The Cultural Return to Orthodoxy | Ann Brodeur

On this episode of Anchored, Jeremy is joined by Ann Brodeur, the Chair of Education and Liberal Arts at Catholic International University. They explore the relationship between Ann’s love for medieval history and her background growing up on a ranch in Montana. They dive into how a view of education as formational, rather than mere informational, helps mitigate the threat posed by AI. They discuss Catholic International University’s founding mission to educate the laity along with today’s cultural revival of Catholic education and orthodoxy. They conclude by highlighting key texts that shaped medieval culture for an illiterate audience. 

Transcript

Jeremy Tate (00:02.488)
Folks, welcome back to the Anchor podcast. We have with us today, PhD, Dr. Anne Brodeur. Anne is the Chair of Education and Liberal Arts at the Catholic Distance University. She received her doctorate in Medieval History from the University of Toronto, her master's in Medieval History from the Catholic University of America, and her bachelor's from Franciscan University.

She also studied at the Center of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at St. Michael's Hall in Oxford. For nearly two decades, she has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in Catholic Studies, History and Education at the University of Toronto, the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, and the University of Mary. She joined Catholic International in 2024. Dr. Brodeur is a social historian of medieval Europe.

Her scholarly interest concerned the intersection of religion and culture, religious, social and economic history, the history of philosophy of education, the family and home life. She has published and presented nationally and internationally on these topics and has been interviewed on relevant radio and real presence radio. Dr. Brodeur has served on various boards and committees for K-12 institutions and universities and currently serves as advisor to Catholic K-12 schools around the country. Dr. Brodeur, thank you so much

for coming on the Anchor Podcast. Great to see you.

Ann Brodeur (01:24.446)
Yeah, you're welcome. It's great to be with you.

Jeremy Tate (01:27.522)
So we often love to kick off the Anchor podcast just getting a sense of early education for our guests. What were you like when you think back about your first memories in school? Did you love it? Did you hate it? Was it painful? Were you a good student?

Ann Brodeur (01:32.777)
Okay.

Ann Brodeur (01:41.802)
Yeah, so I grew up in Montana, and there were no private schools where I was in Montana. I grew up on a ranch, and it was like a 30 mile drive into school on the bus every day. And so I went to the public schools all through, you know, K-12. And, you know, I guess I was a good school kid. I liked school. I liked learning, you know, but I also came from a family that really loved reading.

My mom would take us to the library with a laundry basket and we'd fill it up and bring it home. And so I just kind of naturally loved all of the reading, all of the learning that we did in school. And so I was the kind of kid that thrived in that sort of environment, loved it. Math was a struggle when I hit high school, but other than that, I really loved all of it.

Jeremy Tate (02:37.122)
So public high school K-12, public school K-12, is that right? And when did you begin to get this interest in medieval Europe and where did this begin?

Ann Brodeur (02:39.282)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ann Brodeur (02:46.74)
So I went to the Franciscan University of Steubenville for my undergraduate, and I majored in humanities and Catholic culture and English literature. And one day, one of my professors, Professor James Gaston came to me and said, hey, how would you like to study at Oxford? And I thought, that sounds cool.

I've heard of it, you know, but I was from Montana. And so it seemed like, yeah, a little, yeah, out of my comfort zone for sure. So I went to study at St. Michael's Hall in the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies when I was a senior in college. And that right there kind of ignited it. I thought this, so what I loved about it,

Jeremy Tate (03:10.293)
Jeremy Tate (03:29.742)
Wow.

Ann Brodeur (03:37.05)
the sense of history and the sense of tradition. I am really interested in culture, mainly because I grew up on a ranch. And then when I was in high school, we moved to the city and the differences in culture and the differences in community and the experience of religion and community were so different. And then I went to study the medieval period and I thought this feels a lot like my rural upbringing.

Jeremy Tate (03:47.054)
Hmm.

Ann Brodeur (04:04.328)
the thick community bonds, the importance of religion in binding it all together really drew me to it. And so I wanted to understand more about what it is precisely about culture and religion and culture in these two really different things, modern rural America and the medieval world.

Jeremy Tate (04:05.539)
Hmm.

Jeremy Tate (04:28.878)
This is amazing. From growing up on a ranch in Montana, you had animals and like, then to Oxford, I was it totally disorienting as a...

Ann Brodeur (04:33.908)
Yeah, yeah.

