Henning Institute Board of Fellows

Fr. John R. Morris, OP

Fr. John R. Morris, OP holds an MS in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Washington, an MS in Philosophy from Saint Albert’s College in Oakland and a ThD from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.  His teaching career began at the Graduate Theological Union, and then continued at Saint Mary’s College of California and the Angelicum, Rome. He has taught major courses and seminars on Christology, Liberation Theology and Catholic Social Teaching. Fr. Morris has served as the Promoter of Justice and Peace for the Western Dominican Province for nearly twenty years. Toward the end of his tenure as Promoter he became the lead author of a document entitled the “Salamanca Process.” This document was presented to the Province Chapter in January, 2019 as a model for contemporary Dominicans to implement a program of social justice in imitation of those early Dominican pioneers sent to Hispaniola in early 1500.   He was recently appointed to the permanent Committee for Social Justice of the Western Dominican Province.      

Patrick Downey, Professor and Chair of the SMC Philosophy Department

Patrick Downey, Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Saint Mary’s College of California, has been teaching there for 27 years.  Graduating from Pitzer College, with a B.A. in Philosophy in 1980, he then went on to get a M.T.S. from Harvard University in 1984, and then received his Phd. in Theology at Boston College in 1994.  His academic interests have centered around the relation between Philosophy and Theology, and he has published two books that have dealt with that theme:  Serious Comedy and Desperately Wicked.  He is currently working on a project in Politic Theology that should lead to a book tentatively entitled Blood and the Nations. He has taught a JanTerm course on Catholic Social Teaching, and followed closely the ongoing publication of Social Encyclicals from the Vatican and their implications in understanding the nature and good of human.       

Ernest S. Pierucci, Co-Founder

Ernest S. Pierucci is a 1972 graduate of the Integral Program at Saint Mary’s College. He received his Juris Doctor from the Columbus School of Law of The Catholic University of America in 1975. He thereafter practiced law for forty years and along the way taught business law, philosophy of law and Collegiate Seminar at Saint Mary’s. Ernest is a co-founder of the Henning Institute. He has participated in over 20 international conference on Catholic social thought, including two at the Vatican by invitation. Ernest has published a number of articles and book chapters on Catholic social thought. His latest publication is the article “Wonder, the Person and the Common Good in Catholic Social Teaching” which appeared in the Journal of Catholic Social Thought of Villanova University in its winter 2020 edition.    

Steven A. Cortright, Senior Fellow and Co-Founder

Steven A. Cortright is an alumnus of the Integral Program. A tutor since 1978, he has led each class in the Program except the Music Tutorial (for generations of Integral students, good news!). He had the signal privilege of knowing, and studying with, the Program's founder, Br. Sixtus Robert Smith, FSC. In 2017 (to his vast surprise), Mr. Cortright was named Saint Mary's Professor of the Year. He is equally and deeply enamoured of the elegances found in formal logic and in German poetry, but would exchange both for a closer appreciation of moral elegance in Jane Austen's novels.

Colin Chan Redemer

Colin Chan Redemer is an adjunct associate professor in the School of Liberal Arts at Saint Mary's College where he co-founded the campus chapter of the SEIU Local 1021 and continues to serve as the Chief Steward. He is the Vice President of the Davenant Institute, a co-founder of the Davenant Hall graduate college and co-host of the weekly Ad Fontes Podcast. He holds an MFA, MA and is ABD at the University of Aberdeen. His current research focuses on the moral, political, and theological implications of friendship. 

Theodore Tsukahara, AFSC

Ted Tsukahara, an Affiliated member of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, has been involved with the John F. Henning Institute since its founding, first as a member of the Board of Advisors, and now as Director for almost twenty years. He earned a B.S. in Economics and Business Administration from Saint Mary’s (1962), a M.S. in Quantitative Business Analysis from University of Southern California (1964), a M. A. (1967) and PhD (1970) in Economics from Claremont Graduate University.  In addition, he was a National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow in Bioethics at The Hastings Center (1974). He was granted tenure by Pomona College (1974). He left academics in 1976 to work as a financial and strategic planning executive for a major energy company, transitioned into investment banking as a merger and acquisition specialist before returning to Saint Mary’s in 1992 to teach graduate business students and now serves as Tutor in the Integral Program of Liberal Arts. He was honored by the Faculty as Professor of the Year for Academic Year 2021-2022.