July 9, 2014
Notre Dame Professor the Featured Speaker at ASACCU Colloquium
The 2014 Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities National Conference will be held on the St. Mary’s University campus July 29-Aug. 1.
The 15th annual ASACCU conference – “From Mission to Action, From Theory to Practice: Realizing Our Catholic Identity” – will increase understanding of mission integration, encourage conversation about putting mission into practice, and examine ways to identify and measure student outcomes to determine the future of student development and Catholic higher education.
The conference’s keynote speaker will be Christian Smith, Ph.D., University of Notre Dame’s William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society.
Smith’s talk, “Understanding Young Catholics Today,” will be Wednesday, July 30, at 9 a.m. in Conference Room A of the University Center. He will discuss findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion and the state of young Catholics in the U.S. today, regarding their religious faith and practice.
Smith earned an M.A. (1987) and Ph.D. (1990) in Sociology from Harvard University and studied Christian Historical Theology at Harvard Divinity School and other Boston Theological Institute schools. He is the author, co-author or editor of many books centering on American religion, sociological theory, cultural sociology, adolescents and emerging adults, generosity, the philosophy of social science and personalism.
Michael Galligan-Stierle, a St. Mary’s alumnus and the President of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, will deliver the closing address Thursday at 3:45 p.m. at Treadaway Recital Hall. See the full conference schedule.
The purpose of ASACCU is to promote an understanding of the rich Catholic Intellectual Tradition and its relevance for student affairs professionals who are working or will be working at Catholic colleges and universities.
For more information, contact Student Development at 210-436-3331.