Ann Brodeur (04:40.956)
Yeah, I, you know, I grew up doing cattle drives, you know, on the back of a horse. Yeah. And, and then, you know, to go to Oxford where, yeah, everybody imagined that you wore like big 10 gallon hats or something like that. But, but yeah, it was really a culture shock in that sense. But the thing that I loved about it was the seriousness with which everybody was approaching their study. Again, I came from

Jeremy Tate (04:44.526)
That's simple. That's simple.

Jeremy Tate (04:54.606)
So,

Ann Brodeur (05:10.706)
a family of people who love to study, who love to read, in spite of being out in the middle of the prairies. And so I felt like at home in the books.

Jeremy Tate (05:22.784)
Okay, okay, that's fantastic. So there as a senior, did you think you were going to pursue a life in academia?

Ann Brodeur (05:32.202)
That was the first time I thought, I might want to do this for life. I might want to pursue this as a way of life. That was the first time I really, really started thinking about myself as having an intellectual life. I wasn't just going to college, but I really wanted to deeply understand the why of things. And I wanted to continue to do that.

Jeremy Tate (05:32.334)
came home and made that decision.

Jeremy Tate (05:50.53)
Hmm.

Sure.

Ann Brodeur (06:01.37)
after I graduated from college. I wasn't, you that was the first time the idea occurred to me, but I didn't pursue it right away, actually. I went and I worked, you know, several jobs to see, you know, could I do this? But the love of learning really kept coming back to me. And so finally I went to the Catholic University of America to study medieval studies in earnest and to see, you know, could I do this? Was I really cut out for this?

Jeremy Tate (06:28.494)
Tell us about your dissertation.

Ann Brodeur (06:30.916)
yeah, so I ultimately, so after I finished my degree at Catholic University of America, I went up to the University of Toronto and studied at the center there. There is also the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies there at Tienanjilsan and many famous Catholic thinkers taught there, Marshall McLuhan. And so there I wanted to continue to pursue this question of the relationship between religion and culture.

One of my heroes is Christopher Dawson. And Christopher Dawson explores, know, how does religion influence culture, shape it, drive it, undergird it, but then it's not just a one way relationship. Culture also influences how religion gets inflected. And so I wanted to study that. And my wonderful dissertation director was a man named Dr. Joe Goering. May he rest in peace.

Jeremy Tate (07:16.686)
Hmm.

Ann Brodeur (07:28.202)
And he said, well, why don't you look at indulgences? And I thought, well, that's odd. Why would you want to do that? But indulgences are important because they shape our mental furniture, particularly about how we think about sin and how we think about it's how we address the problem of sin. It also really drives home the communion of saints. So there it just brings together a couple of ideas.

Jeremy Tate (07:34.094)
Okay,

Jeremy Tate (07:50.797)
of

Ann Brodeur (07:56.474)
that really can inform how people engage the church and different devotional practices in their own parishes. So yeah.

Jeremy Tate (08:06.446)
This is an interesting question. The church influencing culture and the culture influencing the church. I'm thinking about the question a which I think is actually a parallel question of if kind of corporate America influences culture or culture influences corporate America in which way the tide is stronger. Like of course they influence each, but which did you come to in terms of like, is there a way to parse out like maybe where.

Ann Brodeur (08:08.745)
Yeah.

Ann Brodeur (08:14.292)
Yeah.

Ann Brodeur (08:27.592)
Yeah.

Ann Brodeur (08:34.064)
yeah, so the church often is responsive to needs. Certainly it has its teachings and its doctrines, but those teachings and doctrines often develop in reaction to, you know, mistaken ideas about, you know, the nature of Christ or the nature of the church, you know, heresy usually drives the formation of doctrine, but doctrine, you know, forms these really, you know,

you know, sturdy goalposts that we get to play within. And oftentimes there are various needs in the community that rise up that the church addresses through different kinds of devotions, for instance. Pilgrimage as an example of a response to popular need and desire to be close to the holy. You know, and indulgences as well originate as, know, out of the

Bajillion wars that were fought in the Middle Ages and you have really pious, you know kings and rulers who are going to war but are also very worried about their souls and So how do I you know, what do I do? How can I you know, if I'm fighting for a righteous cause What does this mean for my soul if I'm also? You know, you know killing in the in process of war indulgences arise out of this out of this need to address

these kinds of questions that were part of the culture. You know, it's a Germanic culture. Kings go to war. And so, you know, but again, how do you address these, the things that happen in the process of war, the sins that are committed in the process of war?

