Assumption president committed to Catholic education

By Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent

WORCESTER - As the first non-Catholic president in the 118-year history of Assumption University, Greg Weiner provides a unique perspective.
“Catholic liberal arts education at its best,” he told The Catholic Free Press, “speaks universally as it has to me, and as it still does to me. Being Jewish gives me perhaps even a deeper appreciation for the kind of education that we are aspiring to offer.”
According to The Jewish Chronicle of London, England, Mr. Weiner is the first Jewish president of a Roman Catholic university in the world. He was raised Orthodox and belongs to a Conservative synagogue.
Assumption University was founded in 1904 by the Augustinians of the Assumption.Mr. Weiner grew up in the only Jewish family in Luling,Texas, which is located about an hour south of Austin. “You wouldn’t have heard of it if your car didn’t break down there,” he said.
Mr. Weiner, 53, said his experience in Luling deepened his appreciation for his religion and the religions of others.
“What’s particularly important to me,” he said, “is the universal relevance of the kinds of questions that Catholic liberal arts education asks. So I view myself as a custodian of Assumption’s mission and that mission is a trust that is bigger than any one person or any one moment.”
The Assumption board of trustees announced on Oct. 17 that Mr. Weiner had been elected the 17th president of the university. He had served as interim president since April after Francesco C. Cesareo announced his retirement after serving as president for 15 years.
Francis J. Bedard, chairman of the board of trustees, said that Mr. Weiner “has done an outstanding job leading the university as interim president, furthering our mission and making strategic decisions in the best interest of Assumption and its community at large.
“I am confident that the exceptional work he’s initiated during his tenure as interim president, coupled with the continuity of his proven leadership on our campus, will take Assumption to an even greater level of excellence.”
After a political consulting career in Washington, D.C., Mr. Weiner joined Assumption in 2011 as an assistant professor of political science. Back then, he never expected to become president. “I just wanted to teach,” he said. “I still view myself as an educator, but this certainly was not an ambition going in. I have to admit I’m a little surprised.” Later, he was appointed associate professor and then full professor, and in 2019 he became the university’s provost and vice president of academic affairs.
Serving as interim president for several months helped prepare him to take over as president.
“It taught me about the tremendous resources and strengths that are ready to be leveraged in the campus community,” he said. “There are just very special people creating a very special education here. That goes from the people teaching in the classroom to the people cooking food in the dining hall. It’s just a wonderful, wonderful place and being interim president exposed me to a much wider range of that.”
Mr. Weiner sees a bright future for the university.
“I would like to see Assumption vibrant, growing and committed as we always have been to excellence in Catholic liberal arts education,” he said. “I would like to see us think about what is possible in addition to the challenges that we have to solve and I would like to see us renew what has always been our commitment to a unique kind of education.”
Although he’s not Catholic, he remains committed to the importance of a Catholic education.
“We hear a growing chorus of employers,” he said, “saying that what they really need are people who can think, process information, communicate and adapt to change and that is an outcome of a successful Catholic liberal arts education.”
Mr. Weiner has written four books on American political thought, served as communication director and policy adviser to several U.S. senators and founded Content Communications, LLC, a speech writing firm in Washington, D.C. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, with a degree in political science, Mr. Weiner earned a master’s degree in liberal studies and a doctorate in government from Georgetown University.
When he taught, he would show his students the textbook from one of his classes at the University of Texas in the fall of 1989 called, “Communism in Eastern Europe.”
“About six weeks into the semester, the Berlin Wall fell and everything in that book was instantly irrelevant,” he said, “but if you study politics through the lens of enduring ideas as Catholic liberal arts education does, whether it’s Shakespeare reflecting on tyranny or the Federalist Papers on forms of government, that sticks with you. Those things are permanently relevant even when tactical information changes.
That’s a perspective of politics that I always found intriguing.”Mr. Weiner is also a sports fan and he attends as many Assumption home games as he can. He was on hand for the home opener for the women’s soccer team and the homecoming game for the football team.
“It’s a lot of fun and it’s also a way to interact with students,” he said, “in a way that reminds you that they are being educated and educating one another all the time well beyond the classroom.”
Mr. Weiner and his wife, Rebecca, have three children and live in Holden.