Bridging Cura: Faculty of Color Socialization at a Jesuit Institution

This research focuses on Jesuit Catholic higher education in the United States because at the heart of this mission is encouraging all involved to navigate the discernment process and then enact considerations that vacillate between cura apostolica (care for institution) and cura personalis (care for people/society). Cura apostolica and cura personalis can be viewed as brands of institutional purposes that consistently emerge at many colleges and universities out of concerns for institutional risk aversion, protection, and sustainability amid hope for supporting people toward success in a humanizing fashion. Specifically, this research is concerned with the toll institutional concern has on faculty of color career trajectories through Jesuit mission and values and how senior academic leaders influence those trajectories. We augment the notions of “mission-washing” and “mission-filtering” and bring them into conversation with realities of faculty of color to highlight three contributions to faculty socialization and organizational realities in higher education. Findings point to the pressures, displayed by mission-washing and mission-filtering, on faculty of color to choose between local and cosmopolitan models, often choosing a hybrid local–cosmopolitan model. As well as mission-washing as cybernetic controls designed to self-correct the institution at the expense of faculty of color. Finally, if Ignatian spirituality is understood as transformative encounters, this study demonstrates that being responsive to the mission is transformative for faculty of color. Yet this transformation is limited to a set of institutionally palatable topics and less willing to be transformative on issues like oppression and racism.