The University of St. Michael’s College mourns the passing of alumnus Dr. Edward J. Monahan, a lifelong friend and supporter of the College and author of a history of the school.
“Along with Fr. Laurence K. Shook, Dr. Edward J. Monahan is one of the great chroniclers of the University of St. Michael’s College,” President David Sylvester says. “He helped to tell our unique story while also being a tireless friend and supporter of the College, and a great ally of everyone who works in Catholic higher education in Canada.”
Dr. Monahan is remembered as a distinguished teacher and an impactful leader. His wide-ranging teaching career included professorships in philosophy at Villanova University, Xavier University, and St. Francis Xavier University. He played a variety of roles in university administration and leadership in Canada over several decades, serving as Associate Executive Secretary of the Canadian Association of University Teachers from 1965 to 1970, President of Laurentian University from 1972 to 1977 and Executive Director/President of the Council of Ontario Universities from 1977 to 1991.
His work as a member of the Collegium at St. Michael’s in the 1980s led to “The Monahan Report,” a document that studied its function as a governing body, and he later published his research on funding, accountability, and governance in colleges and universities across the Commonwealth in a variety of scholarly journals. He published Teach me Goodness, Truth and Knowledge: A History of St. Michaels College in 2017, and donated a collection of his personal papers to the St. Michael’s University Archives in the summer of 2019.
Dr. Monahan received his undergraduate degree in philosophy in 1949, a time when St. Michael’s offered a full set of its own courses in the discipline. He went on to receive an M.A. and PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1950 and 1953, and Licentiate in Mediaeval Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in 1953.
In addition to his academic career, Dr. Monahan was an altar boy at St. Basil’s Parish while a St. Michael’s student, a lector there in his retirement, and a member who served in a variety of roles in between. He remembered decades of changes in the eucharistic liturgy and culture of the church in a blog post for the parish.
“[At St. Michael’s,] I was privileged to receive an academic formation that included both philosophy and theology. We read primary sources and sought to understand them,” Monahan said in an address during the Convocation of the Faculty of Theology in 2008, where he received an honorary Doctor of Sacred Letters from St. Michael’s. It was his second honorary doctorate; his first was awarded by Lakehead University in 1981.
“As one whose career has been spent in the university community, with a copy of Newman’s Idea of a University as a constant companion, I urge that theologians and other Catholic scholars be granted wide discretion in the pursuit of their work with no subject ruled out of bounds,” Monahan said during his 2008 address. “This is very important today when we know so much and are constantly learning more yet continue to understand so little.”
A private visitation and funeral Mass are currently being planned.