Notre Dame News, published by the University
of Notre Dame Public Relations and Information Office, Michael
O. Garvey.
The
University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life will
inaugurate its new Satellite Theological Education Program (STEP)
September 25 (Sat.) with the first of four interactive videoconferences
providing pastoral training and theological education for ministers
and laypeople in four Catholic dioceses.
The
first of STEP’s video-conferences, or “Institute Days,”
will link some 300 people gathering at ten sites in the dioceses
of Reno, Nev.; Erie, Pa.; and Winona, Minn.
“This
creative use of distance learning technologies is one important
and effective way for our University to deploy its resources in
the service of the Church,” said Notre Dame’s president
Rev. Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C.
According
to Thomas Cummings, coordinator of STEP, each Institute Day videoconference
will include a gathering prayer, an educational videotape presentation,
and a live discussion coordinated from the Notre Dame campus by
a theologian or pastoral expert. STEP is designed as a resource
for dioceses which are mostly rural and without Catholic seminaries,
colleges and universities. With the help of Notre Dame’s
Office of Institutional Technologies, the program will provide
these dioceses with educational services through videoconferencing
and, eventually, a home website and electronic courses offered
on the Internet.
The
first Institute Day’s theme will be “Discipleship and
Ministry,” and the discussion will be led by Jane Regan of
the Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at
Boston College. Rev. Michael Driscoll, assistant professor of
theology at Notre Dame; Lawrence Cunningham, professor of theology
at Notre Dame; and theologian Brother Loughlan Sofield,S.T., will
lead subsequent Institute Day discussions on the Eucharist, the
integration of faith and everyday life, and collaboration among
priest, religious and laypeople.
