About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Division of University Mission and Ministry at Boston College is pleased to announce the launching of a new journal, dedicated to exploring questions about the nature of the university in the twenty-first century.  Its specific mission is to foster conversation about the ways that faith traditions incite researchers and teachers to ask new questions about the world and the place of human beings within it.  It invites reflection on the ways that these traditions act as catalysts for inquiry in the sciences and social sciences, the professions, and the liberal arts.  It asks researchers to reflect on the ways that new developments in their fields help them to raise questions of transcendence, and offer insights into moral questions.  It offers a forum for reflection on the ways that universities today relate to religious congregations and traditions, both in their organizational structures and in their teaching and research, while at the same time operating with the freedom of inquiry that characterizes academic life today.  Finally, it addresses the neuralgic question of how universities today iterate an approach to knowledge that might be described as rooted in religious faith.

Peer Review Process

Both the authors and reviewers of essays in this journal are members of the Boston College Roundtables.  Authors submit essays in advance of the biannual meetings, and these drafts are the subject of conversation during the meetings.

Following each meeting, authors take the feedback from their peers and revise the essays accordingly.  The final versions, printed here in the Journal, reflect the collegial process of conversation and insight.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Journal History

The journal was launched in 2013 after Boston College hosted a Roundtable for scholars and administrators at various Catholic universities in the United States.  A major question that led to the convening of the Roundtable and the journal was what difference the Catholic intellectual tradition made in the work of teaching and research undertaken at Catholic universities.  How did scholars and administrators see their work as reflecting, contributing to, and critiquing that tradition?  How did that tradition shape the kind of work that faculty undertake, and how did it influence their teaching?

In 2014 Boston College will host a second Roundtable for scholars and administrators at other universities rooted in faith traditions.  The journal will reflect the ways that these universities similarly draw connections between a faith tradition and the work of the institution.