Graduate Student Essay
In his text he addresses the university by name. His gaze is steady and serious, and doting in a way that only a leader can muster. When Murphy first sat in the president’s chair in 1967, the College of St. Thomas was an all- men’s institution, a single campus located in St. Paul with an annual budget of $3.5 million. A mere 25 years later, at his retirement in 1991, St. Thomas had increased its annual budget to $84.4 million, added 12 graduate programs, quadrupled its enrollment, opened three new campuses, became coeducational, and renamed to what it had certainly become: a university. Truly, his list of accomplishments is so voluminous that biographies tend to crimp at each paragraph break. The awards, commemorations, projects and expansions of the university under Murphy’s leadership become tallies in which the character of the man can often be lost. This is precisely what put me in such a pickle. I found it
are also included on the website of the Terrence J. Murphy Institute, a collaboration between the Center for Catholic Studies and the School of Law. In this archive he stands patient, pastoral and convicted, never shying from the details of a homiletic fine point. He is attentive to nuance and distinction, uncompromising in the orthodoxy and tradition of the Catholic faith. His writing seems rooted and tough, but also humble and deeply caring. To read his works is to experience simultaneously the grounding that only a good father can give and convictions that can only come from a good leader.
I am so pleased to say that the documents which acquainted me with Monsignor Murphy, the
“ I AM INCREASINGLY AWARE OF THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE WORK OF THIS COLLEGE IS THE WORK OF GOD EXPRESSED IN CONCERN FOR AND SERVICE OF OTHERS.
”
— MONSIGNOR TERRENCE MURPHY INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 1967
impossible to explain to classmates whom I was researching – a professor, a priest, a president, an entrepreneur, a military chaplain, a spokesman on education, a local legend.
priest, before President Murphy, the legend, are now accessible in the Monsignor Terrence J. Murphy Digital Archive, which can be found in the University of St. Thomas Archive Digital Collections. Links
Page 12 stthomas.edu/catholicstudies
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