Catholic Leaders Need the Liberal Arts | Dr. Joseph Wurtz

Introduction

Dr. Joe Wurtz is the Dean of Students and Executive Director of the Gregorian Fellows Leadership Program at Benedictine College. Listen in as we discuss leadership principles from a Catholic perspective, the need of the liberal arts for future leaders, and the opportunities of formation within the Gregorian Fellows Program.

Benedictine College is transforming culture in America one conversation at a time. From our studios in Atchison, Kansas, these are The Benedictine Dialogues.

Dr. Jared Zimmerer

Dean Wurtz, welcome to The Benedictine Dialogues.

Dr. Joseph Wurtz

Thank you, Jared. It’s great to be here.

Dr. Zimmerer

Yeah. Good to have you up here. We’ve had so many great conversations here on campus in your office, and I’ve been really looking forward to having come up here and let’s chat about the school, chat about your background and some of the stuff you’re passionate about. I thought maybe to get started, if you could share a little bit about your background and how you got involved here at Benedictine.

Dr. Wurtz

Sure. Before I begin, I just want to compliment your space. This is really awesome. It looks pretty good. So I graduated from Benedictine. That’s what brought me here as a student. I transferred. I grew up in Phoenix.So I came as a student and then I worked in various roles at the college. I was a resident director, director student activities. Then I left for a while, came back as the dean of students and I’ve been in that role since 2008.

Dr. Zimmerer

Yeah. So that’s almost, what is that? How many years?

Dr. Wurtz

I mean, all told, I think I’m in 20 years working at the college.

Dr. Zimmerer

Nice. That’s awesome. So tell me a little bit then about, we call ourselves a liberal arts college, right? Being the Dean of Students, share a little bit about what are some of those primary aspects we really focus on when it comes to sticking to it that we’re truly a liberal arts college.

Dr. Wurtz

Yeah. I should say that my students all think I have a pretend job, because most people hear the term Dean of Students and they really don’t know what that means. So sometimes I’ll get confused with the academic dean. So they’ll come in and ask questions about academic life, which gives me an opportunity to speak into that. But most of my existence and my team’s existence is outside the classroom. So going to your question about liberal arts institution, I mean, for centuries, liberal arts was the way to educate people, right? Create that cultivation of the intellect, cultivation of the mind, but also connecting the classroom experience with the outside the classroom experience, that integration of knowledge, because we’re creatures with an intellect and will, and they both affect each other when we talk about education. So in my area, we focus a lot of the will formation, right? But I don’t want to exclude the intellect.

So what we try to do in our Student Life Office is make connections with what they’re learning in the classroom, right? These deep, enduring questions that all humans should be asking, philosophical questions, theological questions, questions about anthropology, questions about vocation and, you know, what is God requiring of me? So we try to tackle those questions outside the classroom and make connections. As they leave the classroom, they’re still talking about those issues in the residence halls. They’re talking about those issues in the dining hall, on the athletic field. So we want to support that environment. We want to continue those conversations and reflect on those conversations because what they’re learning in the classroom, what our students are learning, should have application in their life.

Benedict says something about the purpose of knowing the truth is to know the good. And we want our students to know the truth and the goodness in their life outside the classroom.

Dr. Zimmerer

Yeah, that’s interesting. And I love that you bring up anthropology and even already kind of defined a little bit of what a human person is, because I think a lot of times in modern education, especially in some of the more simple public schools and stuff, they don’t even ask that question or remotely get near it. And so to me, the idea of liberal arts education or formation is primarily towards what a human person is, what is a human being, what is a human nature. So we will ask that question and to be able to explain and share that question and the answer is such a deeply rooted aspect of what I see here.

Dr. Wurtz

Yes, absolutely. Because modern universities, unfortunately, have taken a different anthropology. And as we know, there’s no neutral ground with that. Right. If you’re not following our Lord and the teaching of the church, some you’ll follow something else. And most secular universities follow what I consider a false anthropology. And so that affects their education, their politics. And that’s what you see today in our culture. It’s just this confusion about enduring things. Man becomes the center of all things. Right. And instead of man receiving his creation, receiving the truth that he encounters, it’s manufacturing truth. It’s manufacturing who the human person is. And so we don’t want to fall into that trap, right? We want to follow truth where it may lead. We believe that faith and truth, or faith and reason coexist, right? And they’re not competing, they’re integrated.

