by Beverly Bryde, Dean for the School of Education at Cabrini University
At the Heart of Education at Cabrini University
An education of the heart at Cabrini University is a transformative process for all who are engaged in the institutional mission, entitled Education of the Heart. Our university mission states “Cabrini University is a Catholic institution of higher education dedicated to academic excellence, leadership development, and a commitment to social justice. Cabrini welcomes learners of all faiths, cultures, and backgrounds and prepares them to become engaged citizens of the world.” Describing the transformational process is different for everyone, but for me and my varied experience and roles at Cabrini, an education of the heart has always been this burning desire to look outside ourselves and into the hearts of those we serve. At the university, we reach and teach beyond ourselves and beyond the borders of our campus community, our country to find our purpose in our life’s mission. We have created a language of the heart that communicates beyond our native language and across languages of voice, languages of need, and languages of community. During these difficult times with this global pandemic and the social injustices of racism, we call upon our transformed hearts to move into action and purpose.
Creating a Family, a Culture and a Community Across Borders
In the book St. Frances Cabrini a Passionate Life, Mark Davis writes, “In the gradual emergence and flowering of any human person it is difficult to overestimate the influence of home and family. The remarkable woman who would become Mother Cabrini owed much to the domestic circumstances in which she grew up. It was from her family, especially her mother and father, that she received her personal strength, her tenderness, and her faith. What she also received was an appreciation of the value of a stable, happy home – something which she would seek to provide for many of the neglected immigrant children who came her way during her later life.”
Cabrini University has created such a family community and home for all students, faculty and staff who reside and work at the institution. The Cabrini University community provides strength through the education of the curriculum and the education of heart, while sewing those threads of justice throughout the experiences of students, faculty and staff. As such, we rely on the language of Catholic Social Teaching to communicate our purpose, our way to reach out beyond ourselves and serve one another. The language of the heart is a unifying language of solidarity. It is being with others, learning from others, growing with others and working together towards the liberation of all. As expressed by a group of aboriginal rights activists from Australia in 1970, “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
A Call to Active Pursuit of the Common Good
Our core curriculum, Justice Matters, is developed to engage our faculty, staff, students and community partners in a process of awareness, action and advocacy for the common good. The curriculum calls us to move beyond the classroom and into the community, both locally and globally. By engaging with impoverished schools, purposeful people, and broken systems, we learn to work together towards the common good. Our college student transformational experience is evident in the leadership roles they pursue and the choices they make such as fair trade practices and advocating for the marginalized.
Exhortation to Fulfill Our Cabrinian Mission
The Missionary Sisters and our laity strive to make the mission come alive at the university. I have worked at other institutions of higher education but have never been more challenged to live God’s purpose than at Cabrini University. In reaching beyond the classroom, our students, faculty and staff partner with the local and global communities as well as the Cabrini Ministries around the world. Beginning in 2010, we had faculty, staff, and students partner and visit Cabrini Ministries in Swaziland, now Eswatini, and developed an educational partnership that has transformed how we all approach, plan and implement traditional educational practices. When visiting St. Phillip’s Mission we experienced the steadfast and transformational work of the Missionary Sisters, Cabrini laity and most importantly the Swazi people to redevelop this part of the world and restore hope. We were in solidarity with Swazi people and our family was broadened, borders dissolved, mission entwined, and all with our unified Education of the Heart.
Another meaningful experience in the transformational language of the Education of the Heart, and a true gathering of a family beyond borders, was the Cabrini Educator’s Institute that welcomed all Cabrini educators to the University in the summer of 2017. The gathering of Cabrini teachers from Argentina, Spain, and the United States in one location to share our mission, vision and hope for education was a transformation beyond our borders and our language. Together we received an education of the heart from one another and established relationships as one family, one mission, one purpose.
A Life-Changing Invitation
Our invitation today is to live with strong purpose, clear vision and unified strength to educate for the common good, to advocate for justice, to serve beyond ourselves. Those of us fortunate to work within our Cabrini ministries, schools, and university experience this transformational development – the Education of the Heart. For me, my work at Cabrini University, my connection with Cabrini Ministries around the world and my relationships with the Missionary Sisters and laity, have shaped the family around me to continually receive Mother Cabrini’s passion as defined by “her personal strength, her tenderness, and her faith.”
Beverly R. Bryde, EdD, has been teaching in higher education for over 30 years and is currently serving as the Dean for the School of Education and Associate Professor of Education at Cabrini University. She has held various postions at Cabrini University over the years in residence life, campus ministry, and academic affairs and has always been connected to the mission and Missionary Sisters since the 1980s.