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Chapter Two

“… Not Pros and Cons, but Joy and Fears”

That was the first step on the road that had eventually brought me here to Cambodia. I was accompanied on this trip by Catholic Relief Services Board Chair Bishop Gerry Kicanas of Tucson, Mundelein faculty member Fr. Gus Belaskus, and various CRS colleagues. The occasion was the twenty-fifth anniversary of CRS’s work in the country. CRS had been here from 1973 to 1975, helping victims of the brutal war. We returned in 1992 after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords that ended the war with Vietnam and brought stability back to the country.

Tuol Slang is only one of the four hundred mass graves in Cambodia from the days of the Killing Fields in the 1970s, when the entire Cambodian society was stripped of its worth and dignity, when the aspects of life we most cherish — faith, education, marriage, family — were denigrated. Around the trunk of one tree and on fences circling the graves were a multitude of colorful string bracelets. They belonged to the children who perished. In the circles of red, yellow, blue, and green, one could see childhood joys, simple pleasures, innocence.

Respectfully removing our shoes, we entered a glass tower that holds the skulls, bones, and ragged clothing of those killed. There was a depth of sadness, not only for the massacred, but also for the brutality that humans are capable of. I felt that I was standing on sacred ground. My lips formed a prayer. All I could think was, “Why, God?”

Later, I attended a dinner celebrating CRS’s work in Cambodia. I sat with the leaders of ministries and agencies that work with us to improve education, health, and livelihoods. They exuded energy, poise, and intelligence. How could that be with those killing fields so close by, in geography and in time?

The man on my right had attended Oxford, a bit older than his fellow students due to years spent in the countryside under the Khmer Rouge. On my left was an attractive and vivacious lady who had trained to become a physician in France. Next to her was a man who went to Minneapolis and Boston to earn degrees in public health.

They certainly had different backgrounds, but they told me that under the Pol Pot regime they began each day hungry, wondering where they would find food. But they also talked about their education, careers, families, and the difficulty in balancing work and children — these were the kind of conversations I was used to having at Notre Dame with bright young people eager to go out and make their marks on the world. I had grown accustomed to hearing what I heard that evening — laughter, a celebration of spirit, drive, opportunities, caring.

I loved my students at Notre Dame. Even as I submitted my curriculum vitae and references to the CRS search committee, I knew that I was not looking for a change in my career. I thought, indeed was hoping, that in a few months they would find other strong candidates, and I would be thanked, and that would be the end of it.

I had been working hard for many years, really for my whole life. David and I were ready to slow down a bit with the boys grown and our careers at a comfortable place. It seemed like a time for harvest after all the years of planting. Things could not have been better for me at Notre Dame. In my third term as dean of the Mendoza College of Business, the undergraduate business program had achieved top placement — for two years in a row — in the highly visible Bloomberg-BusinessWeek ranking. (The Mendoza College continues to hold this top position to the time of this writing.) The graduate programs had also moved into the tier of top schools, and enrollment across all the programs exceeded our goals.

The CRS search process moved ahead. There was an in-depth interview with a consultant from a national executive search firm. My hoped-for quick dismissal from the list of candidates did not happen. The consultant told me that my expertise in strategy and change management made up for my lack of knowledge of overseas development work. My Ph.D. in business focuses on strategic management, a discipline that addresses why, when confronted with change, some organizations adapt and flourish while others go the way of the dinosaurs.

Strategic management was a nascent field when I was drawn to it in the mid-1970s, but since 1975 I had studied, researched, taught, consulted on, and practiced strategic analysis and implementation. It is now second nature to me to observe organizations, both profit and nonprofit, in terms of their state of well-being and the underlying factors that contribute to that. A doctor automatically notices if someone is flushed, laboring in his breathing, or showing signs of pain, and starts to run through diagnoses in her head. This is similar to what I do when observing an organization.

