Scholars in Focus, 3/23 Virtual Talk

The DiMenna-Nyselius Library invites you for a virtual Scholars in Focus on Monday March 23, from 3:30pm-4:30pm, featuring Danielle Courtemanche, Ed.D., Assistant Dean and Director of Undergraduate Programs, Dolan School of Business, and Mary Kate Holman, PhD, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies.

Each scholar will have 15 minutes to present and 15 minutes to answer questions. Register to receive the Zoom link. Faculty, staff, and students are welcome to attend.

Assistant Dean Danielle Courtemanche will be discussing "Persisting Past the First Year: A General Inductive Analysis Around the Attrition of a Diverse population of Adult-Learners Enrolled in an Online Undergraduate Program". The purpose of this general inductive qualitative study was to investigate the problem of attrition found in online education and to understand the experiences that impacted the adult learners in their decisions to drop-out of their undergraduate programs during the first year enrolled at any online post-secondary institutions.

Professor Mary-Kay Holman will be presenting "Marie-Dominique Chenu: Catholic Theology for a Changing World". In 1942, historian Marie-Dominique Chenu was removed from his teaching position at Le Saulchoir, the French Dominican school of theology, and his groundbreaking new publication was placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books. Yet only two decades later, the Catholic hierarchy embraced many of his ideas at the Second Vatican Council. Although Chenu’s pioneering work helped to usher in a new era, his influence on the Catholic Church remains overlooked and underexplored. Drawing upon extensive new archival research, Mary Kate Holman's new book demonstrates how Chenu's theology contributed to the church’s opening to the modern world and shaped the next generation of theologians. The book presents the distinctive elements of Chenu’s theology, identifies his major contributions to contemporary Catholic theology, and proposes a constructive retrieval of his thought for a renewed ecclesiology in the twenty-first century.