Jeremy Tate (10:17.304)
Yeah, well, let's talk about Pope Leo XIV. Yeah, the name, as I understand, I mean, we're at this inflection point in history, AI, everybody's talking about AI all day, every day, how it's changing the future of work. In my understanding, as he took on this name, in kind of reverence to Pope Leo XIII, who's

Ann Brodeur (10:22.279)
Okay.

Ann Brodeur (10:26.591)
Yes.

Ann Brodeur (10:32.636)
Yes.

Ann Brodeur (10:36.222)
Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Tate (10:44.246)
one of the longest serving popes, I believe 25 years or so at the end of the 19th century and was kind of guiding the church in the world through the Industrial Revolution. You know, when I think about, and I'm interested in how kind of y'all are navigating this at Catholic International, then maybe this revolution we're in the midst of right now is maybe even bigger than the dot-com revolution, maybe bigger than the social media revolution that

Ann Brodeur (11:09.683)
Yes.

Jeremy Tate (11:13.676)
you know, in a matter of months, you know, I mean, so many people have been impacted so quickly already. And I'd be interested in hearing kind of your thoughts about how this is going to impact academia and the conversations you're having with the faculty.

Ann Brodeur (11:17.138)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Ann Brodeur (11:28.468)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's funny as a historian I'm generally resistant to making hot takes and it feels like things are changing so fast that this feels like a hot take but but I think I can safely say this You know when it comes to thinking about technology every technology has the potential to do great good but as you know I think a lot of us are worrying about it also has a potential to cause great harm and and that's what we're worrying about right now is how is this going to

Jeremy Tate (11:36.519)
huh.

Jeremy Tate (11:40.023)
What?

Ann Brodeur (11:59.53)
completely refigure how we think about education. Bill Gates went on to Demi Fallon and said, there are going to be no teachers. AI is going to replace all teachers in 20 years or in 10 years.

Jeremy Tate (12:08.888)
Gosh, it's crazy and it reflects his very impoverished vision for education.

Ann Brodeur (12:14.726)
Yes, yes. But for those of us who really take education as formation seriously, and I think Bill Gates thinks of education as information. That's his problem. But we think about it as a formation, a formation of a worldview, the formation of a person who can go forth in the world and understand the true and do the good.

Jeremy Tate (12:27.446)
Yep, totally, totally. Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (12:34.829)
Yep.

Ann Brodeur (12:43.954)
Yeah, I think that AI certainly is going to pose challenges to, you know, how we educate, practically speaking, technically speaking. But at the end of the day, there's still going to be a need for young men and women to come to understand the true, the good and the beautiful, in order to be the kind of people that can shape the world for the true, the good and the beautiful.

And that requires a kind of education that AI can never replace.

Jeremy Tate (13:17.966)
Is it possible that AI is actually going to kind of force the market in education in a way where it kind of forces folks to re-examine first principles and in some ways in a way that could potentially be a win for traditional classical education?

Ann Brodeur (13:34.462)
Yeah, it forces the question, what are we doing? You know, like if it really is just information, then yeah, you know, tune up a chat bot and, you know, let her rip. But if it's something more than just information, there is always going to be the need for teachers who love the truth, teachers who love their students, and teachers who take seriously this business of the formation of the person.

Jeremy Tate (13:38.496)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ann Brodeur (14:04.618)
And so I don't see AI replacing traditional liberal arts or classical education. Where I do see it having its biggest impact are in those places where education is merely viewed as information.

Jeremy Tate (14:24.383)
Tell us about Catholic International University. Some of our guests maybe have never heard of it. Some may know a good bit already. But yeah, when did y'all launch? How long has it been around?

Ann Brodeur (14:27.933)
Yeah.

Ann Brodeur (14:31.827)
Yeah.

Yeah, Catholic International has been around since the early 80s. It was originally a pioneering long distance adult education in theology, certainly as a response to the call by Pope John Paul II to help educate the laity.

And since then, it's developed into Catholic International University where we don't just do theology, but we're also doing the liberal arts. also doing education. We're also moving into areas like the prudential use of technologies. We're also going to be developing programs in the future in counseling and in integral economic development, areas that the church identifies as a need.

And so we're not going to be developing different kinds of programs that, know, underwater basket weaving or anything like that. But we're really looking to serve the church because that's what the university was originally founded to do, to help the church carry out her mission in education and in higher ed in particular. So we were one of the first universities to actually teach online before, you know, online.

Jeremy Tate (15:26.946)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (15:35.8)
Okay.

Jeremy Tate (15:44.002)
me.

Ann Brodeur (15:55.85)
courses became cool. We've been doing it since the beginning.