CRS possessed deep expertise in international development, but not as much in strategic management and organizational development. And internal CRS studies indicated that change was ahead. Significant shifts in the aid environment could adversely affect resources even as they raised expectations from both donors and beneficiaries. Innovation and greater accountability would be necessary.

I recognized these patterns. Raising the game in an incremental fashion would not be sufficient. Successful alignment with the future requires objective detachment from what has worked in the past, the current core activities and skills of the staff, as well as the existing priorities for resource allocation.

CRS is deeply committed to serving the poorest and most vulnerable, but I knew passion and commitment were not sufficient. Its desire to work for the common good must be accompanied by uncommon excellence that achieves demonstrable, sustainable, and holistic improvements for individuals, families, and communities. To keep walking down the same path would actually increase the risk to the agency.

I was beginning to realize that perhaps my three decades of work in strategy might be something CRS needed. For the first time since November, I understood that I was not just a token for the search, but perhaps I had a contribution to make. In any case, I felt a responsibility to ensure that these issues were brought to the surface, understood, and acted upon. I did not know where this would lead other than to the knot I had in my stomach: I might have to face the question about leaving Notre Dame.

That was going to be very tough to do. Everything was so right here, all in place. Why would God call on me to disrupt that? Dave and I loved our community, particularly the priests and sisters of the Congregation of Holy Cross, who have become our family over the last fourteen years. Equally daunting was the idea of giving up tenure. Even with the ongoing evaluations in a person’s career, tenure is the biggest hurdle for an academic. When faculty members come up for tenure, usually in the sixth year of employment, they go through a rigorous, some think blistering, process of review by both internal and external colleagues. Those who fail to achieve tenure leave. Success, on the other hand, brings lifelong employment with dismissal only for egregious behavior and utter incompetence. When I went through the tenure process, it was the only time that I broke into hives. Most people never give up tenure once they’ve earned it. This was almost unthinkable for me, an immigrant, to whom security is the brass ring.

Though the thought of leaving Notre Dame was emotionally wrenching, I felt that if I were to allow myself to stay in the search, I needed to be willing to consider this possibility. Otherwise it would be disingenuous and a waste of everyone’s time.

I turned to Fr. Ken Molinaro, C.S.C., for spiritual direction. I had served with Fr. Ken on a committee and had gotten to know him. Fr. Ken gets up every morning at 4:30 to pray, and I can see his calm, kindness, and surrender to God in everything he does. There were others I could have turned to, but they were my closest friends and would be conflicted as I was. At our first counseling session, I told Fr. Ken that I had tried to think this through, to list the pros and cons, to make a decision tree, but these had not been helpful at all. I would like his help. His reply: “Carolyn, you are by nature an analytical thinker, but thinking will not give you the answer.”

Fr. Ken was spot on in his reading of me. I am indeed a highly analytical person. Whenever I encounter a situation, I study it, note the benefits and costs, the downside risk and the upside gain, the value for the investments whether these are financial or human efforts, the quantifiable and qualitative, sunk costs and opportunity costs. In many ways, these approaches have served me well by fostering objectivity, logic, discipline, clarity, and accountability.

But I have learned that a few things do not lend themselves to this calculus; and looking back, they are inevitably matters of the heart: a call for action that amounts to a leap into a big “unknown,” leaving behind what is safe and perfect to answer a question that will not go away.

The two similar moves I had made — leaving Hong Kong and leaving Purdue — were wrenching because I was leaving my homes, my communities, my cocoons. I had grown and flourished in both communities and had developed deep roots of friendship and love. As I have said, departure from each drew a year of grieving. I was at that juncture again.

Instead of pros and cons, Fr. Ken directed me to joys and fears: these are the language of the heart. Better still, I did not have to labor at it; I just had to carry a piece of paper and jot down my thoughts and emotions when they came. I would maintain my regular prayer routine and offer up my questions to God. God would speak. Well, this seemed manageable, and I constructed my mental to-do list: (1) pray for guidance, (2) have paper with me, and (3) record thoughts and emotions.