Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey was founded in 1856 by the first bishop of Newark, James Roosevelt Bayley, and named after his aunt, Elizabeth Bayley Seton. Over the years it grew from a small school whose purpose was split between the preparation of priesthood candidates and the education of lay Catholic gentlemen, to a major university. Quinn, a professor of history at Seton Hall, deftly presents the story of the struggles that resulted from being a university and at the same time a diocesan institution, under the aegis of the Archbishop of Newark,

After treating the early years, Quinn divides the history according to the successive presidents, each of whom influenced the University in his own particular way and had particular issues to deal with.

Several themes run through the narrative, the main one being the development of a university that is Catholic, and at the same time one that can stand proud among the secular universities. In treating this theme, Quinn recounts the several attempts for Seton Hall to define itself in relation to Catholicism. While those in the secular sphere questioned whether a Catholic university could be a true university, Catholics on the faculty, as well as students, argued about what made a university Catholic. Was it adherence to dogma, as some in the 1960s argued? Was it a concern for social justice and awareness of the poverty so close to the campus, as others argued in the 1970s? In 1973, the Middle States Association report found “little that was Catholic about Seton Hall” (321). Discussions about Seton Hall’s Catholicity resulted in the document “Seton Hall: A Catholic University” in 1980, but that did not settle the question for everyone about what constituted a Catholic university.

Sometimes the conflicts were within the priest community itself. The physicist/philosopher Fr. Stanley Jaki once assigned his class readings from Descartes, whose works were on the Index of Forbidden books. The librarian, Monsignor William Noé Field, informed him that the library was “not permitted to make these books available to” Catholic students (279).

The fact that it was under the auspices of the diocese complicated things even more. Who was the ultimate authority, the President of the University, or the Archbishop of Newark? When Albert Hakim, a priest of the Archdiocese, sought laicization in the 1970s, the question arose about the suitability of his remaining on the faculty. The fact that he had tenure complicated the issue. He remained on the faculty. In the early 1980’s, another diocesan priest, Leonard Volenski, who had been a tenured faculty member in the psychology department, sought and received laicization, and desired to retain his faculty position. The Chancellor, another diocesan priest, John Petillo, was comfortable with that; Archbishop Peter Gerety was not. The different approaches of Petillo and Gerety illustrate the tensions between the desired independence of the university and its intimate connection to the Archdiocese.
Throughout his narrative, Quinn spotlights “the odd, the quirky, the eccentric,” both clerical and lay, who peopled the faculty. To cite just one example, there was John Sweeney, who “played the bagpipes, talked of toy trains, and provided the model for the label of Dewar’s Scotch whiskey” (370). Quinn notes that he took his payment in kind.

Quinn uses many examples to illustrate the hybrid nature of Seton Hall as it grew from a local men’s college (although with a larger contingent of students from Cuba) to a major university, co-ed and with several campuses and schools. The religious nature of the school, and the need to be financially solvent, sometimes came into conflict. Was it a charity or a business? Should it emphasize its Catholicity, or conform to the standards of secular universities? The narrative is mostly the story of the main campus, but the law school (still in existence) and the medical school (which was given up) receive separate treatment.

Quinn is not afraid to express his opinions, but he is impartial in his criticisms of what he sees as folly on both the right and the left. In Quinn’s hands, the history of Seton Hall University acts as a mirror of what was happening in the history of the American Catholic world in general.