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Jesuit Journeys
Fall 2001
The many hats of Fr. Mike Morrison, SJ
By Phil Nero
It didn't take Fr. Mike Morrison, SJ long to see life would be different in his new assignment as director of the Oshkosh Jesuit Retreat House.
One Saturday soon after he arrived in March, the former president of Creighton University was summoned to the scene of a minor emergency near the retreat house chapel.
The problem was a clogged toilet in the ladies room. He seized the unpresidential moment.
"I plunged away a couple of times and it opened up. I remember thinking 'this is one of the things I didn't read in the fine print of my contract - plunging toilets first thing on a Saturday morning.' Things like that make it a very different job."
Another time he wanted to ensure an important document wouldn't be lost and asked, "Who does the filing?
"I found out I do my filing. So you see that pile over there?" he asks rhetorically, voice fading as he leans back in his office chair and points to a small stack of paper and folders near the window ledge.
After just a few months in his new assignment, Fr. Morrison has transitioned comfortably into the hands-on retreat house environment, a facility that houses about 60 people per retreat compared to Creighton with its more than 6,000 students. There are, however, similarities.
"For one, as chief administrator at Creighton, personally I didn't do the things that gave the kids a good education." he says. "I worked to provide the environment in which they were educated. Here, as an administrator, I do more of the counseling and the directing, and I have more involvement with the people than I did at the university. But even apart from that, I'm creating an environment where good things can happen.
"And I like being part of an operation where you send people out every week who say 'I'm changed. I'm a better person than I was when I came here.' I hear that repeatedly, that people have positive experiences here that really help them with the basic values in their lives."
There's a familiarity too in the feeling he gets when meeting with groups of retreatants. "It's like going to an alumni meeting. Like alumni, they are motivated by a high regard for the institution," Fr. Morrison says. "People get a tremendous experience here in growing closer to God. We're working to deepen that experience rather than go a different course."
His early vision for Oshkosh is to further develop what's in place, increase space, and expand program flexibility.
"I'd like to do what we're already doing in a more diverse way," Fr. Morrison says. "But finances are pretty tight. We have no endowment here. We basically live hand to mouth and essentially break even at the end of the year. I'd like not to exist hand to mouth and be less cramped."
More space would make it possible, among other things, to offer eight-day directed retreats at times other than during the summer. Additional rooms might also open up the calendar to add youth and young adult retreats.
"I really miss the kids, They were very much a
part of my life at Creighton. I had a lot of contact with them. They have a vivaciousness I really enjoyed," he says.
Improving finances won't be an easy task, but it is one at which Fr. Morrison has known success. When he became president of Creighton in 1981 the university's endowment was less than $20 million. When he retired last year it had grown to $210 million and the physical campus had changed dramatically.
Just as he involved alumni in the future of Creighton, Fr. Morrison wants to involve retreatants in the future of the retreat house, expanding their love for Oshkosh into a desire to help shape what the retreat house becomes in the years ahead. One method of involvement might be to reshape the current all-Jesuit board of directors into a combined Jesuit/lay board.
His transition has been aided immensely by Sr. Marie Schwan, CSJ, who has been assistant director at Oshkosh for about 15 years.
"She's a wonderful lady. Her wealth of experience is unbelievable," Fr. Morrison says. "It's easy to talk to her about business matters and other issues. I'm enjoying a growing personal as well as a growing business relationship with Marie. She is totally devoted to this place and wants the best for it. That's the kind of person you want to work with."
Fr. Morrison feels his mission is to build on the existing legacy at the retreat house, which began after the facility was converted in 1960 from what had been the Jesuit Novitiate. In fact, he was a novice there from 1955-57 and jokes that he spent his first few days back at Oshkosh exorcising old memories.
Something he would never want to exorcise, however, is the impact Fr. Dick McCaslin, SJ had at Oshkosh during his 12-year directorship. He ordered a small monument be placed near Lake Winnebago in honor of Fr. McCaslin, who is the new superior of the Creighton Prep Jesuit Community in Omaha.
"Dick has a very distinct, outgoing personality and was very much loved by our retreatants. We want to continue to develop the things he put in place," Fr. Morrison says. "I make a point of telling people that I'm not replacing Dick. No one could do that. I was asked to succeed him."
If there's one personality trait of his own Fr. Morrison thinks will help him serve the retreat house well, it's his ability to remain cool in a crisis, a skill he thinks helped in early June when the area was battered by a torrential storm and high winds. On the first Monday of an eight-day retreat, trees toppled, branches snapped, and power lines fell. "Some people thought we should close and send the retreatants home. I said 'no, we'll stumble through and work it out.'"
Tuesday morning news reports indicated the storm hit hard in Oshkosh but spared the city of Fond du Lac just to the south. Fr. Morrison sent staff there where supplies of electric lanterns and batteries remained plentiful.
"With help from our very dedicated staff, we got the lanterns, hooked up the emergency generator, took some things off the generator and put parts of the kitchen on it instead. And we muddled through." Perhaps the power of the storm helped people turn their thoughts to God. "In the end," Fr. Morrison says, "I think people felt they made a better retreat."
Sans storm, that's something he hopes happens for many years to come.
Contact Fr. Morrison at: Jesuit Retreat House,
4800 Fahrnwald Road,
Oshkosh, WI 54902-7598
Tel: 920-231-9060 E-mail: jrhouse@execpc.com
For a listing of Jesuit retreat houses, visit
www.jesuit.org
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