USD Magazine, Fall 2002

Troubled Times, continuedfrom page 23 "When I first got there, I felt right at home. The culture was so similar to the fam ily I had when I was little. Like Sicilians, there was that same devotion to saints, processions and large family gatherings," says Cordileone. "I couldn't have a parish event on a Sunday, because everyone was at rheir fami lies' homes, like ours." To reconnect with the people he so loved min– istering co, Cordileone asked Brom to place him in a Spanish-speaking parish. He now lives in the rectory of downtown's Our Lady of Angels. It will serve as a base for him to reach our to San Diego's growing, culturally diverse parishes - rhere are 98 churches in the diocese, which stretches to Imperial County. Having ministered to both pri– marily Caucasian and primarily Hispanic congre– gations, Cordileone says each has their unique challenges. "Caucasian parishes tend to have a more indi– vidualist mentality, and tl1e challenge is getting people to understand and respect the church's reaching," he says. "Hispanic parishioners tend to be very respectful. T he challenge there is getting a widespread sense of ownership of the parish, getting everyone involved in parish life." Thar Cordileone is relatively young for a bishop - Brom is 63 and Chavez is 70 - no doubt will help recruit priests to a religion char has watched its numbers decline dramatically in the latter part of the century. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Aposrolate, there were 58,632 priests in 1965. Today, there are 44,874 - yet the number of American Catholics has increased during char same time from 45.6 mil– lion to just over 62 million. Nearly 3,000 parishes are currently without a parish priest. Cordileone admi ts attracting men to the priest– hood is a challenge for the ch urch - "what peo– ple pay most attention to is the number of priests and rhe dysfunction issues" - and acknowledges that a priestly life runs counter to popular culture, which celebrates materialism, sex and money. To increase interest, he says it is critical for priests "who are devout to lead a life by example." "Simple things, such as fami ly life, can help develop vocations. Eating dinner together, spend– ing rime together, going to Mass together," he says. Whether the sexual abuse crisis will affect voca– tion is uncertain. But Cordileone says his experi– ences have led him to believe that American Catholics still have faith in the ministry. While he was swimming at a San Diego pool shortly after returning from Rome, some kids began talking with him. The children's mother, who was sirring nearby, asked Cordileone what he did for a living. "Eventually it came out that I was a priest from Rome," he says. "She said to me, 'I thought you worked wim children, you are great with mem.' Here I had feared the worst, and I found che opposite. "There is a crisis of crust in the church right now because a small percentage of priests made mistakes," he adds. "Bur people still trust and like their parish priest." +

Merger, continuedfrom page 17

tion of two entities to form a new university, with neither taking over the other. With that under– standing, the boards of trustees of the two col– leges agreed in January 1970 to search for a new president to oversee both colleges and bring the merger to conclusion. Our of fairness to borh, the new president would be neither a nun nor a priest. "It may have been true that the College for Women didn't need the merger quite as much as the College for Men," says Shipley. "Bur it was clear to both colleges char neither, on ics own, was going to be viable forever. We needed each ocher." By the fall of 1970, the University of San Diego College for Men and the San Diego College for Women were united in almost every way - rhe only remaining differences were the name, the two separate boards of trustees, and the two presidents. As the committee chaired by Shipley sifted

Center. For students, rhe event solidified the bond between the two schools. "I came co campus as a College for Women student," says Johnston, "bur I knew then that I would graduate as a USO student." Everybody Get Together As with most mergers, the final sticking point, one that might have dragged on the process for years, was money. From a financial standpoint, the College for Women didn't need the merger as much as the College for Men. The nuns kept tidy ledgers, and in most years had managed to finish the fiscal year with balanced books. The College for Men, on the other hand, sup– ported the seminary students and allowed many other students to

through the candi– dates for president, in early 1971 che name Author E. Hughes rose co the top of the list. Although the trustees of che two colleges disagreed on other matters, they united in the decision that Hughes, vice presi– dent and provost of Northern Arizona University and a man schooled in business affairs, was

pay tuition and fees whenever they were able. In most years, che financial picture was unclear, because transactions and ownership of the facilities were inter– mingled between the Diocese of San Diego and rhe college, making a complete audit impossible. The relaxed bookkeeping made the college increas– ingly dependent on subsidies from rhe diocese, which by the late 1960s

che right choice. When he arrived

After initial awkwardness, combined classes

became routine.

on campus in mid- 1971, Hughes was charged with putting the final pieces of the merger rogerher. Negotiations were delicate, but the new presi– dent's evenhanded style strengthened the bonds of trust and cooperation. Early on, Hughes drafted a plan showing how the merger would be a new joint venture in higher education, which put to rest concerns about the university's assets and the composition of a single board of trustees. He outlined a new structure for the university - arranged in separate schools for arts and sciences, education, business and law - and planned a strict budgeting process designed to lead the new university out of debt. "le rook about three years for the university to get its own line of credit, without the backing of the diocese," says Hughes, who retired in 1995. "But by 1975, we had the first balanced budger. We worked out our own model, and it truly was a merger that created something new." In the summer of 1972, it came to be. Students returned that September to a profoundly changed campus, although they hardly knew ir. Everything looked the same, everyone acted tl1e same, the schedules of classes and activities were much as they had been for several years. Bur underneath was a solid fou ndation char, 30 years later, pro– duced one of me nation's leading private, Catholic universities - the University of San Diego. +

was covering losses to the rune of more than a half-mi llion dollars per year. In 1969-70, the col– lege ended the year with a $693,000 loss, and the situation looked so bad char San Diego Bishop Leo T. Maher publicly wondered how much longer the college could stay open. In 1970, the diocese announced it could no longer offer finan– cial support, except for the donated salaries of the priests who were professors. "(The bishop's statement) really worried the men, who were scared the college would close and their degrees would end up being worthless," says Tom Scharf '72 (M.A. '73). "We thought the merger could save the school, so it really needed to happen." Ir was clear to both sides char a combined uni– versity would attract more students and thus more tuition dollars, and administrators knew the campus could accommodate the greater numbers with minimal rearranging of faci lities. College for Women trustees, however, were concerned that should the merged university fail, the Society for rhe Sacred Heart would lose everything - the grounds, the buildings and everything in chem. In addition to fiscal concerns, the College for Women faculty worried about losing the Sacred Heart identity chey had worked so hard to create. As an inducement, ic was decided early on that rhe merger would be exactly char - a combina-

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FALL 2002