I remember a grad school professor of mine, really good guy, he said, you know, faith and reason don’t belong at the university. There’s no place for faith, only reason. I thought to myself, that’s just a partial truth, right? So I don’t like that answer. And so I confronted him on it and he was like, yeah, thanks, Joe. See you later. He didn’t like my response, but I think that’s the prevailing vision today of the university.

Dr. Zimmerer

In my experience, I mean, for my undergrad, I went to just a secular state university. And in large part, it felt like they were just preparing us to be good little workers, right? And so there’s one thing. I mean, obviously, we want our students to have material success. That’s a great thing. But balanced, right? Balanced with a deep spiritual life and an understanding of their role in the cosmos beyond just getting wealth. It seems to me that that’s another thing that’s really going after colleges right now, is it’s just mills for workers. It’s just sending people out to go make money and serve the state, basically, or the almighty dollar. Whereas here, it’s not just about that.

Dr. Wurtz

I mean, it goes back to “liberal,” it’s to free man for his true purpose. So we want students to understand the deeper meaning behind their education. It is, it’s that cultivation of the intellect for freedom, not to be enslaved to the state. I tell our students, if you don’t learn to master yourself, someone else will master you. This goes to that, we want to be free individuals. We want to accept our freedom and know that there are bounds. It’s not absolute freedom.There are bounds to our freedom. We have to learn that too, right? And that’s what virtue, that’s where virtue comes into play. So yeah, we want them to follow the truth, the goodness, and the beautiful, and not feel compelled to, oh, I have to do this job or this occupation to serve some other end, right? That our knowledge is good in of itself and to experience that here, right? To see these realities, it takes time, right? It takes good teachers in the classroom to help enlighten that mind, but also takes witnesses to show them and model for them how that can be lived out, right? I think that’s what we try to do here.

Dr. Zimmerer

That’s great. Yeah. Maybe you can share some of the examples of how the integration of evangelization, spiritual formation, you mentioned, what you’re learning in the classroom and then having to continue those discussions in the dorms and the dining hall and stuff like that. Maybe share a few examples of what we do.

Dr. Wurtz

Yeah. So there’s a lot of ways in which we have within our area and student life, we have residential life. So vast majority of our students over 70 percent live on campus. So in the residence halls, we program to the whole person. We don’t just do social events. We do some service events. We bring in intellectual discussions, we’ll bring in speakers. They’ll host events. Sure, there’s the social component, that they’ll do a lot of socializing, get students to collide, get to meet one another and develop these authentic friendships. But we have conversations around that. “What does it mean to be a good friend? What does it mean to have an authentic community? What does it mean to follow Christ in these different areas?” So we have those intentional programs within Res Life. We have those in our student activities. We obviously do a lot of our traditional events, things like the bed races, right? You have the homecoming events, the beanie tradition. Those vibrant traditions have been around our college for a long time. Those are the social components, but that creates opportunity for students to interact and meet.

Then within ministry, we have a slew of opportunities. There’s everything. You can join mission trips and serve the poor around the world. We have evangelization teams, we have music teams, we have different ways running retreats for students to interact with their faith here and outside of our campus, giving retreats for others, for example. A slew of activities that we do, revolving around this notion of man needs to learn virtue. Needs to learn virtue through these events, we try to model that. Again, I think our students need to see how the art of living is conducted. Through our socializing, our leisure activities.

We try to model that for our students, give them opportunities and freedom to choose the virtuous path through these activities. It’s not just programming activities to do activities. There’s a deeper intentionality behind it.

Dr. Zimmerer

Yeah. When I first heard about how many mission trips go on here, I was very impressed. There’s a lot of students going all over the world to help various communities, and they always bring a spiritual component, but also material components as well. I just think that’s fantastic. But what I love about it is that there’s this culture here of balance. There’s a deep spiritual life, obviously. It’s a big part of the community here, and just a prayer life, and everything here. But there’s also this, this do not be afraid to go out in the real world. You’re not meant to go hide yourself under a bushel, if you want to quote Jesus himself. But it’s one of those things of like, I’ve seen so many students just in the two years that I’ve been here now, go out and go become lawyers and become, you know, move into the real world and seek success in the best way. But there’s this underlying desire of excellence, excellence in all things. I just, there’s obviously clearly been an intentional culture built around that.

