Several years ago, a major credit card company developed a marketing campaign around the slogan, “Change is good.” Unfortunately, it is sometimes very difficult to find individuals and institutions that agree with that slogan.

Change is probably one of the most difficult things in life. We often don’t think of it until some major factor looms in front of us or seems to trip us up. The good part is that change very often brings with it a spurt of growth. Though change in individuals is sometimes difficult, institutional change can be like a minor earthquake. Everybody owns a piece of the institution. When this “ownership” spans three centuries, things can get interesting.

In the past, I have written about change in individuals and have suggested that change is good and even necessary in our lives. The same is true of institutions. Benedictine University has celebrated 118 years of change; the Benedictine religious order more than 1,500 years. In fact, the Benedictines have a saying: “If you cut it down, it shall grow anew.” Without change, neither the University nor the Benedictines would be here today. Yet, the more we change, the more we are somehow able to stay the same.

Over the years, I have had alumni return to the campus and exclaim that the institution is no longer the same. The buildings they inhabited are gone, beloved monks, faculty and staff are gone, the student body has significantly changed, etc. At first, alums are whimsical and reflective on how “their institution” used to be. After a bit of time on campus, however, they clearly proclaim that it still is the same place even though the buildings, students, faculty and staff may have turned over many times since they were students on campus.

How can Benedictine University have gone through so much change and still be recognized as the same place by so many generations of alumni? Clearly, the St. Procopius College of our early period was not the Illinois Benedictine College of our middle period or the Benedictine University of our most recent period. Or is it?

St. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican (but Benedictine trained) monk of the 13th century made a wonderful analysis of change that explains how the University can be the same yet different. He distinguished between two kinds of change – incidental change and definitive change.

Incidental change has to do with non-defining characteristics. For example, as you go through life many incidental changes occur. Your height, weight, hair color, and circumstances in life change, yet you remain the same person. At death, a person experiences a definitive change which basically means the person ceases to be. Incidental change refers to the accoutrements of daily life; definitive change refers to life itself.

Applying this analysis to Benedictine University (and any other institution) the distinction between the two kinds of change becomes apparent. In 1887, a group of Benedictine monks decided to establish St. Procopius College to educate Czechoslovakian young men in a Catholic and Benedictine environment. In addition to Catholic and Benedictine values, history, and tradition – a preparation for life – students would also be prepared for a career. This design was the very being and life-blood of the new institution.

Many changes have occurred over the years including: moving from Chicago to Lisle (1896); inclusion of women in the student body (1968); two name changes (1972 and 1996); addition of graduate programs; increasing influx of minority students to the student body to the point that there is no longer a distinction between minority/majority students on campus; the establishment of a full campus in Springfield and 30 off-campus sites in Northern Illinois; the construction of 13 new buildings and the demolition Benedictine Hall – the main building for more than 100 years. Finally, the number of students has grown from a handful in 1887 to approximately 4,000 thousand in 2005.

These changes are but the tip of the iceberg of changes occurring at Benedictine over the years. Clearly, you can understand how an alumnus might not recognize the institution as his/hers at initial blush. But after spending a while on campus, they invariably come back to the sense that this is indeed their institution.

How does this occur? It is simply that the changes described above are incidental changes, not definitive changes. Remember that the monks who founded the College created an institution that was Catholic/Benedictine – to prepare students for life with specific courses of study to prepare students for a career. The constant yet ever updated curriculum is the most obvious piece of the original institution. The Catholic and Benedictine heritage, tradition and values are the lived piece of the original institution.

One needs to walk the campus and experience Benedictine hospitality and values to know that we are who our founders intended us to be. This is the piece that reawakens alumni into realizing that this community is more than buildings and specific nationalities; it is a community who shares the Catholic and Benedictine tradition and values of the institution, and of its founders.

This institution has persisted throughout all the changes over the years. Many changes were born of opportunity and necessity. In order for an institution to survive, it must seize opportunities and change out of necessity. Had the College stayed as it was in 1887, it would not be here today.

The students may have changed, the trappings of the buildings and the buildings themselves may have changed, even the name of the institution may have changed. However, St. Procopius College, Illinois Benedictine College, Benedictine University remains the same, amidst and despite the change.