This week we celebrated the Feast of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman. Among the many things the late cardinal is remembered for is his text The Idea of a University, published in 1852, but initially presented as a series of lectures. They were based on his experience of trying to create a Catholic University of Ireland as a response to the government having recently established three Queen’s colleges within a federal structure. One of Newman’s aims was to challenge the notion that the university should be a religion- or theological-free space. Newman encapsulated a broad interdisciplinary vision of a university education. It was about disciplines interacting to acquire and expand universal knowledge (including theology). But Newman’s vision extended to include the soc