<p>We're looking for info about what campus life is like for a Jew at Catholic University of America. We love the school for lots of reasons, including it's conservative attitude. But will it be uncomfortable for my son to attend there, because he is not Catholic, or even Christian? I would love to hear from those who have attended there (or their parents/siblings/friends) under similar circumstances, who can give a first hand account.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>I think it would have been much more uncomfortable for him if it were say, 20, 30 years ago. Today, many Conservative Catholic/Christian Colleges have a little more liberal attitude towards the religion of a certain student.
I have a Jewish cousin that attends a Private Catholic High School, he hasn't experienced any problems. </p>
<p>Go visit the campus. </p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. We have visited the campus and feel very comfortable there. But it's different when you actually live there, so we are still hoping to get info from a non-Catholic attending Catholic University.</p>
<p>You may want to ask this question on the Parents Forum. I suspect you'd get more response.</p>
<p>axw, I don't have any personal experience, but my daughter's friend was there a couple of years ago and she had a very close Muslim friend that was one of her classmates. He was also an international student as well, so when it was time for holidays, he went home with classmates and spent the breaks there. He was very well liked and received there..also a young woman that used to work for us through high school and college summers had a Jewish friend form Catholic..I recall her visiting as well . Her religeon was a non-issue . This girl had a very large circle of friends .</p>
<p>This is a great question that I'd also be interested in reading the responses to. My D is very interested in schools in the DC area, but we are not Catholic, so she hasn't considered Catholic U. However, it seems like a great fit in many respects - size, academics, location. Hope there'll be responses from parents and students.</p>
<p>Thanks to whoever moved this thread to a more appropriate forum. Hopefully we'll get some good information here.</p>
<p>I went to a catholic college years ago and can tell you we had atheists, agnostics and other who did well. My math, philosophy, and literature teachers were all Jewish which meant we got both Jewish and Cathoic holidays.</p>
<p>slightly off the topic, but below is a listing of Jewish population percentages (out of entire undergrad enrollment) at an example list of schools that I calculated from data on the national Hillel website. Doesn't get to the OP on what its actually like for a minority at Catholic U or similar institution, but some numbers to put that minority share in perspective. Catholic U did not have any stats entered into the Hillel site, and you will note, as makes sense, that the Catholic/Jesuit universities that made this list are of course less represented by Jews than most other universities.</p>
<p>Here is the Hillel search site: Hillel's</a> Guide to Jewish Life on Campus</p>
<p>The website has data on plenty of other colleges that I did not list below.</p>
<p>Note that the undergrad numbers on the website look very old (e.g., Trinity is listed as 1700 or 1800 undergrads, but its more like 2200 now), but I assume the ratios of Jewish undergrads to total undergrads are probably pretty consistent over the years....that assumption could be incorrect in some cases.</p>
<p>SCHOOL % UG JEWS
Emory 33%
U Hartford 33%
Tufts 32%
U Penn 31%
NYU 26%
Harvard 26%
Brown 25%
Columbia 25%
U Md 23%
Yale 23%
Northwestern 23%
Cornell 22%
Skidmore 18%
Vanderbilt 15%
Colgate 15%
Pomona 15%
Pitzer 14%
Johns Hopkins 14%
Princeton 13%
Trinity 12%
Middlebury 12%
Rice 12%
Duke 11%
USC 11%
UCSB 11%
Dartmouth 11%
UVA 10%
Bowdoin 10%
Claremont McK 10%
UC Berkeley 10%
Williams 10%
Stanford 10%
Georgetown 10%
Kenyon 10%
Colby 10%
U Colorado 9%
Dickinson 9%
Bucknell 9%
Hamilton 9%
U Richmond 9%
Carleton 8%
UCSD 8%
Occidental 7%
Macalester 6%
UNC 6%
Elon 4%
Davidson 4%
W&L 4%
Denison 4%
Santa Clara 3%
Boston C 2%
Wake Forest 2%</p>
<p>I don't know if this will help....my kids have a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. They have been raised in a home where both religions are celebrated. One is a freshman at Villanova, one is a senior at Duquesne University and the eldest is a Villanova graduate. I can remember when my daughter first arrived at Villanova; she called during orientation and reported her first connection was a Jewish girl from Boca Raton, Florida. Religion classes are a must at all, but there are a variety of classes that can be taken. Masses are celebrated, but I don't think my first two attended at all. My freshman attends occasionally, but he was the one who went to mass with my husband. I'm sure there are students attending of all religions. Can your child spend a weekend there to get a good feel for the school? You might want to check the website to see if there is a Hillel there to see what kind of Jewish presence is there.</p>
<p>Also off topic, but throwing my 2 cents in. DH's mom is jewish, we are Catholic(he converted 12 yrs after our wedding). I think many Catholics respect Jewish heritage. For my Catholic upbriging I feel a closer bond to Judaism, because Jesus was a Jew...every Catholic knows the story of him being lost, when he was actually talking to the rabbis. The only difference to me is I see him as a messiah and Jewish people do not. I think it would be a wonderful experience, if not for anything to re-evaluate ones own beliefs. College is a time when our children come into their own. I don't believe children of a Catholic faith are so ignorant or arrogant that they don't accept another persons religious belief. I would think it might be contentious depending on your childs position on abortion. Catholic teaching is very clear on that subject. </p>
<p>ALso remember even Georgetown, Notre Dame are seen as Catholic/Christian universities...they have many students not of a Christian faith</p>
<p>My oldest graduated from a Catholic University in Maryland - about 80% of the students are Catholic. She has told me there were several Jewish students there - it was no big deal.<br>
Pima is right - Catholics have a lot of respect for Jewish Heritage.
