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VILLANOVA RETRACTS HONOR FOR FACULTY MEMBER
Last week, Catholic Higher Education Alert reported that Villanova University had dedicated a memorial plaque to the former director of Villanova’s Center for Arab and Islamic Studies in a lounge of the campus library. In 2003, Mine Ener killed herself while awaiting trial for cutting the throat of her 6-month-old daughter, allegedly to end the child’s suffering from complications related to Down syndrome.
As late as last Thursday, Barbara Clement, Villanova’s Assistant Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs, responded to e-mail complaints with a defense of the memorial and an appeal to “compassion not condemnation.” But Catholic Higher Education Alert readers’ complaints to Villanova – part of a large public outcry following local and national media coverage of the memorial – caused University officials on Monday to announce that they would remove the plaque from the library as a result of “concerns raised by members of the… community and beyond.” As a more appropriate remembrance of Ener and her struggle with post-partum depression, Villanova will convene an academic symposium to advance understanding of the psychosis.
CONTACT: Rev. Edmund Dobbin, OSA, President, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Ave., Villanova, PA 19085; (610) 519-4500;
Edmund.dobbin@villanova.edu.
Last week, Catholic Higher Education Alert reported that Villanova University had dedicated a memorial plaque to the former director of Villanova’s Center for Arab and Islamic Studies in a lounge of the campus library. In 2003, Mine Ener killed herself while awaiting trial for cutting the throat of her 6-month-old daughter, allegedly to end the child’s suffering from complications related to Down syndrome.
As late as last Thursday, Barbara Clement, Villanova’s Assistant Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs, responded to e-mail complaints with a defense of the memorial and an appeal to “compassion not condemnation.” But Catholic Higher Education Alert readers’ complaints to Villanova – part of a large public outcry following local and national media coverage of the memorial – caused University officials on Monday to announce that they would remove the plaque from the library as a result of “concerns raised by members of the… community and beyond.” As a more appropriate remembrance of Ener and her struggle with post-partum depression, Villanova will convene an academic symposium to advance understanding of the psychosis.
CONTACT: Rev. Edmund Dobbin, OSA, President, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Ave., Villanova, PA 19085; (610) 519-4500;
Edmund.dobbin@villanova.edu.