Welcome to the pages of the Providence College Web site where we focus on our faculty. These men and women have chosen to apply their teaching expertise and scholarship interests to advance undergraduate education.
They daily affirm the importance of the Providence College mission: to provide a transforming liberal arts education shaped and enhanced by Catholic and Dominican values.
Why is this approach to teaching so important?
A teacher cannot put his or her knowledge into the student's mind, but rather can only help the student come to see things for him or herself. Students have to ask questions, compare diverse claims, weigh the evidence for themselves, and arrive at their own conclusions -- discovering new things for themselves on the basis of what they have learned.
At our Catholic and Dominican college, we need to equip our students to parse through the most contentious moral issues of our day -- stem cell research, the nature of death, the value of a human life in a mother's womb, and debates about intelligent design versus evolution -- in a manner that involves the integration of science, philosophy, and religion. A student educated at Providence College ought to be able to integrate all the perspectives in the pursuit of truth.
In order to do that, students need to have good teachers entrusted with the responsibility of guiding them toward what they need to know rather than what they want to know. Universities and their teachers should not treat students as consumers whose demands have to be met for fear of losing market share. Professors need to teach students to want to know what they need to know -- so that they can come to see the truth for themselves and choose what is worthy of choice.
We are indeed blessed to have a vibrant academic community of faculty who teach with this core conviction: both faith and reason are a means to contemplation of truth about God -- and the most powerful force for transforming both self and society is the contemplation of truth.
Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P.
President