Jeremy Tate (16:00.367)
Since the early, did you say since the early, since the eighties?

Ann Brodeur (16:03.018)
Well, in the beginning, was really done through email and through correspondence. And with the development of the internet, we were one of the first ones to move into the use of the online space.

Jeremy Tate (16:16.728)
So ideal students, are there a lot of teachers who are teachers but then also students at Catholic International?

Ann Brodeur (16:22.116)
Yeah, yeah. So the school started out mainly offering MAs in theology, but now we offer MAs in theology and BAs as well as different kinds of certificates for those who want to work in the church in various capacities, catechists, know, folks who are working in youth ministry or in schools. We also have a master's in liberal arts education.

And that's aimed at teachers and at school leaders to help them really develop their pedagogical skills, in the case of teachers, to develop their leadership skills in the case of school leaders. But all based around a really thick sort of core curriculum that takes seriously the anthropology of the child, the deep history of Catholic liberal education.

Jeremy Tate (17:14.894)
Hmm.

Ann Brodeur (17:19.307)
and as well as the church's teachings on education as well.

Jeremy Tate (17:24.974)
And I discovered before we hit.

Ann Brodeur (17:32.01)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (17:32.654)
St. Paul's Cathedral in St. Paul, Minnesota. I think it's around 1910-ish, is that right, that it was completed?

Ann Brodeur (17:39.046)
Mm-hmm, that's correct. Yeah, it was finished in the 1930s and it was very much a labor of love by the people of St. Paul.

Jeremy Tate (17:47.499)
Yeah, if you haven't been to this, I mean it is incredible. It rivals any European cathedral, it really does, but we see the, in some ways the story of Catholic education, like mirrored in Catholic architecture.

and when things started to get weird in Catholic education, they got really weird in Catholic architecture as well as we've seen. And, you know, the things that were weird and edgy are now just like, that doesn't work at all. And, it seems like we may have hit rock bottom and that there's a new.

Ann Brodeur (18:18.793)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (18:25.71)
renaissance of orthodoxy that we're seeing. I mean, I think of just especially young people that are into the traditional Latin Mass who go to more liturgical, know, Catholic mass offerings. And then also we're seeing this in where people are going to school, right? The Newman Guide kind of colleges, you know, are growing at the same time that many of the

Ann Brodeur (18:29.993)
Right.

Ann Brodeur (18:40.031)
Mm-hmm.

Ann Brodeur (18:43.764)
That's right, yeah.

Jeremy Tate (18:49.974)
Catholic schools that kind of don't care a whole lot about Catholic identity are actually closing their doors and sometimes in big numbers as well. Are we at the beginning of a revival?

Ann Brodeur (18:55.272)
Right. Right.

Ann Brodeur (19:01.556)
I think so. think, you know, a couple of things. I think that the promises of like enlightenment or, you know, modern ideas about culture, about education, about art are kind of at a point of exhaustion. They've kind of run themselves out. And so we've kind of, you know, reached the, they've reached the end of the road, they've run out of road. And so people are left wondering, you know, well, now what, what's next?

Jeremy Tate (19:18.893)
Hmm.

Jeremy Tate (19:23.182)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ann Brodeur (19:31.594)
I think what's happening in Catholic education right now, this renewal, particularly in K-12 education, but also in higher ed, as you mentioned, amongst Newman Guide schools, is this race source month, this returning to what we've done before, but not to do it slavishly, I think, but to draw inspiration from it, to bring it forward into the time where we now live. And this is that interplay between religion and culture, to bring it forward.

into the time that we now live and to adapt it to our particular needs now. And so I think we can think of the renewal of Catholic education as a returning to the sources, the medieval sources in my case, which I love very much, but also to the ancient sources as well. There's a lot there that I think folks just never knew about. I mean, if you go to State U for your education,

Jeremy Tate (20:17.496)
Yeah.

Ann Brodeur (20:29.882)
Education begins in the late 19th century. There was no education before. You don't learn about it. You don't learn about the Greeks and the Romans. You don't learn about the Medieval's. And you certainly don't learn about the rich heritage that is there. So yeah, I think there's a real opportunity for us to help revive, renew, restore Catholic education.

Jeremy Tate (20:36.963)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (20:44.525)
Hmm.

Ann Brodeur (20:57.256)
by reaching out to its teachers and to its school leaders and to encourage them to look afresh, look anew at what we've always done, what we've done before and to look at how it's worked and how we can make it work in our own particular circumstances. Every school is unique. Every school has its own sort of culture and we can take those things, those principles.

and ideas from the past and then think about how can we creatively bring them into our own situation to bring something new, creative and dynamic into our schools and into our communities.

