Little did I know that I would spend the next two decades finding out the answer to that very good question. Today I am thankful for the opportunity to reflect on my career at Le Moyne College that has granted me my own parking spot (for 20 years of service) and continues to grant me my own Jesuit education. Although I remain very much an amateur in all things Jesuit, I now recognize the relevance of the question (perhaps more so than those who posed it to me many years ago); have a better understanding of the words inscribed in the front stone of our tower building: Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam — for the greater glory of God; and feel at ease in my attempt to describe my field of teaching (OR/MS) as a natural part of the Jesuit tradition in education.

A Story that Spans Five Centuries


Where do I begin? My story spans from December 1491, with the birth of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, to May 2007, the address of the Very Reverend Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus to the Georgetown University Board of Directors. Let me clarify, lest I leave you with the impression that I know enough to relate to you the complete history of the Jesuits. I happened to come across and read, with a great deal of interest, the recent address of Father Kolvenbach [1] in which he used historical events and documents to describe to his audience (mostly lay men and women) the tenets of Jesuit education. I hope to draw from his framework in an attempt to construct a case for why and how OR/MS found a natural home within the Jesuit education. As a non-Catholic, much of my arguments in this article are naturally influenced by a secular interpretation of the address of the Superior General.

In May of this year, Kolvenbach spoke to the board of directors of Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in the United States, founded in 1789. Befittingly, the address took place on the campus of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, originally the Roman College, founded in 1551 as the first Jesuit university and inaugurated by Saint Ignatius of Loyola (the founder of the Society of Jesus.) In his address, Kolvenbach spoke of the Ratio Studiorum, the plan of studies of the Jesuit education. The work on the document encompassing the philosophy of the Jesuit education started in 1581 and underwent several revisions and modifications before it was finally published and adopted in 1599. (As an aside, could this be indeed the same core curriculum development process that continues to be practiced in our universities today?) Kolvenbach attributed many of the ideas in the document to a Spanish Jesuit professor and principal of the Roman College in the 1500s, Father Diego de Ledesma. Using the reworked language introduced by the Middle States Working Group on Jesuit and Catholic Identity in 1998, Kolvenbach listed the following four characteristics of Jesuit education:

1. It is eminently practical, focused on providing students with the knowledge and skills to excel in whatever field they choose.
   
   
2. It is not merely practical, but concerns itself also with questions of values, with educating men and women to be good citizens and good leaders, concerned with the common good, and able to use their education for the service of faith and promotion of justice.
   
   
3. It celebrates the full range of human intellectual power and achievement, confidently affirming reason, not as opposed to faith, but as its necessary complement.
   
   
4. It places all that it does firmly within a Christian understanding of the human person as a creature of God whose ultimate destiny is beyond the human.

He proceeded to encourage his audience to evaluate the relevance of the four characteristics in today's university and posed the following question: "How is the Jesuit university today still moved by the four characteristics originally articulated by Father Ledesma almost five centuries ago?" Most interestingly, he described the process of evaluation as the kind encouraged by Saint Ignatius where its purpose "is not only to detect mistakes and errors made in decision-making, but also to reach out for the magis, the more, in order to face new challenges and to welcome new opportunities." Does this not describe the essence of the science of operations research?

Consistent with the Essence of O.R.


The encompassing philosophy of the Jesuit education — the magis, the more and the greater glory — is consistent with the essence of OR/MS, the science of better. But let me take the opportunity and delve deeper. How does each of the four characteristics relate to the study of OR/MS?

1. It is eminently practical, focused on providing students with the knowledge and skills to excel in whatever field they choose.

Most if not all OR/MS educators will describe their field using words much like those used to describe the first characteristic of the Jesuit education. As an interdisciplinary field with practical applications in a variety of areas, it certainly is focused on imparting skills as well as providing training in analytical thinking and problem solving that would facilitate success in any field.

2. It is not merely practical, but concerns itself also with questions of values, with educating men and women to be good citizens and good leaders, concerned with the common good, and able to use their education for the service of faith and promotion of justice.

