The Rule of Saint Benedict and the role of college admission in DEIJ.
In the sixth century, Benedict of Nursia wrote a rule of life for his fledgling monastic community in Subiaco, Italy. At its heart was a simple truth: the role of the individual within the community matters. A monastery flourishes when each member is honored for who they are, even as all are bound together in a shared life.
Fourteen centuries later, this principle found dazzling expression in the Saint John’s Abbey Church in central Minnesota. There, artist Bronislaw Bak, working alongside architect Marcel Breuer, designed a monumental stained-glass window—at the time the largest in the world. Its surface is composed of hundreds of hexagonal motifs, each a complete and beautiful form, but each dependent on the others to create a greater whole.
Bak’s window is more than an architectural feature; it is a metaphor in light. It embodies Benedictine values: balance, stability, a sense of place—and, above all, the conviction that individuality and community are not opposites but partners. Each hexagon matters. Each belongs. And together, they sing.
Like stained glass, a college community is never static. It glows differently in morning than in evening, differently in fall than in spring. It is, at once, stable and in flux.
That is where admission comes in. In Benedictine tradition, the guestmaster is the one charged with welcoming newcomers to the monastery. In higher education, admission professionals take up that role. We extend the community’s boundaries, seeking not just numbers but people—individuals whose talents, experiences, and perspectives will refract new light across our campuses.
I’ve had the privilege to see this work unfold across the country: in Chicano communities in New Mexico, on Native reservations in Minnesota and South Dakota, in a boarding school for Alaska Natives in Sitka, and in both rural and urban schools from coast to coast. I fondly remember a Chicana student from a small town on the New Mexico–Mexico border; a Dominican immigrant building a new life in the U.S.; a Yup’ik woman from a remote Alaskan village, 500 miles north of Anchorage. Each brought gifts that reshaped the community they joined. Each was a hexagon, whole in themselves, becoming part of something greater.
Admission, Marketing, and DEIJ
Too often, colleges treat enrollment as a numbers game. But like stained glass, the true beauty of a campus is not measured in quantity alone. It depends on quality—the lived experience of students.
That means the work of admission and marketing cannot stop at promotion. It must extend into the daily realities of students’ lives. Academic programs, campus events, student organizations, even the financial aid office—each must speak to belonging. Each must welcome. For low-income students especially, robust financial assistance is not an extra; it is the very structure that holds the window in place.
Our work demands attention to the full spectrum of DEIJ. Diversity is only the beginning. Without equity, inclusion, and justice, diversity is fragile, like glass without its lead frame. Bak’s window would collapse without Breuer’s honeycomb support; likewise, campus diversity crumbles without the framework of fairness and care.
For admission and marketing teams, this translates into several imperatives:
- Tell the truth. Be aspirational, yes, but also honest. Students must recognize themselves in our messages.
- Invest in change. Expanding the borders of community requires resources—both financial and human. Transformation comes with cost, and institutions must choose to pay it.
- Build trust. Relationships, not billboards, bring students to campus. Staff whose work is to nurture these connections are essential, not optional.
- Collaborate widely. Admission does not end when students enroll. It continues in partnership with faculty, staff, and student life, shaping the ongoing experience of belonging.
- Listen deeply. One of Benedict’s most repeated instructions is simply this: listen. To students, to staff, to critics, to communities. Listening is the foundation of hospitality.
Ultimately, admission is not about filling seats. It is about light—about gathering the many colors, shapes, and textures of human experience into something luminous. Each student is a pane, a hexagon, an individual whole. But together, they become a window: a vision of what community can be when it honors both the one and the many.
The role of the individual in a community is a central principle of the Rule of Saint Benedict, a guide written by a sixth-century Catholic monk for the members of the monastic order he founded in Subiaco, Italy.
Fourteen centuries later, the artist Bronislaw Bak (working in conjunction with the architect Marcel Breuer) prominently featured this principle in his monumental stained glass window (at the time, the largest stained glass work in the world) in the Saint John’s Abbey Church in central Minnesota. Bak, an art professor at the associated college, composed dozens of individual, hexagon motifs that interlace to form a whole.
Additional Sources:
The Rule of Saint Benedict
Bronislaw Bak
Marcel Breuer
Saint John’s Abbey Church (PDF)