Dr. Wurtz

Yeah, yes. Yeah, because I think this goes back in our Catholic history, you know, John Tracey Ellis in 1955 accused Catholic institutions of not being excellent, right? And he calls them out and he criticizes the university, particularly for being mediocre, right? And so you see this push within universities to model themselves after these secular greats like the Harvards of the world, right? And there was that push. What that did though is it further secularized the universities, right? So they thought, well, you can’t be Catholic in excellence, and excellent, you just have to be excellent. And okay, you can have mass or some sacraments on the side. But if we really want to be transformative in the culture, we have to be like our secular counterparts. I think that’s a fallacy. And I think we’re trying to push back on that to say, look, to be excellent, to be Catholic are the same thing, right? That Christ is excellent, right? And we’re called to be excellent.

So we want to say to our students, look, you don’t have to check your faith at the door, right? You can enter in whatever field, and God has called you to different avenues, right? To some, He calls you to be doctors or lawyers or business folks, whatever it may be. He doesn’t just call, this isn’t a seminary, right? So He’s calling us to form people to transform culture in America. But you can’t do that unless you’re excellent, you’re competent, at least in your field. And so we want our students to embrace that reality and practice that reality, but also have their faith intact. You know, we don’t want them to push, again, push their faith under the bushel basket, so to speak. This is a vibrant part of who we are, right? That’s part of our core identity. And so you can say that all you want, but you have to model that, right? Students have to see that. And they have to see that on our campus, right? Because if our campus looks like it’s not excellent, they’re going to think, oh, well, you’re not really serious. So if you don’t have excellence in the classroom, outside the classroom, students start to pick up on that and say it’s incongruent with what you’re messaging. So we want to make sure in all facets of our college experience, we’re becoming excellent.

Dr. Zimmerer

Yes. Yeah, I love that you said being Catholic and being excellent is the same thing. I mean, were we not called to be perfect like the Son?

Dr. Wurtz

Right. I mean, that’s right. It’s literally what the call is. And oftentimes, too, if you look back at Christendom and everything that came out of that, I mean, the Western culture thing is Catholic. And so everything that’s been great in Western culture comes from the Catholic mind, the Catholic imagination, the Catholic heart. So for us to hide that just seems like a foolish errand, right? I mean, that’s right. This is who we are.

Dr. Zimmerer

That’s right. That’s exactly right. Yeah.

Dr. Wurtz

I mean, the Medieval University, right? Based on the liberal arts, I mean, this created things, law and medicine, right? It tackled those professional fields as well, right? Because again, God is knowable, right? And truth is knowable. And in those realms, we pursued the truth in its state of medicine, right? That we can create this art and science of healing. We can do law, we can teach the law, we can come up with these, how do you discern these right regulations for society, right? Those things were promoted by the Medieval University, right? So that changed Western culture.

Dr. Zimmerer

One of the things too, the mindset of the Medieval Minds, I always think of their beautiful cathedrals and stuff. Those were built over hundreds of years. They thought generationally, you know? And to me, you’ve now seen 15 years of students go through here, and this big grand goal of transforming culture in America, we really have to think generationally. So we’re sending them out to create families, to be the next priest, to be the next sisters, to go out for generations to come, because this is not going to be the next 20 years, we’re going to transform everything, just not how it works. And if you look at Europe, it’s like, yeah, the guy who laid the cornerstone was not the guy who saw the final peak at the top. And he was OK with that. As Americans, that’s very difficult, because we want everything now. But that’s how we have to think.

Dr. Wurtz

No, you’re exactly right. We play the long game. And there’s a great quote, Boniface Wimmer, you know, basically our founder, when he came over in 1846, he had to convince his 18 companions how to leave home in Germany to come to America and never see their families again, right? He has this great line about, look, it’s not because you’re coming for beautiful surroundings, it’s a comfortable home or a life of ease. It’s to take up the cross of Christ and lay a foundation so that others may build upon that, right? So he had this mindset, they call them the “Projektmacher,” the “project maker.” He had this mindset like we’re going to create things that last, we’re going to create institutions.

