Catholic higher education leaders attending an annual gathering Feb. 4-6 in Washington were urged to take creative and confident approaches to their current and future challenges.

"The challenges in higher education come to us, we don't have to look for them," Mary Lyons, president of the University of San Diego, told a group of about 200 Catholic university presidents, many of whom were nodding in agreement.

Lyons, a panelist in a closing session at the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities meeting, urged her colleagues to face their challenges head-on.

She likened the current mind-set in the nation and in Catholic higher education to a "hunker-down mentality" and the "21st-century equivalent of the duck-and-cover drills" of the 1950s in response to perceived security threats to the U.S.

She said Catholic college presidents should not shrink back, even from "attacks within the family" and instead should "take up our mission with confidence."

Lyons said the dialogue about "Ex Corde Ecclesiae," the Vatican document that spells out norms for Catholic higher education, has been helpful, but also said she is convinced that it is "time to proceed and implement the ideals" of the document.

She urged her colleagues to take a closer look at the issue of Catholic identity on their campuses and to recognize that "one size does not fit all," since a Catholic presence can take many forms in their diverse campuses. She said college leaders should recognize the pluralism on their campuses and articulate its benefits both to the college community and those outside the school.

Catholic colleges, with their networks, multiplicity of cultures and strong sense of Catholic social justice, can equip students not just to be good citizens, but to be "globally competent," Lyons said.

Jesuit Father William Leahy, president of Boston College, likewise stressed the importance of student formation that occurs at Catholic colleges. "We are serious about forming our students so they can be transformed," he said during the closing session.

The college president said today's graduates face large responsibilities.

"Our church needs our graduates to renew the Catholic community," he said, adding that they could also be tapped as future Catholic higher education leaders.

Father Leahy said a key element of Catholic higher education is its sense of mission even if that mission has changed from when the school was first founded. Another critical aspect that cannot be overlooked, he said, is the sense of community on Catholic college campuses.

"The atmosphere is different on Catholic versus public campuses," he said, referring to the "sense of caring" and service. He stressed that this spirit needs to be preserved "amid attacks on all sides."

Richard Yanikoski, ACCU president and executive director, urged college leaders to be "less timid."

"We don't have to be defensive of our work at hand," he said. "We just have to do it."

During other sessions of the meeting, the college presidents discussed the issues of faculty recruitment and hiring, particularly in light of the Vatican norm stipulating that the majority of a Catholic institution's teachers should be Catholic.

ACCU officials presented the annual Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for outstanding contributions to Catholic higher education to Holy Cross Father Edward Malloy, former president of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

The organization also presented the first Monika K. Hellwig Award to Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a Sister of St. Joseph and professor of theology at Fordham University in New York. The award is named in honor of Hellwig, a noted theologian and author and former ACCU president and executive director. She died of a stroke at age 75 last September.

---CNS