St. Ambrose University-Davenport President Amy Novak and Mount Mercy University-Cedar Rapids, Iowa President Todd Olson sign documents related to completion of the first step of their universities’ strategic combination on June 27 at Mount Mercy.
By Barb Arland-Fye
Editoral
Building community began for two Catholic universities in eastern Iowa with their presidents sitting down for breakfast at Perkins. It is one ingredient in a recipe for success leading St. Ambrose University in Davenport and Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids to a strategic combination, with finalization anticipated in summer 2026. Their recipe for building community is one that we all can duplicate — in our homes, parishes and broader community.
In their journey to build community, St. Ambrose University President Amy Novak and Mount Mercy University President Todd Olson discovered their shared affinity for cottage cheese and pineapple — “it’s a real Midwestern thing,” quipped Novak during a June 27 news conference. The “secret sauce” of building community includes “entering conversation in a place of humility and respect,” she advised. And, the leaders leaned into their Catholic faith.
The work is challenging — imagine coordinating 20+ integration teams represented by faculty, staff, students, alumni members and community members — as the strategic combination of St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy requires. Even on a smaller scale, building community requires a sincere desire, nurtured in prayer, sacrament and liturgy, to focus on what we hold in common and not what divides us.
Challenges in higher education — the enrollment cliff, steady trend of declining first-year student numbers and rising operational costs among them — galvanized St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy to explore possibilities for building community and ultimately, strategic combination. With completion of Step One of a two-step process, St. Ambrose University has become the corporate owner of Mount Mercy University. Building community is not about diminishment. It focuses on affirming a stronger future together.
In Ottumwa, Catholics took an important step in building community June 29, participating in a Eucharistic procession of 1.3 miles from St. Patrick Church to St. Mary of the Visitation Church. The two parishes are in the process of finalizing a merger and their procession symbolized the uniting of the two into one — St. Joseph Parish. “There’s a lot of good things we can do as a Catholic community when we put our work and our efforts, our ministries, our talents (together) … for the good of building up the Ottumwa Catholic community,” Bishop Dennis Walsh told the parishes’ leaders in February.
Each step in the process of building community is a step forward in building trust and relationships. Holy Family Parish in Riverside is the fruition of a merger four years ago of three parishes in Riverside, Richmond and Wellman. This year, the parish is participating in a Catholic Extension Society grant program that aims to bring faith to life for families of all ages and foster connection among the three communities. The next such activity, appropriately, is a “United in Faith” Feast of the Holy Family picnic Aug. 3. Building community is essential to the continuation of our Catholic Church and our ability to pass on the faith to the next generation.
In his homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul this past Sunday (https://tinyurl.com/5es7928p), Pope Leo XIV reflected on unity in diversity. He spoke of the history of Peter and Paul and how their differences in ideas and the paths they followed demonstrated “a living communion in the Spirit, a fruitful harmony in diversity.” Their unity in diversity is an enduring testimony to the solid foundation on which our Church continues more than 2,000 years later.
The Holy Father asks us to “make an effort, then, to turn our differences into a workshop of unity and communion, of fraternity and reconciliation, so that everyone in the Church, each with his or her personal history, may learn to walk side by side.”
“We do not walk forward alone,” Novak told the gathering at the news conference celebrating a milestone in building community between St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy. “We walk in faith, believing that what we are building together is rooted in promise and in hope. Our commitment is to carry forward the legacy and charism of both institutions with reverence, and to help all who are part of this journey find their place in the evolving circle.”
Building community begins with that first step, that first conversation — maybe over breakfast, maybe over a serving of cottage cheese and pineapple but always in prayer and trust in a God who loves each of us.
Barb Arland-Fye, Editor
arland-fye@davenportdiocese.org