He created schools and monasteries and parishes for transforming culture, right? His initial aim was to help the Germans who came and immigrated to America. That was his goal, but as a result, he was considered one of the greatest Catholic missionaries in the 19th century and all that he did, and we’re beneficiaries of that, right? This building that we’re in, right, was a beneficiary of his hard work. So to have that mindset though, you’re right, it takes selflessness because you’re not going to see the fruit of your labor, right? But you’re going to build deep, a deep foundation for others to benefit from.

Dr. Zimmerer

Yeah, it’s similar to how parents think for their kids, right? I want so that you could have a better life than I did. Then it just goes and goes and goes and goes. To ingrain that into the formation of students, to think your life is for others ultimately, right?Like, yeah, go be successful, go do the things you want to do, reach very, very high. But understand that all of that is in service to Christ and the next person.

Dr. Wurtz

That’s right. Whether that’s your kids or whether that’s your community, whatever it might be, that’s what they’re called to do. Yes. And that’s how we build a leadership framework. So we use the “True Leadership” book. And the framework is you start with Christian conviction, right? Because in this age of social media, everyone’s following somebody, right? And that somebody or some group of people form their minds, form their habits, form their hearts. And oftentimes before they know it, they’re changing their attitude, their behavior and their skill set based on the people that they follow. And so I always remind our students, our Christian conviction should be number one, right? We should be following Christ. He’s our North Star. He is our imitation. We need to emulate our lives on him. That’s first. That’s the first foundation.

From there, we develop our character, right? So this is, okay, who am I becoming based on who am I following? Right? So we develop our character. From there, we ask the question, okay, what is God requiring of me? Right? I’m a creature. I’m a contingent being. He created me in this time and situation. He must be requiring something of me. So we talk about vocation. From there, we talk about, okay, well, if he’s requiring me to do something in this world, what has he gifted me with? Right? What’s that set of gifts that I need to discern, not for my own good, but for the good of others, right? Our gifts are given to the others may benefit. And then from there, we talk about skills, right? Skills are important, but most conversations around leadership start with skills, right? It’s just, you know, hey, learn how to do this or that competency. That’s important, right? Because you don’t want to be incompetent. But in our scale, it’s the least important, right? The firm foundation starts on Christ and it goes up from there. And so this is how we teach leadership, right? Because we want to students have the right mindset, the right worldview to understand themselves in that context so that they can better lead and they can lead others and create disciples, right? Ultimately, that’s our goal, right? We want to create disciples. We want to be faithful and fruitful in the world.

Dr. Zimmerer

I love that because it seems to me like having been in leadership positions in various ways, when you rely 100% on your own convictions, your own skill set, you get really stressed out.

It’s a very anxiety-ridden moment where you’re like, it’s all on me, man. It’s right or die according to me. That’s a very difficult way to lead. We’ve talked about Jocko Willink several times. And he oftentimes, he says, check your ego, right? And that’s what you’re talking about. It’s like, you can’t let your ego overtake all of these other things before you get the skills.

Dr. Wurtz

Absolutely. And it goes back to the two verses that we often talk about, humility and magnanimity, right? Humility is that self-awareness, that realistic kind of self-appraisal like, okay, what am I good at? And I need to acknowledge that. That’s being humble, right? To acknowledge what you’re actually good at. But also to know it’s not about you and it’s not all about you. There’s ways in which you can frame and we need others. We need a community around us, right? Really, to do anything successfully, we need others and others share in our good, right? It’s not like, you know, manipulation of followers. It’s we’re working toward the common good and that takes humility. Magnanimity because again, if you’re thinking too small, that’s not a virtue, that’s a vice, right?

And so we want our students to think toward greatness. That’s why transforming culture in America is an apt phrase for our students, because that’s hard. That takes a lot of work, right? And that’s something we do in common. But it stretches us, that greatness of soul, that reaching for something great, that’s motivational, right? And it’s aspirational, but in community, it can be achieved, right? You know, God will bless what we do. That’s what we believe. Now, you look at the saints, that’s how they lived, right? Every great saint, you’re going to see that combination of humility and magnanimity, right? And that’s what transforms culture.

