Jesuit Journeys
fall 2004

BY FR. DAVID HASCHKA, SJ

The subject of this essay would surely have emitted howls of protest had he known he was to be described under the rubric “listening to the saints.” On the other hand, he may have been quietly pleased because he was always, at heart, a teacher. And what are saints anyway if not those fellow human beings who manage to teach us something of the ways of God?

There may also be howls from others who also knew and worked with Quentin L. Quade, Ph.D. and who found the experience somewhat less uplifting than I. But that’s probably also true for each and every one of those official saints in the Roman liturgical calendar. Sainthood, finally, if it is to be any use at all, has to be personal. My experience of this “saint” is personal. He was for a time my boss, my mentor, my exemplar, and, as such, truly my friend.

As director of Campus Ministry from 1983-91, I reported directly to his office and spent about an hour one-on-one with him every two weeks for those eight years. He was an awesome figure who signed himself “QLQ,” but around campus he was simply known as “Q.” I confess that at first I was greatly in awe of him and more than a little intimidated. His reputation was that of a very tough-minded intellectual who brooked no foolishness. I approached him at first in fear and trembling, trying to simply report as succinctly as possible my “rookie” efforts to guide and direct the campus ministry. My greatest concern was to avoid manifesting too much stupidity and incurring his wrath. My expectation was that in the view of an executive vice-president campus ministry was a minor nuisance, vaguely justified by the institution’s claim to be Catholic.

I couldn’t have been more wrong!

I quickly and clearly learned that Dr. Quade was very interested in the campus ministry. More than that, he was passionately concerned that there be an effective religious and spiritual program for the university’s students. For him, the claim to be Catholic was absolutely sacred – every bit as sacred as the claim to be a university. One could well argue that the abiding passion of his life in administration was to prove the marriage of those two terms, university and Catholic. He regularly reminded all of us – Jesuits and lay persons, administrators and faculty alike, and even students – of our obligation to live out that fundamental institutional commitment.

Although the enterprise we know as university was indeed born “from the heart of the Church,” several centuries of enlightenment, modernity, secularization, and, more recently, post-modernity have created a culture of the academy very different from the culture of the Roman Catholic Church. This marriage of university and Catholic is not at all an easy one. But such a marriage was the mission, and “Q” deftly and firmly led us in the effort to make it succeed on all counts.

In 1995, four years after I had left Marquette and after Dr. Quade had retired from administration to dedicate himself to his beloved research and writing, the Society of Jesus promulgated an official decree titled “On Cooperation with the Laity in Mission.” This decree allowed that: “A lay person can be the director of a Jesuit work. When this is the case, Jesuits receive from the provincial [religious superior] their mission to work in the institution, and they carry out this mission under the direction of the lay director.” Although he did not bear the official Jesuit designation “Director of the Work” (a dignity enjoyed by the university’s Jesuit president), Dr. Quade certainly exercised the role. And he did so in such an integral and competent fashion that the Society of Jesus could confidently make such an allowance. The Jesuits at Marquette – and elsewhere I’m sure – had already been directed in their mission by a lay person for over 15 years; and they had been directed wisely and well.

Profile: Quentin L. Quade, Ph.D. was executive vice-president of Marquette University from 1974-90, and above all else a serious scholar of political science who authored more than 100 articles and books over the course of a career in which he rose through the ranks to become the school’s chief operating officer. Born in Kneirim, Iowa in 1933, he served in the Air Force in the early 1950s before pursuing undergraduate studies at Creighton University and his master’s and doctorate degrees at the University of Notre Dame. Quade arrived at Marquette in 1961 as an assistant professor of political science. He was dean of the graduate school (’68- ’72) and vice president for academic affairs (’72-’74) before becoming executive vice president. He was named Raynor Professor of Political Science in 1991 and director of the Blum Center for Parental Freedom in Education, which was established in 1992 and named after his first mentor, school choice pioneer Fr. Virgil C. Blum, SJ. In 1998 he was named emeritus professor and emeritus executive vice president. Quade’s efficiency and capacity for work were legendary. The standing order was that his office receive the minutes of every university meeting down to the department level. He read, digested, and often responded to all of them within 24 hours. When Quade died in 1999, then Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist called him “the intellectual behind school choice.” Former Wisconsin Fr. Provincial Bert Thelen, SJ described him as “a champion of freedom.” And one colleague said, “Dr. Quade left an unmistakable trail of solid, responsible work and genuine humanitarian concern for others. He was the stuff of heroes and giants.”

