Holy Cross Announces New Director of Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture

WORCESTER, Mass. – Thomas M. Landy has been named director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross. Landy served as associate director of the Center since its inception in 2000 and was named interim director last summer.

“Tom has helped shape the Center and served it well as associate director and most recently as interim director,” said Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J., president of the College. “In particular, he has shown an exceptional ability to bring together people with widely disparate backgrounds, beliefs and viewpoints to engage in productive and enlightening dialogue, which is central to the Center’s mission.”

The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture sponsors and supports programming that explores basic human questions of meaning, purpose, and mutual obligation. With a strong belief in the compatibility of faith and learning, the Center provides a forum for intellectual exchange that is interreligious, interdisciplinary, intercultural and international in scope.

As director, Landy will continue to develop mission-related programming and opportunities for students, faculty and staff and will pursue projects that have a greater impact on the intellectual, moral and religious life of the world beyond the campus.

From 2003-08, he was director of the College’s Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative, which sponsors a number of programs including convocations, summer internships, parish ministry internships and lectures to encourage students to reflect on faith and commitment as they consider their career paths. A lecturer in the sociology and anthropology department, he serves on numerous committees at the College including the Senior Convocation, First-Year Convocation and Kraft-Hiatt committees, and was a core committee member of the Saint Joseph Chapel Enhancement Program.

Landy is founder and director of the Collegium, a faculty fellows program initially funded by the Lilly Endowment and sponsored by The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.  A consortium of 63 Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada, Collegium sponsors faculty development programs on issues of faith and intellectual life.

Editor and contributor for the book As Leaven for the World: Catholic Reflections on Faith, Vocation, and the Intellectual Life (Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward, 2001), Landy holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Boston University, an M.Div. from the Weston School of Theology, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in history from Fairfield University.