Dr. Zimmerer

It also allows for learning from mistakes. So you’re not afraid to take risks because you realize, well, I’m a human being, I make mistakes, it’s fine. I can get back up and keep going, right? Because the goal is worth mistakes along the way. Seems to me like, especially with the upcoming generation, they’re very afraid of making mistakes. They’re very afraid of messing up schoolwork, very afraid of disappointing people. So to form students in the idea of, look, this is just life and how it goes, and if you’re going to dream big, people are going to get disappointed, mistakes are going to be made, you got to keep going. This is the way of the world.

Dr. Wurtz

There’s a fragileness to the generation, and there are many factors for that. But I think one of these is this unwilling to have challenging proposals placed in front of you, right? That we’re going to protect you, we’re going to insulate you. You know, students hear this, and sometimes people mistakenly label us as a bubble, right? And I like to remind people, we’re not a bubble, right? We are more of a greenhouse, right? The greenhouse is more apt because when you’re planting a seedling, it needs protection for a time, right? Because if you don’t have the right soil or sunlight, it’s going to wither and die. And you don’t want to expose students to things that are going to create that scenario, right?But there’s a point at which you have to take that plan out and put it out in these harsh elements so that it strengthens, right? Before you transplant it out in the world. And so that’s what I think we’re doing here. It’s we’re giving them challenging thoughts and challenging these assumptions toward truth, right? We’re not doing this as a manipulation or sophistry. It’s, hey, you have to learn intellectually about your faith, about literature, about history. So you’re not fragile, right? That we’re actually taking these things seriously. So we’re going to push there. And also just the practice of virtue takes time and effort, right?

And you have to push against things. You have to hear opposing viewpoints or have a different way to understand other people’s reality, again, toward a common goal. But if you don’t practice that here and now, right? You’re going to be thrown out into the culture and you’re just going to wither and die. So I think the greenhouse analogy is a better fit for us because we’re not shying away, we’re not insulating, but we’re responsible for the formation in intellectual and understanding the developmental stages of our students, right? So we’re not just throwing them out there without thinking through that, right? And I think today’s university is either insulating, right? Or they’re just not taking responsibility for their development of their students. And they’re just saying, oh, look, hey, it’s your choice, you’re self-actualizing, as opposed to, no, we’re helping you. This is why we have a community that educates, right? Because we have people who have been there, done that, right? They can help students understand things that they can’t do on their own, or live a certain way that they may not thought possible.

It takes moral exemplars. It takes reflection from people who have experience to help the young people adapt to these challenging proposals, right? So, I think that’s what we’re trying to do here at Benedictine.

Dr. Zimmerer

So, I really like that analogy of a greenhouse. It’s funny, something I hear from students a lot is that they feel like this place is a home. I often think of that Chesterton line where he talks about family is the best place to learn the virtues to go out in the real world. Because you’re not going to like everybody, but you have to love everybody. Because people challenge you. All these different characters in your life will challenge you. Some will be so much easier to get along with. I have six kids, and I can tell you right now, which ones don’t get along. I can probably tell you why. Similar personalities and all that kind of stuff. It’s interesting because I hear that from so many students. Again, I went to a 35,000 size state school, and none of my teachers knew me. I didn’t have a community. There was no support whatsoever on that place. You have to make it yourself. So what a different experience to be able to say, this feels like home. I feel like I’m leaving a home. To me, I would say that’s to its benefit. Because you have now given a familial formation to them that is going to go to the heart just as much as to the head.

Dr. Wurtz

So I always tell students who are discerning about where they want to go to college. Because I, too, started at a large state institution. And I would tell them, look, there’s vast difference between the size, a large state and a small private. Because at the large state, you have to be running after and working very hard to get involved in the university, because you’re competing against thousands of students. It’s very hard to communicate what the institution offers for your benefit, right? They don’t really care about the undergraduate. They’re not built for the undergraduate. They’ve shifted to the research. They really are interested in graduate students, so that they’re really not concerned with how you’re performing. And that’s why retention rates are so terrible at most of your large schools, retention at most of your state schools, that is. Versus the small school, there’s an understanding of, hey, this is a community, right? We have a shared goal, we have a shared vision, we have a shared way of behaving, we have a strong culture. And here at Benedictine, our culture is intense. Like we take a lot of initiative to keep that culture going. We have a lot of cultural catalysts who continue to make changes so that culture can stay strong. Cultural actors, right?