Much within the field of OR/MS focuses on concepts of operations for the common good. Topics on human factors, quality, process variations and just-in-time production all address questions of values, ethics, equity and fairness and have helped bridge the gap between optimizing the bottom line and creating appropriate and productive work environments.

When addressing this particular characteristic, Kolvenbach stated that the role of Jesuit universities is to transform men and women and give them the ability to do for others, but also just as importantly in this day and age, to do with others. This addition, he states, is influenced by the positive effects of globalization and need to work together as individuals and institutions. The field of OR/MS is ahead of many others in the aspect of globalization and worldwide collaborations both in practical and educational exchanges. American techniques developed by O.R. researchers, adopted in American business and industries and taught in American universities quickly influence practices around the world and vice versa.

3. It celebrates the full range of human intellectual power and achievement, confidently affirming reason, not as opposed to faith, but as its necessary complement.

In the 16th century this was a particularly identifying characteristic of the Jesuit education. The plan of studies insisted on the study of the humanities such as literature, history, the classics, foreign languages and drama, as well as philosophy and theology, the traditionally clerical subjects. Although initially much of the sciences were part of "natural philosophy," individual science fields began to emerge as stand-alone topics of study. Mathematics was soon to follow. As Kolvenbach reminded his audience, Christopher Clavius (16th century Jesuit Mathematician) stated that since "the mathematical disciplines in fact require truth, delight in truth, and honour truth...there can be no doubt that they must be conceded the first place among all the other sciences."

Therefore, the Jesuit education aims to develop in students a range of human ability. Any area that provides a distinctive approach in training the human mind is considered appropriate and necessary field of study. Do the fields of OR/MS fit the framework of educating the whole? Do they provide a unique approach to critical thinking and analytical problem solving? Do they affirm reason? The answer is yes, yes and yes!

4. It places all that it does firmly within a Christian understanding of the human person as a creature of God, whose ultimate destiny is beyond the human.

For the fourth characteristic, I will quote directly from Kolvenbach's address. "This openness and willingness to explore scientifically all that is human leads logically to the fourth purpose of a university: the religious dimension. In the most profound sense, Fides (religious) is commitment to the search for the fullness of truth."

The search for the fullness of truth is as much a part of OR/MS education as it is the education of all academic fields.

I have argued that OR/MS, as field of study, is compatible with the principles of Jesuit education. It is easy to take this argument of compatibility one step further. I strongly believe that understanding the tenets of Jesuit education makes us better OR/MS educators. In my development as a teacher in a Jesuit institution, I am encouraged to seek experiential pedagogies, to be supportive yet challenging, to emphasize problem solving based on comprehensive analysis, and to remain cognizant of the whole and of the common good. I am convinced that the model approach to OR/MS education follows the same four ideals. It is practical, concerns itself with questions of values, celebrates the whole range of human intellectual power and seeks truth in the broadest possible sense.

I hope that by now I have convinced you, the reader, that OR/MS can be an integral part of the Jesuit educational experience. But let me pose one last question. Can non-Catholic OR/MS educators become an integral part of a Jesuit institution?

The Jesuit education was never intended to be exclusively for the Jesuits. Initially, however, it was predominantly by the Jesuits. Given the broad purpose of the Jesuit education, Jesuits were encouraged to develop systematic relationships to "secular" learning including "writing books useful for the common good" [1]. As Kolvenbach mentioned in his address, it took time, but eventually the Jesuits realized that attracting the best possible faculty meant involving people from outside the Society: "Jesuit education was considerably better if Jesuits and non-Jesuits worked together as partners, as colleagues in a common enterprise." This in fact has been consistent with my own personal experience at Le Moyne. It is only through celebrating diversity in faith and knowledge that we can truly achieve excellence in the Jesuit tradition.



Salwa Ammar (Ammar@lemoyne.edu) is a professor of management science at Le Moyne College and is the editor in chief of Informs Transactions on Education (http://ite.pubs.informs.org/).

References

1. www.sjweb.info/documents/phk/20070510-Georgetown-eng.swf.
2. www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/ulib/digi/ratio/ratiointro.html.

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