Boston College, Santa Clara, and now Fordham-bound

This coming week, I make the transition to another Jesuit university. I taught at Boston College from 2001-2004, then moved to Santa Clara University where I have taught for the last four years. Now I am honored to be taking a position in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education at Fordham University in New York City. When I consider that I also spent five years at Boston College on my Ph.D. (1996-2001), I realize that I have become a stakeholder in Jesuit higher education, having now spent a dozen consecutive years in these fields. I did not set out to become so immersed in Jesuit higher education, but am deeply grateful that it has happened this way: an “Ignatian” way of life, a rich constellation of friendships, a considerable network of resources, and a cross-culturally shared set of interests and questions have irremediably become part of my identity as a result. With anticipation, the next stage of my theological life approaches, and I look forward to being a New Yorker, a Fordham faculty member, and to understanding more comprehensively what this multi-decade immersion in Jesuit higher education means for my life as a lay, married Catholic and theologian. When I decided to follow the strange “call” into a preoccupation/obsession with theology and practice, I never expected that I would owe so much to Boston College, Santa Clara, and now Fordham, and through these institutions, to the Society of Jesus. Now will be seen how these gladsome immersions let on to theological education in a new, East Coast, key. Tom Beaudoin San Jose, California