Our student leaders, our staff and faculty who participate in this culture. And because of that, there’s ownership, right? Students feel like this is part of who I am, right? I am now embracing my identity as a raven in our case. And I tell them that in our weekend, say, look, I want you to think that way. I want you to think like you’re a raven now, right? Because we talked in like atomic habits, right? Identity-based habits. Because if you think like a raven, now you’re going to behave like a raven. What does that mean? Like we have standards of behavior. We have expectations on you. We have a way of doing things in this culture. And we want them to adapt to that and learn that, right? Not in a coercive way, but in a free way. Like this is a choice. You don’t have to be here, right? But if you’ve decided to come here, this is how we live, right? And sure, there’s diversity within that. There’s not like just one way to do that. But it’s freeing for students to see that because they’re used to that at home, right? They adapt to their families dynamic, right? Same thing here. And so I think that sense of belonging has been shown by various research to affect their learning. And this is why I tell students to, like, that sense of belonging will affect your academic outcomes. Because you can be brilliant, but if you come here and you don’t feel like you belong, you’re going to check out. You’re not going to stay at the college. So that sense of belonging really does matter, right? And I think that’s why it’s difficult to say institutions. It’s hard for students to find where they matter. And so now you see state institutions for the last few decades trying to create small communities, right? That’s why fraternities are still attractive and sororities are still attractive, because they replicate that, right? But it’s hard to do that when you’re 35,000 students, right? Whereas here, it’s natural to who we are. We foster this, we encourage this.

Of course, we have alumni that share those narratives and those stories. They meet their friends here, their spouses here, right? Their people in their weddings. We have families who are their kids are going to school here now. So it does look like, yeah, this is part of that big, raven family.

Dr. Zimmerer

I’ve also noticed a major difference. And again, I’m just kind of comparing it to my experience and seeing how the students have been formed here and the opportunities they have. The amount of connections that these students are given, I can’t even fathom what that would be like to be leaving college and know exactly who to be connected with. I’ve already got an internship set up. I’ve already know the path I’m going on. That didn’t exist unless you were the upper 1 percent of 35,000 kids, which is very difficult.

Dr. Wurtz

You’re probably like me, I had to introduce myself to my advisor every time we met. He’s like, who are you again? Why are you here? When I was at large state school. Whereas you’re right, here we look after our own, and we want to plug them into our network. Because again, I tell parents, I said, we’re concerned about your son or daughter when they’re here for their four years, but more so when they graduate because we want to launch our students successfully. We don’t want to have the position where our students feel like directionless. We purposely try to connect them to internships or job shadowing or things that can help them in that transition. Because we also know that because our culture is so tight and intense, it’s hard to find that out in the world, and we understand that. We want their focus to be outward seeking. They’re not thinking, well, if I can’t find this here, then I don’t want to leave. We don’t want that.

We want them to feel confident in leaving, that they can now create in their own spheres what they saw here. To connect them with the right folks, the right mentors, the right job helps instill that confidence that, hey, there are people out here that are like me, that would support how I want to see the world and behave in the world. That helps in that transition. That first five years out of college are critical. And so to help our students land within that first five years sets them on a better trajectory. And so that’s why we believe in those connections and we are very intentional in making those connections.

Dr. Zimmerer

So you mentioned leadership and I do want to go even further into that. I think I’d love for you to share a little bit about the Gregorian Fellows program. What’s its mission? What are the desired outcomes? Maybe some successes you’ve seen in your time.

Dr. Wurtz

That’s right. This is The Benedictine Dialogues. So we started this Gregorian Fellows Leadership Program in 2011. It was one of the things when I came back to the college, President Minnis wanted to task me with, like we want a leadership program. And we modeled after Gregorian Fellows Leadership Program because he’s the first Benedictine Pope and he was a great secular leader. He’s a Roman Consul and so he was very effective in his strategies as a leader in the Roman world. And they said, look, I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to just be a monk and I want to pray. And so that’s what he did. He left all that. He went to pray and the monks were like, but you’re really good at leading. And Rome’s fallen apart. And so they pluck him out. And they make him Pope. And as a result, he was dealing with Roman leaders. He was dealing with barbarians. He helped resolve a plague. I mean, corruption. I mean, he was the model of this. That’s why he was considered the great, right? Because he could take the secular leadership and the faith leadership, and he could bridge those two worlds effectively. And of course, he was responsible for evangelizing up north. And he was just a man of learning. His pastoral rule was used for centuries by bishops on how to train clergy. And so he was our model.

