The Catholic College of the South
Robert Gallagher, Belmont Abbey College alumnus, parent, and former board member, shares the history, the success, the future, and the light that is Belmont Abbey College as we continue to educate students within the Benedictine tradition and share the message of Christ’s love every day.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Belmont, N.C. (February 27, 2023) – The Benedict Leadership Institute at Belmont Abbey College is thrilled to recognize Nina Shea as the recipient of the 2023 Benedict Leadership Award. This award highlights the incredible achievements of men and women whose lives reflect the heroic leadership of St. Benedict.
Belmont Abbey College founded the Benedict Leadership Institute in 2016 to develop Catholic leaders and inspire them to transform society in light of their faith. Mrs. Shea is the sixth recipient of the Benedict Leadership Award and has been a human rights lawyer for over 30 years. She works extensively for the advancement of individual religious freedom and other human rights in US foreign policy as religious freedom confronts an ascendant Islamic extremism, and other authoritarian regimes. She advocates in defense of those persecuted for their religious beliefs and identities and advocates on behalf of diplomatic measures in order to end religious repression and violence abroad, whether from state actors or extremist groups.
Mrs. Shea was appointed by the US House of Representatives to serve as a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom seven times from 1999 to 2012. During the Soviet era, Mrs. Shea’s first client before the United Nation’s was Soviet Nobel Peace Laureate Andrei Sakharov. Since then, she has been appointed as a US delegate to the United Nation’s main human rights body by both Republican and Democratic administrations. She also served as a member of the Clinton administration’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. In 2009, she was appointed to serve as a member of the US National Commission to UNESCO.
Mrs. Shea lead the effort of building grassroot support for the adoption of the International Religious Freedom Act (1998). For seven years ending in 2005, she helped organize and lead a coalition of churches and religious groups that worked to end a religious war against non-Muslims and dissident Muslims in southern Sudan. In 2014, she initiated and helped lead a coalition of hundreds of prominent American religious leaders to issue The Pledge of Solidarity for Persecuted Iraqi, Syrian and Egyptian Christians and Other Minorities, which was released by a bipartisan congressional panel on May 7, 2014. In summer 2014, she met with Pope Francis to discuss the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
At Hudson, she has organized conferences for Nigerian schoolgirls and others who survived Boko Haram attacks, Christian converts formerly imprisoned in Iran, Coptic bishops from Egypt, Catholic bishops from China and the Gulf, Muslim scholars, and many others. Mrs. Shea advocates on behalf of a broad range of persecuted religious minorities around the world. For such work, she was honored by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA with the Community’s inaugural “Ahmadiyya Muslim Humanitarian Award.”
She has authored or edited four widely acclaimed reports on Saudi state educational materials that promote extremist views and in 2011 had an opportunity to travel to Saudi Arabia and speak directly about her findings with the ministers of Education, Justice and Islamic Affairs. Her reports include: Ten Years On: Saudi Arabia’s Textbooks Still Promote Religious Violence (2011), Update: Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance (2008), Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance (2006), and Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques (2005), all of which translated and analyzed Saudi governmental publications that teach hatred and violence against the religious “other.”
She is the co-author of Silenced: How Apostasy & Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide, with a foreword by Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, the former President of Indonesia and head of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization (Oxford University Press, 2011). Her most recent book, which she also co-authored, is Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2013). She regularly presents testimony before Congress, delivers public lectures, organizes briefings and conferences, and writes frequently on religious freedom issues in leading publications.
For the ten years prior to joining Hudson, Mrs. Shea worked at Freedom House, where she directed the Center for Religious Freedom, an entity which she had helped found in 1986 as the Puebla Institute.
Mrs. Shea is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia. She is a graduate of Smith College, and American University’s Washington College of Law.
Press inquiries can contact Rolando Rivas, AVP of Marketing and Communications, at rolandorivas@bac.edu. For information about the Benedict Leadership Institute, visit https://benedictleadershipinstitute.org/.
The Abbey family gathered to recall our past and to look ahead to a future full of promise as we launched our unprecedented Made True Capital Campaign. Held at Founder’s Hall in an uptown Charlotte aglow in red for the Abbey, nearly 400 members of the Abbey community gathered to reflect on our accomplishments and look toward a future made strong, secure, and free — Made True — for our students, our faculty, our staff, our benefactors and of course our monks. Great things are happening at the Abbey. Become a part of our future! With your support, we will become fully Made True in what God wants us to achieve.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Belmont, N.C. (February 18, 2023) –
Belmont Abbey College today unveiled a historic $100 million capital campaign to fund physical and academic improvements at the Catholic liberal arts college, announcing that generous donors have already committed $72 million toward the ambitious development plan.
The “Made True” capital campaign calls for a new monastery, performing arts center, academic enhancements, growth of the college’s endowment to reduce reliance on federal aid, and innovative stewardship programs to help students graduate debt free.
“This is one of the biggest events in the college’s history,” said Benedictine Abbot Placid Solari, who serves as chancellor and oversees the community of Benedictine monks on campus whose predecessors started the college nearly 150 years ago.
“We are humbled and grateful for the extraordinary support we have received through the silent phase of the campaign,” he said, “and we now invite alumni, students and families, and people across the region to help us close the funding gap and ensure that this type of education is available for future generations.”
College leaders presented their plans to supporters and civic leaders on Feb. 18 at an evening gala at Founders Hall in uptown Charlotte. Located 20 miles west of Charlotte, Belmont Abbey College has 1,500 students and has seen steady growth in enrollment and support over the past decade.
In 2019, Belmont Abbey struck a deal with CaroMont Health to build a hospital on the campus along Interstate 85. That building project is nearing completion, and a number of additional building projects are underway even as the “Made True” campaign reaches its final phase. The college is constructing two new residence halls, a sports complex, and making improvements to the science and nursing centers to accommodate growth and enhance the student experience. The new buildings are designed to blend in with the historic architecture and intimate setting of the Abbey campus, which still centers around the original Benedictine monastery built in 1888, home to the current generation of monks who serve.
Belmont Abbey College offers nearly 50 undergraduate, graduate, professional and pre-professional fields of study, and has a 95 percent acceptance rate into medical schools. About half the students are Catholic, the other half of different faiths.
“Belmont Abbey College appeals to students and families who want an excellent education on a vibrant campus that is grounded in faith and reason,” said Dr. William Thierfelder. “We have made it easier to access over the last decade by lowering tuition and providing creative student aid programs and partnerships with organizations who need talent and want to hire our graduates.”
The silent phase of the “Made True” campaign began three years ago and is expected to meet or exceed its goal in 2026, the college’s 150th anniversary. The campaign is a three-pronged effort to further secure, strengthen and free the college to live out authentic Church teaching and make Catholic higher education more accessible at the only Catholic institution of higher learning between Northern Virginia and Florida.
The $100 million campaign includes:
The new performing arts center will give The Abbey Players – the oldest performing arts group in North Carolina – an elegant new venue that can host larger audiences and be used by the local community for events and performances.
The new monastery is a gift to the monks who have served the college for well over a century. The existing historic monastery, constructed with bricks handmade by the monks, will be carefully refurbished and put to a new use by the college.
“Everything begins with the monastic community,” Thierfelder said. “They’ve come here seeking God, and they believe by living and praying and working together in community, they’re going to come to a deeper, more profound love of God. It’s a remarkable vocation and commitment they have made. With this campaign, we want to demonstrate our continued commitment as a college and a community to the work they began so long ago.”
So that we can take you to the right application form, tell us: are you a current North Carolina High School student?
*You will be taken to the College Foundation of North Carolina to create a free account to apply.
