2. Sample Survey and Methodology
The 1993 Jesuit Education Directory mentions 190 Jesuit Higher Education Institutions of which there are 99 Universities, 37 Tertiary Educational Institutions, 22 Residences and 32 Faculties of Theology/Philosophy. Nearly all of the 52 documents we received fall into the two first categories. This does mean that the responses came from 38% of our Universities and/or Higher Education Institutions. If we knew those which do not have any such Mission Statement, this percentage could be higher! We have not taken into account the Fe y Allegria or the SAFA Centers.
The documents came from 18 countries, although the USA dominates with 25 out of the 52. Our estimation is that the distribution is quite correct, with an under-representation for India (3 documents for 34 Universities and Colleges), and for Italy (1 document for 7 Institutions): See Annex 1, Table 12. The countries where we have Universities and/or Tertiary Educational Institutions, and for which we did not receive any document are: Argentina, Austria, Belize, Caroline & Marshall Islands, Czechoslovakia, Chile, El Salvador, Great Britain, Guatemala, Ireland, Korea, Peru, Taiwan, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zambia.
The different continents are represented as follows: North America 27, Europe 9, Asia 8, Latin America 7 and Africa 1.
Very few documents came from our Faculties of Theology and/or Philosophy.
From the methodological point of view, a dual approach has been adopted.
The first one, inductive, derived the main features from a first reading of all the Mission statements; items were listed as soon as they were read; we then established a first grid of analysis (called the "Harvanek-Berleur grid") using a general classification of the items which covers the usual missions of a University: general, education, research, community, service. A second reading, employing the same grid, gave a first set of results.
This first approach was conducted with the help of Fr. Robert F. Harvanek, S.J. of Loyola University Chicago, who had been working on the Jesuit vision of Universities and stressing its characteristics: "action-oriented, socially conscious, concerned with personal growth and fulfillment, and religious" [1]. It appeared immediately that the US institutions tended to use the same format and say approximately the same things, with some differences related to their "Sitz-im-Leben" (South, West Coast, Urban, ...). We were tempted to use a separate simplified grid of analysis, but finally decided to include in it the features mentioned by other institutions, and make a double count, one for all the Universities together, and a separate one for the US, on the one hand, and for institutions from other countries, on the other.
The second approach, more deductive, was inspired by the analysis of Frs. Arrupe and Kolvenbach's discourses on the Jesuit University, as carried out by Fr. Gerardo Arango Puerta in the paper already mentioned. Fr. Arango's paper structures the characteristics of Jesuit Higher Education Institutions along 4 lines: 1. The Jesuit University engages essentially in apostolic work, 2. The Ignatian Charisma, 3. Today's mission of the Society. Forma omnium: preferential love for the poor and solidarity with them, 4. Operative mechanisms in the transmission of values. [2] Although we were not perfectly in tune with this classification - for instance, if there is a Forma Omnium, it means that it leads on to all the other characteristics! - we adopted it, adding some important items that were not present in the text of Fr. Arango. This allowed us to establish a second grid of analysis (called the Arango-Berleur grid) for another reading of the Mission statements; this gave us then a second set of results.
Both grids of analysis are given in Tables 1 & 2, along with the full results. It will appear that there is of course some redundancy between the two grids, but we wanted also to know if some characteristics as stressed by the Frs. General of the Society, are really included in the Mission Statements. Normally, there will not be any "no answers" in the case of the analysis using the Harvanek-Berleur grid, which may be the case when using the Arango-Berleur grid.
We then established a data base with all the results of our readings. We are here indebted to John W. Corliss, Loyola University Chicago, who prepared the appropriate software and the statistical tools, recorded with me the results of our readings, and prepared the final results.
We must also warn the reader that there may be some "inconsistency" between both results, since the analysis of the documents was carried out by a team and not by a single person! Words are words and may have different meaning for different persons.
[1] Robert F. Harvanek, S.J., The Jesuit Vision of a University, Loyola University of Chicago, January, 1989 (Available on the Internet at gopher://gopher.luc.edu:7000/00/vision/vision_of_university). This text has also been published as a pamphlet for distribution to faculty and staff members of Loyola University Chicago.
[2] Obviously, the text of Fr. Arango, dated September 1991, couldn't have taken into account the last two discourses of Fr. P.H. Kolvenbach in Comillas and UNISINOS!