BISHOP NAMES MSGR. HARDIMAN,

  DR. CHADZUTKO TO EDUCATION POSTS 

            Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio has announced that he has appointed Msgr. Michael J. Hardiman as Vicar for Education, filling a position vacant since the death of Msgr. Guy J. Puglisi last July. The Bishop said the three-year term became effective March 31.

            Msgr. Hardiman, who will continue as pastor of St. Sebastian’s Church, Woodside, brings more than a decade of experience as a diocesan education administrator through 1993 to his new role, including service as project director of the 1991-93 Catholic Education Strategic Planning Project.
  

            The Bishop also named Dr. Thomas Chadzutko as Superintendent of Schools, effective April 6. He had been serving in the post on an interim basis since last Summer.

            Bishop DiMarzio said he was suspending the work of a six-member nationwide search committee for a superintendent, chaired by Dr. Frank J. Macchiarola, president of St. Francis College, Brooklyn. The committee was formed in late Fall.

           “I believe that the Diocese needs an effective team during the next 16 months to chart the appropriate course for the future of elementary-level education for parents and children,” the Bishop said, in making public the appointments.

            “Our time for active planning, together with pastors, principals and parents, is now,” he said.

            “The Church continues to need quality Catholic schools,” he stressed, adding that “we must discover and create the way they are to evolve into the future.”

            Many schools in the network of 148 elementary schools in Brooklyn and Queens are encountering economic problems caused by spiraling operating costs that make it difficult for parents to meet tuition payments, said Msgr. Hardiman.

 At the same time, demographic shifts are reducing the number of children enrolled in Catholic schools, he said. “Elevated housing costs in many areas, as well as the long-lasting impact of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, are also putting a strain on parents who want to keep their children in a Catholic school.”

In January, Bishop DiMarzio formed a five-member task force on planning and development for the future of Catholic education. “The Bishop is looking to establish a firm foundation so that our schools are still available to parents and their children,” Msgr. Hardiman said. 

Dr. Chadzutko chairs the committee. Members include Msgr. Michael J. Phillips

Pastor of St. Anselm’s Church, Bay Ridge and a former Associate Superintendent of Schools; Dr. Robert Muccigrosso, a veteran educator who served as principal of Bishop Loughlin and Nazareth High Schools in Brooklyn and chairs the Department of Education of St. Francis College; Joseph E. Geoghan, retired general counsel of Union Carbide Co. who has served on several diocesan education committees, and Patricia O’Connor, principal of St. Edmund’s School, Sheepshead Bay.

            In describing the work facing the task force, Bishop DiMarzio said it was necessary for the “educational apostolate” of the Diocese and other diocesan agencies to “provide pastors with all the assistance they need to establish the firmest possible foundation for Catholic elementary education.”

            Msgr. Hardiman said he intends to work closely with the diocesan Futures in Education Foundation, which raises funds from corporations and individuals for tuition-assistance for students and grants for schools.

            The task is to “create a new vision about how to provide seats in a parochial school for children and at the same time find ways to help parents meet the cost of a solid academic and Catholic values-centered education,” he said.

            “We have to ask ourselves where we want to be five years from now in terms of the accessibility of parochial schools, and we want to preserve Catholic education in all areas of the Diocese,” he said. “Are there new models that we need to explore?”

            During 11 years of educational administration beginning in l981, Msgr. Hardiman had strong experience in planning and in relating to public policy issues. He was Deputy Superintendent of Education when he left education in l993 and was appointed to direct the Seventh Diocesan Synod.

            As project director for the Strategic Planning Project, he guided the two-year study for the Diocese, which was conducted by a team of educators from The Catholic University of America in Washington. Dr. John J. Convey, now the university Provost,  led the team and the project became known as the Convey Study.

            “As we move into the future,” Msgr. Hardiman said, “we will reassess recommendations made through the Convey Study in the areas of Catholic identity of the schools, curriculum, finances, governance, marketing and parent-school relations.” 

            At the close of the school year in June, one school in the Diocese will close its doors, St. Clement Pope in South Ozone Park, “a victim of mounting costs and a serious drop in enrollment,” he said.

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