Working for a Better World. Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo
Bishop Thomas was serious. He made clear this was not an offer, that other candidates would be considered, some working for CRS.
“You would be rigorously reviewed in the same way that every candidate would be. We are asking you to be open, to not say ‘no’ at this point, to let the process unfold and let the Holy Spirit guide you. Could you do that for us?”
I promised an answer after the long holiday weekend.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite celebrations, truly a time of giving thanks, of acknowledging how much God has blessed us by giving us each other. My husband David and our two sons, Ryan (then twenty-six and a third-year medical student) and Justin (twenty-three and a graduate student in theology), do little other than eat and relax. We hang out together, take in a few movies and set our minds toward Advent and Christmas. I thought that this period of calm and the heightened awareness of love and blessings would be a good time to pray and give Bishop Thomas’s question its proper attention.
My assumption was that I could not be and should not be the person to fill this position. I knew enough to know what I didn’t know, and I did not think the well-being and lives of CRS beneficiaries should be in my hands.
Beyond the reports presented at board meetings and the trips I had taken to learn about CRS programming in various countries — India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Afghanistan — I had absolutely no formal education or experience in this highly complex field. Each sector of work and each country CRS serves must fill tomes of analysis, engage the study and imagination of thousands of experts, and constitute the work of numerous government and nonprofit institutions. Emergencies call for quick decisions and incisive actions. It was clear to me that I had little to offer and would not be a value-added proposition.
Saying “yes” to a candidacy is different from saying “yes” to a job. But even doing that was hard. Because I am of Chinese ancestry and a woman, I am often asked to be a candidate in searches — there are significant pressures on committees and consultants to include minority and female candidates in all searches, particularly for executive officer positions. Some good has resulted from this requirement as we have seen more qualified candidates from nontraditional pools gain visibility and consideration. I support this. However, I do not consent to letting myself be placed on such lists.
Saying “yes” would also open me up to the possibility of making the type of move I had undertaken only twice up to that point in my life — first when I left Hong Kong for the United States in 1972, and second when I left Purdue University after twenty-three years to come to Notre Dame. That had been over fourteen years ago.
I don’t move around a lot. I flourish in communities where there are deep relationships. At Purdue and Notre Dame, I always felt that the next best thing was not something or someplace else, but just the next day of work with the people and for the mission I had chosen to serve. Leaving Purdue for Notre Dame took a full year of grieving. Once that was over, I was sure the campus in South Bend, Indiana, was where God intended me to spend the rest of my career, the rest of my life. David and I had already purchased a lot for our final resting place in Cedar Grove, the cemetery in the middle of campus. This was not macabre for the Notre Dame community: it is a privilege many people seek.
So, it would not be right for me to be on the candidate list: it would be a false representation of my interest, and it could hold back the search committee’s effort to identify truly viable diversity candidates. But I felt that I owed CRS and the committee the obedience they asked of me, to not say “no.” In my years on the board, I had come to love CRS, and I had the utmost respect and affection for the individuals on the committee. It was hard to refuse them.
That brought up another issue. Even though I knew I would not qualify and did not think the committee would seriously consider me, it would be humbling to be turned down. I also knew that such information, as much as it is meant to be confidential, would be known by others. So not only would I fail, I would fail with people knowing! I could devote a whole book to the concept of “losing face” in the Chinese culture, but suffice it to say that the combination of pride and the fear of embarrassment was enough to make me recoil from the thought of undergoing an evaluation only to be found deficient.
It was pride, and I knew what to do about that: pray, pray, pray, and pray. Pray to the point where I can say: it is okay, I can handle this; this is a short embarrassment, and I will get over it in days. I may feel flushed in my face; I may be down for a day, but I can handle this. Besides, it is good at my age, no longer at the point where people’s opinion should matter, to eat humble pie. My friends would be there for me. So I can take this on for Bishop Thomas and CRS.
Peace achieved: I gave my answer to Bishop Thomas the next week. Yes, I would be a candidate.
Chapter Two
“… Not Pros and Cons, but Joy and Fears”
That was the first step on the road that had eventually brought me here to Cambodia. I was accompanied on this trip by Catholic Relief Services Board Chair Bishop Gerry Kicanas of Tucson, Mundelein faculty member Fr. Gus Belaskus, and various CRS colleagues. The occasion was the twenty-fifth anniversary of CRS’s work in the country. CRS had been here from 1973 to 1975, helping victims of the brutal war. We returned in 1992 after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords that ended the war with Vietnam and brought stability back to the country.
Tuol Slang is only one of the four hundred mass graves in Cambodia from the days of the Killing Fields in the 1970s, when the entire Cambodian society was stripped of its worth and dignity, when the aspects of life we most cherish — faith, education, marriage, family — were denigrated. Around the trunk of one tree and on fences circling the graves were a multitude of colorful string bracelets. They belonged to the children who perished. In the circles of red, yellow, blue, and green, one could see childhood joys, simple pleasures, innocence.
Respectfully removing our shoes, we entered a glass tower that holds the skulls, bones, and ragged clothing of those killed. There was a depth of sadness, not only for the massacred, but also for the brutality that humans are capable of. I felt that I was standing on sacred ground. My lips formed a prayer. All I could think was, “Why, God?”
Later, I attended a dinner celebrating CRS’s work in Cambodia. I sat with the leaders of ministries and agencies that work with us to improve education, health, and livelihoods. They exuded energy, poise, and intelligence. How could that be with those killing fields so close by, in geography and in time?
The man on my right had attended Oxford, a bit older than his fellow students due to years spent in the countryside under the Khmer Rouge. On my left was an attractive and vivacious lady who had trained to become a physician in France. Next to her was a man who went to Minneapolis and Boston to earn degrees in public health.
They certainly had different backgrounds, but they told me that under the Pol Pot regime they began each day hungry, wondering where they would find food. But they also talked about their education, careers, families, and the difficulty in balancing work and children — these were the kind of conversations I was used to having at Notre Dame with bright young people eager to go out and make their marks on the world. I had grown accustomed to hearing what I heard that evening — laughter, a celebration of spirit, drive, opportunities, caring.
I loved my students at Notre Dame. Even as I submitted my curriculum vitae and references to the CRS search committee, I knew that I was not looking for a change in my career. I thought, indeed was hoping, that in a few months they would find other strong candidates, and I would be thanked, and that would be the end of it.
I had been working hard for many years, really for my whole life. David and I were ready to slow down a bit with the boys grown and our careers at a comfortable place. It seemed like a time for harvest after all the years of planting. Things could not have been better for me at Notre Dame. In my third term as dean of the Mendoza College of Business, the undergraduate business program had achieved top placement — for two years in a row — in the highly visible Bloomberg-BusinessWeek ranking. (The Mendoza College continues to hold this top position to the time of this writing.)