So we called the Gregorian Fellows. And our program is basically we accept 25 students each year, and we run them through a series of modules. So one of the things I know President Minnis has talked about this before, we have a leadership class that’s like TED Talk Monday. So we bring in exemplars who share their faith, their journey of leadership, leadership principles, and they’re in various fields. And it’s good for our students to see that because they see how the faith can be incorporated in different walks of life, because our mission is to promote Catholic identity in public life. So they have to see that that can be lived and how it’s lived in these different realms. So that’s a big part of our course.

In the second year, we have another course called The Raven Standard, which is basically a deep dive into their leadership development, right? Because with all things, they have to start with themselves, that self-knowledge. How do they do these things? How do they handle crucial conversations, right? How do they understand habit formation? How do they, do they have emotional intelligence, right? Because part of leadership journey is you have to influence others, right? And so you have to work with others. You have to manage your emotions and understand how other people work. So we work on that. Also in the program, we have mentoring opportunities. We do a retreat in the beginning of the year. We have various social opportunities to build community within the Fellows. So all told, we have around 100 Fellows.

The fruit has been fantastic. We’ve had eight marriages come out of the program, although I promised students, I’m not going to say this is going to happen. We just had another ordination too this summer, Father David Hall and Father Jeff Fenwells, and then Father Colm Larkin. So we’ve had three ordinations. We have one sister, 17, the last 22, Franjabara Award winners were Greg Fellows. Two of the last three, TCIA, our Transforming Culture in America Award winners were Gregorian Fellows. So we’re seeing the fruit.

One of the last things I’ll say, every Greg Fellow has to take on a leadership role at the college. Because again, leadership is a practical art. It has to be practiced. We use this as our laboratory. So when the students come in, they learn these practices, but then they have to put them to use.

Dr. Zimmerer

Maybe go into that concept of emotional intelligence.

Dr. Wurtz

Yeah. So we’ve seen this in not just the college. I mean, there’s been this delayed adolescence to colleges. And part of that is the human formation side of things is lacking. Breakdown of family or too much social media, schools are really falling down on this. So one aspect of that human formation is the emotional intelligence. For so long, people focused on the IQ of young people, and it has its place. But the EQ, especially in leadership, when people start out in a career, they work on those competencies that they’re hired to do. Hired at this level and this is my job. But as they ascend into leadership, they have to manage people. And their skill set becomes less focused on that and more focused on how do you get people to work together. That’s probably 90% of their work. Well, that requires emotional intelligence. That requires how do I understand my own self and how I function? Am I in control of my passions? That leads to why virtue is so important. But then recognizing in others, how are they feeling, acting, behaving? What’s their emotional regulation? And how do I help to create a healthy environment where the emotions are properly channeled? So this is that notion of emotional intelligence. It’s a part of human formation, and especially for leaders to know this. We had one of our alums who said, when I want an analyst in my company, he was a bank president, he says, “When I want an analyst, I hire these Ivy League guys because they’re really good at this specific task. But all my leaders come from a Benedictine liberal arts school because they’re able to understand where people are, and they can make decisions, they’re not paralyzed, because they understand how people work, and they can work team.” So all his leaders came from small liberal arts school. I thought, yeah, that makes sense.

Dr. Zimmerer

That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s almost as if, it reminds me of the difference between the work environment of like the 50s, where it was just cold, calm, you know, a cold, collected, like, no, you know, it’s just, this is the way it is, and there’s no other way. Versus to me, this is a much more successful path, because you’re using people’s strengths, you’re recognizing their weaknesses, and you’re trying to guide them in the right place. But it seems to me, like, also, it’s a formation and empathy of like recognizing that, you know, this might actually hurt this person’s feelings. And that’s fine. Like, I can understand why it might. So let’s make sure that we set up parameters to make sure they’re still successful, regardless of the decision that’s been made, that they may not like. To me, that’s a great leader, regardless of what, you know, area you’re in. That’s what it takes to be a leader. So an empathetic leader is a good leader.

