 12 weeks.

I am so happy that God created e-mail.

The real time for registration is during the last week of January 2009. This pre-registration process is just a convenience offered to the students, especially those who are looking to get into courses with limited enrollments (and for some reason, there are many professors at the GTU who love to limit the enrollment to their courses). It becomes troublesome to many students who cannot meet their requirements because they cannot get a timely response from professors to enroll in courses that are required.

But for others, particularly those in the Master of Divinity program (MDV), there is less need to worry about this. Their courses are offered on cycles with an agreement among the various school to schedule classes in the same core areas so as not to conflict. I am speaking of the three Catholic schools here because, understandably, the Catholic MDV programs have many more requirements that those of the schools of Protestant denominations at GTU. Why should that be? Because the Catholic schools must follow the indications of the Holy See and the Bishops Conference in the area of priestly formation.

The greater concern for the moment is for the members of the Institute of Salesian Studies (ISS). Most come from other countries and find the system a bit difficult to understand. Last August I was able to walk most of the ISS students through all of this, and they all seemed to fit in more easily to the DSPT and GTU as we started the term. Now I have been in contact with each of them to make sure that they are working through the registration process with ease. Internet and e-mail has been the great help in this.

All of which leads me to reflect that, with the internet, one can really live in two worlds at the same time… or even more worlds. What does that do to the psyche? Ah… good question.

(Photos. Above: autumn rain at UPS; below: portico at DSPT)

No internet

Spent the weekend washing linens, cleaning rooms, making beds. This morning I finished the last three beds before going over to DSPT to meet with MA student Elissa McCormack, who is completing her thesis in these days. We met for 90 minutes. Her theme is religious controversy in 17th Century France (theories of grace, Jansenism and Gallicanism). She is doing a tremendous job really.

Well, the internet has been down since Saturday mid-day at Don Bosco Hall, so I am making this entry from DSPT where I can connect with my laptop.

After the extreme heat of the last two weeks, today was cold and foggy. I do not exaggerate. The mercury stayed at 15° (F) below normal for this time of year. It was refreshing actually. As I spent most of the day at DSPT, it was a refreshing climate in which to work.

Talking with Pete MacLeod, vice-president at DSPT, it seems that our increase in ISS students has been a real boon for the school. Pete told me that recruitment of students is not going as well as hoped for, and that our student population has declined except that the ISS has more students that has been typical in the last five years. So, our little collection of 10 Salesian students is keeping the school population to the critical point. This is good news for the ISS and for the DSPT.

In all fairness, Gael Sullivan has been working hard to make the Salesian provinces aware of the ISS and our programs ever since he became director of Don Bosco Hall last summer. The fact that Gael is fluent in Spanish and English has meant he has been able to reach out to the provinces of our region and make us better represented. Further to this, the publication of the first volumes of Arthur Lenti's study on Don Bosco has gained attention for the work of our Institute. In fact, today I heard from Juan José Bartolomé, my good friend from Madrid (and secretary to the rector major), that steps are being taken in Madrid to translate Arthur's opus. Juan José hopes to have finalized this effort by month's end.

The challenge that we face in the coming months is to build on this, both at the ISS and at the DSPT. But right now there is a new waft of foggy air coming across the San Francisco Bay into our neighborhood, so I had best close this internet connection and go home.

[Photos: Elissa McCormack (above); DSPT (below)]

End-of-term: Pointers for defending defending a Masters Thesis

Today is the last day of classes at the UPS. Most of the morning I spent working on class files, meeting students, correcting papers, and trying to get through e-mail with people at the DSPT in Berkeley.

All of this reminds me that I am living between two worlds as I prepare to return to Berkeley. And immediately on my return I will participate in a few important events. First is the launch of Arthur Lenti's book series on Don Bosco, 25 January. On 30 January one of my students, Larry King, will defend his MA thesis.

Larry and I have been in e-mail contact this whole time, and I have worked on corrections, sending him comments and observations with various emails and attachments. Today the exam has been scheduled (or will be scheduled as soon as people in California get in to work) for 20 January.

With all of this, I forgot that the thesis defense in Berkeley tends to be without an audience. In Rome everyone goes to the defense and so students learn what to expect. Professors too see how others do it, and so the thesis examination becomes a ritual of sorts.

How should a Master/Licentiate candidate prepare for his or her defense?

From my experience I tell my own students the following:

1) Write out a defense statement to present at the opening of the examination. Take your words from the introduction that you have written, and from the conclusion. In other words, tell us your original hypothesis, explain how you had planned to study this theme (introduction), then tell us what you discovered in the course of your study (conclusion), what have been the limits of the paper (conclusion), what are areas to promote for further study (conclusion), and finally restate your original hypothesis now as a proven thesis statement.

2) When you have put this paper together from your introduction and conclusion, streamline it to be no more than three pages, double-spaced. Reading this aloud should come to 9 minutes in time (Remember the rule of thumb: 7 pages = 20 minutes; for your doctoral defense you'll want to put together 7 pages or a 20-minute statement).

3) Some candidate make a print-out of this presentation, which they then give to the professors on the panel and to any others who may be in attendance. On this packet of pages, the candidate may wish to add any errors that you might have noted in your printout, with the appropriate corrections. Also, you can add your thankyous and acknowledements here as well.