Jeremy Tate (21:38.063)
I'm super eager to talk to you about books and you're a historian. I'm wondering when you think about the period that you have focused on historically and a period where a small percentage of the population is literate, what would you point to though as a couple of the works that were kind of most influential on culture and the areas that you focus on?

Ann Brodeur (21:40.636)
Okay. Yes.

Ann Brodeur (21:48.126)
Mm-hmm.

Ann Brodeur (22:04.658)
Yeah, so the most influential texts, I think, for a culture that was barely literate, I think, were what's called the Summa Confessorum, the handbooks for confessors. Because it was in Confession where you talked with your confessor, and he asked you very specific questions about how you live in the world.

Jeremy Tate (22:20.27)
Thank

Jeremy Tate (22:32.43)
Ugh.

Ann Brodeur (22:33.474)
and based on who you were, your job, whether you were married, and he would ask you very specific questions about, you know, how are you doing? How are you living as a merchant? Are you engaging in fraud? You know, if you're married, how are you honoring the bond or not? And those were very formative for culture, forming ideas.

about marriage and family, forming ideas about justice in society and in the marketplace. So those, think, were very formative texts. But in terms of education, there were a couple of texts, I think, that were very important. Well, the first being some of the old texts from ancient Rome, Marcianus, Coppolanus, writing about the liberal arts.

the Bible, of course. But then there were also a couple of French monks who were writing on the art of memory and how to help students in study and retain what it is they were learning. And they wrote about memory palaces, how to build out the architecture of your students' minds and help them, you know, not only just remember what they're learning, but in the process, shape them. You're forming them.

Jeremy Tate (23:25.634)
Mm.

Jeremy Tate (23:45.006)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (23:54.818)
you

Ann Brodeur (23:55.41)
into a certain kind of person by putting certain kinds of texts before them and asking them to put it make it part of their mental furniture.

Jeremy Tate (24:04.302)
I read for the first time a couple years ago, the abridged version of Gulag Archipelago. And, and Solten Ibsen, he couldn't write for long periods of time, but it was crazy how much he would basically write in his head in the way he came up with like systems to organize. And it was like he'd written this massive work without putting it on paper.

Ann Brodeur (24:10.248)
Yeah, yeah.

Ann Brodeur (24:16.83)
Mm-hmm.

Ann Brodeur (24:20.745)
Yeah.

Ann Brodeur (24:28.318)
Yeah. Right.

Jeremy Tate (24:30.752)
and our capacity for memorization. And I'm seeing that this is a big part of a lot of the classical schools and their understanding of education's formation. You need to kind of ingest the good, the true, the beautiful.

Ann Brodeur (24:38.089)
Right.

Ann Brodeur (24:44.33)
You need to chew on it and you really need to chew on it in order to make it a part of your mental furniture, the architecture of your mind. And this is where I think, know, to kind of get back to what we were talking about with technology in education. know, technology in education, it's kind of data in, data out. It doesn't really become part of your mental furniture. It's just something you have to get through to get the grade and to move on. But in

Jeremy Tate (25:04.364)
Yep.

Ann Brodeur (25:12.712)
you know, liberal arts, classical liberal arts, you're meant to like really ingest it and make it part of yourself in some really deep way. It's, you and this, you know, makes me think about the role of memory and identity, how we think about who we are, what kind of person we are, what kind of people we are as a whole. And that's, you know, shaped by what we read and shaped by what we bring into our persons through the process.

Jeremy Tate (25:21.144)
Mm.

Jeremy Tate (25:38.158)
Hmm.

Ann Brodeur (25:42.29)
of education. So memory, I think, plays a really important role in building out, you know, your person in the process of education.

Jeremy Tate (25:54.463)
The trademark question for the Anchor podcast has always been the single book that has been most formative for you, most influential for you. What would you say that is?

Ann Brodeur (26:04.663)
my, that's a hard question. The single most formative book that I've read. Well, I, yeah.

Jeremy Tate (26:13.036)
Maybe it's something that you reread a lot or that is, yeah, you just continue to kind of do a little.

Ann Brodeur (26:18.184)
Yeah, well, I've returned to again and again two books, mainly because I teach them, if not several times a year, at least once a year. And every time I'm struck anew by them. The first one is Joseph Pieper's Leisure, The Basis of Culture, and helping us to understand how it is that study and contemplation actually form culture.