Dr. Wurtz

Absolutely. And there’s more research on this. You know, the truth here is with humility, right? There’s a vulnerability that comes with that. And recognizing that vulnerability in yourself, right, and in others helps put that foundation of trust, right? So we talk about this with the five dysfunctions of the team. We use this Lencioni’s model, right? If you don’t have trust, all the other elements are going to break down, right? And people won’t trust you if they don’t think you care about them. And if you’re indifferent to how they feel, or you’re indifferent to what’s going on in their life, right? This is part of the reason we train our student leaders to know their students they’re working with, right? Know who you’re leading, right? Because if you’re not leading anyone, you’re really not a leader, right? You can think about it, you can get a title, but you haven’t earned the right to be heard. And we want to earn the right to be heard as leaders. And that requires an authentic understanding of the other person, right? How they’re thinking, feeling, behaving, what’s their story? So we want to understand that because that’s the right way to behave, right? And it does help in their leadership development, for sure.

Dr. Zimmerer

I always think, again, I’m going to bring up Jocko Willink again, because we’ve talked about him several times. And for all of our viewers and listeners, I highly recommend Extreme Ownership. That is a great book, especially because, I mean, we’re talking about a battle-hardened commander who has led teams into actual combat. And he’s had to get up in front of people during a blue-on-blue situation and take complete ownership of that. I mean, can you imagine the level of stress and worry and what that would be like? Yet, he’s like, no, this is what you do. You own it. You get up and you own it. And to me, that is empathy, that is strategic understanding of the human person, that is everything that it takes to be, and vulnerability being a huge one, to be a good leader. And so I love that those aspects are all involved in helping these Gregorian Fellows. He’s in the high-stakes environment, too, right?

Dr. Wurtz

I mean, yeah, I love Jaco. And the SEALs, I’m a big fan. I mean, we talk a lot about that when we were talking about our leaders developing that you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. So I think the common myth out there is, especially among men, is I can play video games and then when I need to, then I’ll go out there and I’ll perform. I’ll turn in that paper or I’ll study for the exam. I’ll rise to that occasion. Which is not true. It’s just not true. They have to learn to build habits. We are what we repeatedly do. And so the Seals know this very well and they’re training, right? All special forces. That’s why I like reading about that level of excellence because it’s repeated action, repeated action, right? Over and over and over because they know in game time situation, you’re going to fall back on that training, right? So this is why this is such college is still an important training ground for young people.

What’s scary is most of the attitudes and beliefs that people have in their 40s, 50s and 60s were solidified in college. This is why college is still considered so critical and important, and why I think our culture has slid so far down, because the universities were to blame. The universities took an active role understanding that. But if our students, if they have a good experience, a good training ground to build those habits, it’s going to carry with them into their 30s, 40s, 50s when they’re at their highest in terms of performing and their leadership duties. But we can do so much here to prepare them for that next step.

Dr. Zimmerer

Yeah. That concept of you lower to the level of your training reminds me of that great Michael Jordan commercial when he says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I made it look easy. I’m sorry I didn’t show you the thousands of hours when I’m in the gym. I didn’t show you the tens of thousands of shots I was taking every single day. I didn’t show you those.” That’s the kind of stuff that gets lost sometimes in modern culture because we only see, this guy’s a success. We didn’t see the grinding it took to get to that place. I guess to wrap things up, we’ve already talked a little bit about transforming culture in America. If you were to be in front of a prospective student or prospective parents, what would you say to encourage them to come experience exactly what we’re talking about?

Dr. Wurtz

Yeah, I always tell parents that we talk to come visit, because part of their discernment is just being on this campus. Because you can see a lot through a website, but to meet the people in the flesh, to experience our campus, to walk around and see the hospitality incarnate, I think is paramount. So I always tell parents like, come experience this, see for yourself what we talk about, meet our students, meet our professors, meet our staff, come pray with us. To me, that’s the best way to discern the college choice that our students face. Plus, it allows us opportunity to address, okay, where are you at? What are your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations? How can we partner with you in this discernment process instead of, okay, you’re on your own? I mean, that’s not how we operate as Catholics, right? We have this communal dimension. And so we’re here to help, right?

Dr. Zimmerer

Awesome. Well, Joe, this has been fantastic, man.

Dr. Wurtz

Jared, thank you, brother.

Dr. Zimmerer

Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you to all of our listeners and viewers. Be sure to check out media.benedictine.edu and subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Thanks again for watching. God bless.