So, what are the personal lessons I would claim to have learned from this man while under his direction? In what areas did his bits of wisdom I would have us listen to fall? Just these: integrity, justice, and compassion. Now that is indeed a worthy list of high apple pie values. But in Quentin Quade, they found a sort of earthy practical simplicity.

For him, integrity meant simply saying what you intend Listening to ‘Saint Q’ IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY LISTENING TO THE SAINTS “For him, integrity meant simply saying what you intend and doing what you say in all matters large and small.” – Fr. David Haschka, SJ JESUIT JOURNEYS FALL 2004 25 Quentin L. Quade, Ph.D. was executive vice-president of Marquette University from 1974-90, and above all else a serious scholar of political science who authored more than 100 articles and books over the course of a career in which he rose through the ranks to become the school’s chief operating officer. Born in Kneirim, Iowa in 1933, he served in the Air Force in the early 1950s before pursuing undergraduate studies at Creighton University and his master’s and doctorate degrees at the University of Notre Dame. Quade arrived at Marquette in 1961 as an assistant professor of political science. He was dean of the graduate school (’68- ’72) and vice president for academic affairs (’72-’74) before becoming executive vice president. He was named Raynor Professor of Political Science in 1991 and director of the Blum Center for Parental Freedom in Education, which was established in 1992 and named after his first mentor, school choice pioneer Fr. Virgil C. Blum, SJ. In 1998 he was named emeritus professor and emeritus executive vice president. Quade’s efficiency and capacity for work were legendary. The standing order was that his office receive the minutes of every university meeting down to the department level. He read, digested, and often responded to all of them within 24 hours. When Quade died in 1999, then Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist called him “the intellectual behind school choice.” Former Wisconsin Fr. Provincial Bert Thelen, SJ described him as “a champion of freedom.” And one colleague said, “Dr. Quade left an unmistakable trail of solid, responsible work and genuine humanitarian concern for others. He was the stuff of heroes and giants.” and doing what you say in all matters large and small. If we said we were a university, then we were bound to provide and honor such things as unnuanced academic freedom and the autonomy of the disciplines. If we said we were Catholic, then we were bound to support and honor (certainly not contradict) formal Catholic teaching in every way we could.

Doing justice meant being extremely careful in all matters involving persons. The one time I remember Dr. Quade being really angry with me was when I proposed dismissing a campus ministry staff member whose activities and public statements he had been complaining about for months. After he calmed down, he patiently explained to me all the procedures I would have to follow in order to justly dismiss any employee. I would have been shortcircuiting almost all of them. I hadn’t intended to tempt or test him. But I surely never tried it again. Quentin Quade had strong opinions, preferences, and objectives. But he was simply unwilling to compromise justice in the least to achieve them.

Perhaps because of his strong and assertive leadership, his demand for excellence, and his gruff manner, few people realized that Dr. Quade also had considerable compassion for individual human weakness. Because of my position as the university’s pastor, I was probably one of the very few who had occasion to witness it. He would rage when an individual faculty or administrator’s indiscretion compromised the institution. That was to be expected. What wasn’t expected was his subsequent efforts to see that, once the compromise was remedied, the offending individual was well cared for.

We post-moderns are often tempted to think that our sophisticated and complex world leaves little room for the practice of simple virtue. Quentin L. Quade is a “saint” in my eyes because while he was as sophisticated and complex as any person I’ve known, the simple virtues remained at the forefront of his personality. This is indeed a lesson I treasure.

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