Jeremy Tate (26:33.644)
Mm-hmm.

Ann Brodeur (26:46.386)
And so, you know, and that, you know, there is this relationship between what I do and the culture. I am not powerless in shaping the culture. When I make the choice to be the kind of person who contemplates the kind of person who builds a family that reads, that prays, that, you know, that contemplates the true, the good and the beautiful, I create a culture that does that.

Jeremy Tate (26:46.414)
Hmm.

Jeremy Tate (26:52.834)
Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Tate (27:12.174)
Mm.

Ann Brodeur (27:12.456)
So Peeper's book is really important. I think too, C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man, I also teach it every year as well. Yes, and so that, you know, about building up the moral capacities of a young person. So as a teacher, I think those are some of my most formative texts.

Jeremy Tate (27:20.014)
Gwadee early? Oh wow. Okay.

Jeremy Tate (27:27.395)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (27:32.271)
We do, at CLT we read a book out loud together every quarter. We spend like 40 minutes every Monday morning reading out loud. We just did Avalition of Man not long ago. I'm wondering, I mean, I'm thinking about what you're saying about people and leisure as a basis of culture. And we're at this moment where the big social media companies, I heard it put this way that attention is the new oil.

Ann Brodeur (27:37.17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Ann Brodeur (27:58.666)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (27:59.243)
And it's the resource everyone is in competition for. And it's the only way that these big tech companies just continue to grow and scale is by mining. I mean, is it to get kids to enter into the life of the mind, to understand contemplation? Is admission impossible? How would you advise?

Ann Brodeur (28:04.308)
Yes.

Ann Brodeur (28:11.38)
Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Tate (28:21.514)
teachers that are listening to this podcast who want to impart this to their students. I how do they do that in this moment?

Ann Brodeur (28:29.642)
Right. Yeah, I think it's a real challenge that also involves engaging parents on this question, which I know is hard for schools to do. But I think it's an important conversation to continue to raise with parents to help them start to think about their child's attention as a resource that is being wasted. I think a lot of parents probably don't think about social media in those particular ways.

So I think it's a conversation that we have to have with parents to support what teachers are doing in the classroom. And I think, you know, it's this, you know, certainly you have to have policies in place that limit the use of screens in schools and in classrooms and help students know exactly what they ought to be used for because this is really a question ultimately of virtue. You know, it's certainly...

Jeremy Tate (29:20.302)
Hmm.

Ann Brodeur (29:24.572)
Knowledge helps knowing what's happening, understanding what's happening, particularly at the high school level, I think is important. But how do you, to really think carefully, how can I help a student internalize this and make it a habit, make it a virtue, talk about temperance, talk about attention as a virtue as well, that it's something that needs to be developed, that it's something that needs to be protected.

And that it's something that if we don't guard it can also impact our spiritual life as well. Because you you're constantly swimming in the shallows. If you want to be a shallow person swim in the shallows. If you want to be a person capable of depth and wisdom, then you're going to have to shut it off. You know, and so to contemplate the deeper things the higher things to go deep to go high, you've got to get out of the shallows. And, and to help.

Jeremy Tate (30:01.07)
Hmm.

Jeremy Tate (30:11.394)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (30:19.746)
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

Ann Brodeur (30:22.77)
particularly our high schoolers understand that and their families as well.

Jeremy Tate (30:29.922)
So, and I can tell you, I know firsthand there are actually a lot of colleges and universities out there where they'll say, we've got a lot of great things going here, but our education department is not necessarily one of those. I am so grateful that you're the chair at Catholic International University for education there and just your vision is beautiful, so inspiring.

Ann Brodeur (30:42.568)
Mm.

Ann Brodeur (30:48.468)
Thanks. Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (30:53.358)
How do folks learn more if they want to pursue a master's or degree at Catholic International?

Ann Brodeur (30:58.922)
Yeah, well, you can start by Googling Catholic International University. And you can also friend us. We've got a wonderful young marketing associate who knows everything about social media. So if you've got that, there's lots of new information, videos, podcasts, links, and things like that that are up on those channels. But the website really

tells you a lot. And you can see all of the classes you would take. You can read more about the vision behind it and what it is that you would be immersing yourself in should you join us in the journey in the master's in liberal arts education.

Jeremy Tate (31:42.996)
Awesome. Love that. Again, we're here with Anne Brodeur, who's the chair of education at Catholic International University. And thank you so much for coming on the Anchor podcast. Definitely come back in the future and join us again.

Ann Brodeur (31:55.826)
All right, lovely to be with you.