While I seriously doubt there will be any discrimination or racism for being Jewish - he clearly will be in a Catholic environment. For some this is uncomfortable, for others it is not. I doubt he will be heavily proselytized - particularly if he is practicing.
He will be a minority and will have to made a greater effort to stay faithful.</p>
<p>I went to BC as a non-Catholic. I did learn quite a bit about Catholicism while there. Lots of kids went to Mass and there were a lot of Irish Roman Catholic kids there. Some of the professors were priests and wore their robes to class.</p>
<p>I felt absolutely no pressure religiously though. And they had a wide variety of course for the theology requirements. In fact I took Judaism to fulfill one of the theology course requirements. This school is in the Boston area which is pretty multicultural. Today That was a long time ago. I would guess that BC has become more secular over the decades than when I went there.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I have a nephew at Catholic University. He seems to be enjoying it. He is not Catholic -- in fact, if anything, he's Jewish -- but he has somewhat unique circumstances that make him not a great test of how a Jewish kid will feel at Catholic U. (Basically, raised without any religion, ethnically identified with a group that is heavily Catholic, and familiar with the Catholicism of some of his relatives, so that others would generally assume he was Catholic unless he told them he wasn't.)</p></li>
<li><p>Unless they've improved the methodology a lot in the past few years, those Hillel numbers are not very reliable. At least, they used to be not very reliable, or more precisely much more reliable for some colleges than for others.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If there is any way your S could talk to students there- both Catholic and non- Catholic students- he and you would get a better sense what life is like for non- Catholics. Perhaps an on line blog from the school could be found or when on tour chatting up the populace. </p>
<p>My feeling is that Catholic U is more "Catholic" culturally than some other Catholic institutions. This does not mean that a Jew would be shunned or treated poorly- just that there's a lot of "cultural" connectedness among the student body into which he would not fit by virtue of his background. Sort of like Brandeis for a Catholic student, in that way. Not bad, but one should be aware of it going in. </p>
<p>I doubt there would be any pressure to convert or any overt prejudice- and the religion course offering would be wide. They will be taught from a Catholic perspective, however and from the standpoint of a "believer". </p>
<p>I would also investigate the religious offerings for Jews in terms of worship and social, particularly of your S is a practicing Jew. Somehow, I don't think the campus ministry would have a whole lot to offer in that area. </p>
<p>Just some things to think about and investigate.</p>
<p>"I doubt there would be any pressure to convert or any overt prejudice- and the religion course offering would be wide. They will be taught from a Catholic perspective, however and from the standpoint of a "believer"."</p>
<p>The Judaism course that I took at Boston College was taught by a local Rabbi. Newton was a heavily Jewish area (along with nearby Brookline) and the high-school that I went to often had large numbers of students absent on the Holy Days. You could take a look at their list of professors on their departmental website to see if everyone is Catholic or not or just call the department.</p>
<p>JHS: given that Hillel.org is basically the only resource for this info, if it is not accurate, how would one assess, especially for schools "under the radar" of the masses? obviously, the usual suspects come up like the ones listed by Papa, but I can't imagine that certain areas of the country, i.e SW, SE only send their Jewish kids to top tierish schools.....not every kid is top tier material.....just looking for some guidance here away from the NE</p>
<p>If you are worried about the theology classes, I wouldn't. So many options are there to pick from, and from my experience they focus on ethics/morals of the Church more than anything else--and not only stuff like abortion, death penalty, euthanasia, etc. A lot of what they focus on is WHY the Church believes what it does, not just WHAT...might be a good learning experience to be able to learn more about another religion, esp. if you share many of the values/morals of Christianity which Jews do...</p>
<p>If you are worried about the students interacting w/ a Jew, I would not worry. Nobody will care--I think most would love to have class discussions to compare and contrast the two religions and such...also, the students I met and know who go there are SOOOOO friendly, I doubt anyone would have problems making TONS of friends. Sure, everybody will be excited around Christmas and Easter, people will pray, and almost all will be Pro-life and whatnot---from my experience at Catholic schools and being friends w/ non-Catholics, this is not a big deal as long as you are not OFFENDED by it. If you are accepting of another religion, I think you can realize that Catholicism is not like some huge topic of discussion everyday that you are forced to listen to. It is there in the crosses and the massive and gorgeous Basillica on campus, but it should not interfere w/ your son's social life.</p>
<p>I know I'm not Jewish (I'm Catholic) but I feel like your son could really enjoy his time at CUA. The campus is great, the students are part of a tight-knit community, and the location in D.C. can't be beat--so many things to do: trips into Georgetown for shopping and eating, museums, the Library of Congress (which CUA students use!), and internships, to name a few. Maybe you could get in touch with the school or students who go there and ask them for their thoughts. Also, explore the website a bit more to see if you can find any info. Good luck to your son and your family!</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is whether or not your son is looking for any sort of Jewish life on campus. From what posters on this thread have said, he won't have an issue with being excluded or made uncomfortable because of his faith. However, if he has any interest in attending services, participating in Jewish holiday observance, etc, I would imagine there are other schools with a somewhat conservative bent that also have a reasonable Jewish population.</p>
<p>My daughter wants to visit. She heard that is has an awesome music ed dept and she says she is willing to table the Jewish factor in favor of the education factor. Looking at their mission I am not sure things would not change down the road once she is entrenched into campus life. She may not be highly religious but she has a strong Jewish identity. Has anyone heard of this school?</p>