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Newman and Interconnectedness: Integration and University Education

Studies of the work of John Henry Newman (1801-90), even when they focus on his writings on university education, rarely relate his thought in any critical way to the very different educational context of the 21st century, with its different expectations, opportunities, constraints and political dynamics. This article explores the relevance for contemporary universities, especially Catholic universities, of a central key feature of Newman’s teaching about university education, the need for interconnectedness rather than fragmentation in the curriculum. It relates this to the wider, and life-long, human task of personal integration. Then in an original re-visiting of Newman’s advocacy of interconnectedness and integration as a task for university education, it identifies five challenges to this vision arising from features of the contemporary university context before proposing ways that each of these challenges might begin to be addressed. In the process it offers a significant and original critical retrieval of the educational thought of Newman, a realistic diagnosis of key features of universities today that inhibit the implementation of his vision and a way to support students (and scholars) in addressing an educational priority that has existential significance both within and beyond the university.