4) After you have offered your opening statement, each of the professors on your panel will have 10 minutes to ask you questions (20 if we are doing your doctoral defense). Have your thesis open in front of you and bring along paper and pens for taking notes. As the professor asks you a question, write down the main points of his or her question on your note paper. In this way you will not forget the several points of the question (we professor-types tend to be complicated when we ask questions). This will also allow you a moment to collect your thoughts and then to speak clearly as you respond the each question point-by-point.

5) Do not hesitate to open your thesis and use what you have written there to respond to a question if you see that this will help. This is, after all, a defense of a thesis and not simply an oral examination. You can use your written work to your advantage.

6) Remember, in the last analysis, that you are defending your written work -- your thesis -- and not defending yourself. In other words, do not feel that there is an attack on you or on your ideas taking place. Accept observations gracefully, and corrections gratefully. Modesty and competence go together, after all. Once this examination is completed, there you will have time to make any corrections needed before making the final printout.

These are my suggestions. But don't take my word on this. There are great guides written in so many "how to" books designed for graduate students. I am sure you'll find much better recommendations there.

[Photos: 1) Students in my Francis de Sales class fill out the class evaluation forms on 16 January 2008; 2) Larry King and Ed Hopfner at DSPT on 19 September 2007; 3) John Roche defends his thesis on 18 June 2007]

Welcome News for Don Bosco Hall

The good news from Berkeley is that Jorge Santiago from Puerto Rico, who came for one semester, will now stay for two years!! At the same time, a letter came to Tom Prendiville from the Stanley Foundation with a 25,000. check for scholarships for Salesians from mission territories. It is a repeat of last year when with the help of Katie Calvert from the development office of the Western Dominican Province, helped us (ISS and DSPT) to apply for a grant. That work began way back in the Summer of 2005, and Katie succeeded in getting a grant for our students in 2006, and now again in 2007.

It seems that Katie is no longer working for the Western Dominicans. However, Tom Prendiville tells me that he will invite Gael Sullivan, as new director of the ISS, to speak with Michael Sweeney (DSPT president) and contact Katie to let her know that all her efforts have yielded good results.

And the timing is perfect: Jorge was refused a place in Chile but is accepted to DSPT: the grant can offset his tuition and living expenses so that his province is not going to lose and we get to keep him on board. Ah, if only DBH could hire Katie to do some grant writing proposals for our international students! This would take the edge out of things, economically … and that is a big part of our problem in bringing in Salesians for our programs.

Well, it is not the time to worry about this. It is time to rejoice with Jorge, with the DBH community, and to thank Katie and the Dominicans for all their efforts to help us to flourish. All this fits with my comments from yesterday. How important it is that we get the word out (PR, advertise, whatever…) about the ISS and our Salesian programs.

Returning to the Eternal City

Left Berkeley this morning. Gael Sullivan brought me to SFO by 7:00, and I cleared Security by 7:50 only to find that my 8:50 flight on United Airlines has been delayed by two hours. This gives me a moment to register some thought or other while in the United Red Carpet lounge before take off.

The last few months have gone by quickly -- so quickly that I feel that I am further behind on things than when I started. Now I start another semester at UPS before finishing the semester at DSPT. This may all be too hectic for me now... but I'll pick up my musings in the blog again and try to uncover my feelings for myself and for you.

Before any of this happens, I have the weekend with my mom in beautiful Bellflower, California!

Planning summer course

In preparing for the summer sessions at DSPT, I have been asked to teach my usual course in ecclesiology: In Search of the Church.

As a textbook, I am working on my own classnotes and putting them into book-form for the course. My intent is to have copies ready for the class, and hope to have them printed while in Rome. I will make them available to the students at cost. I'm not sure what that will come to, but it should be around €12 or $15 US.

As for book reports (which I put in the course description as a requirement) my hope has been to have the students read different books and let them make reports. Now I am thinking that there is little time in two weeks to find books, read them and report on them. Also, a number of students are going to be auditing, as I understand from Teresa Olson, the DSPT registrar. My thought, then, is to have the students locate journal articles on ecclesiology themes and report on them. On the first day of class we'll have a chance to look at options here. Given that we only have two weeks and given that the class sessions are long over those days, I don't think it is reasonable to expect students to read piles of books.

That said, I will make available a bibliography for those who, in future, would want to delve more deeply.

Busy week

These days have been busy. I spent Monday and Tuesday preparing for class… On Wednesday a group of students came to my office to speak to me about one thing or another, mainly looking for help figuring out their workload… and today I met Fr Luke Buckles from DSPT but who is now teaching at the Angelicum here in Rome. I brought him over to UPS. He was amazed and happy to see this different style of Rome than what he's used to. The Dominicans have their university in a facility built in the 1500s, within sight of the Presidential Palace (the Quirinale), the Roman Forum, the Jesuits' Gregorian University, the Altare della Patria, and all the major tourist sites. This was Luke's first time in a residential, working-class neighborhood. And he met a lot of the SDBs and a lot of students too. It was a good day…

One more day of school and then the Spring Break for Holy Week and Easter Week. I've been going down to the Vatican to the Archives, and hope that the school break will give me a chance to wrap up some research there (the process of beatification of Francis de Sales). Then it will be May… then it will be June…