AFCU Symposium 2010

Educating for the Care of Creation:
Contemporary Verses for the
Canticle of Creatures

This area provides copies of presentations from the 2010 AFCU Symposium, which took place at the University of St. Francis in Fort Wayne, Indiana from June 8-11, 2010.

Editor:

Patricia Hutchison, OSF, Ed.D.
Neumann University, Aston PA

Editorial Board:

Anthony Murphy
St. Bonaventure University

Barbara WuestCardinal Stritch University

Kevin Godfrey
Executive Director AFCU

Felicity Dorsett, OSF
University of Saint Francis, Fort Wayne

Staff:

Mary Ann McCarthy, OSF
Neumann University

Contributing Editor:

Jean Margaret McDevitt, OSF
Neumann University ‘68

Keynote Speaker: Brother Keith Warner, OFM
“The Incarnation Matters! Franciscan Education for Ecological Conversion”

St. Francis is commonly known as “the patron saint of ecology,” but the title “patron saint of ecological consciousness” is more faithful both to John Paul II’s ecological teaching and to recent scholarship of Francis. spirituality. This presentation synthesized traditional Franciscan approaches to the creation and organization of knowledge with the cultivation of ecological consciousness and ecological conversion. Following David Orr, all education is environmental education, whether explicit or not. Most higher education fails to teach about the essential dependence of human society upon the Earth, or its impacts on Earth’s ecosystems. The fragmentary structure at most higher learning institutions conveys to students a universe that consists of a disaggregated collection of objects, rather than a communion of creatures. Drawing from the wisdom of the Franciscan tradition – especially Roger Bacon – this presentation proposed a more holistic approach to higher education so as to foster ecological consciousness and ecological conversion.
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