Back in his hometown of Pune, India, the Rev. Nicholas Santos, SJ, PhD, frequently logged in to a website being managed thousands of miles away: Creighton Online Ministries. There, he would read daily reflections from people such as the Rev. Larry Gillick, SJ. It quickly became his go-to website.
“I would never imagine that 20 years later, I would be called to be the rector of Creighton,” Fr. Santos says.
This summer, Fr. Santos, a member of the Creighton Board of Trustees, will assume leadership of the University’s Jesuit community.
He will also join the faculty of the Heider College of Business as an associate professor of marketing. He currently teaches marketing at Marquette University in Milwaukee, and is the president of the Colleagues in Jesuit Business Education (CJBE).
Prior to becoming a Jesuit, Fr. Santos worked in accounting at a chemical transportation company in India. After a transformative five-day discernment retreat, he says he answered God’s call to the priesthood, something he’d considered since he was in high school.
In his more than 10 years at Marquette, Fr. Santos has worked with numerous Jesuits, including Creighton President the Rev. Daniel S. Hendrickson, SJ. There, the two presided over Tuesday night Mass, a traditional upbeat service for students.
You can often find Fr. Santos at Marquette’s campus recreation center, where he plays soccer with faculty and staff — something he hopes to bring to Creighton. He also plays in a soccer league in Milwaukee, and a tennis group with fellow business school faculty.
Creighton magazine spoke with Fr. Santos in anticipation of his move to Omaha.
I’ve heard so much in terms of high praise for Creighton. Being on the Board affirmed for me Creighton’s Jesuit, Catholic identity. So, it’s an honor to be asked to be the rector of the Jesuit community.
The rector is expected to support each member of the Jesuit community individually in his personal, spiritual and apostolic life. He is responsible for the life of the community and helps the community become a true apostolic one. He collaborates with the directors of the different works that the community is engaged with. These include the University and the University Retreat Center, Jesuit Academy and St. John’s Parish.
In my doctoral program, I worked to develop a normative ethical framework for doing business with impoverished populations. This framework was called the integrative justice model (IJM) and it proposes five interrelated components for fair and just engagement with low-income populations. I think this work aligns well with the Jesuit preferential option for the poor and the call to make the world a better place.
My latest research is connected with the search for better paradigms of economics and business than we have currently. I have become interested in the economic thinking of the late German Jesuit economist Heinrich Pesch, who proposed a system called “Solidarism Economics.” Pesch’s starting point is of human beings not as individuals but beings in society and who thus have a sense of solidarity with other beings. I think there are nuggets in his thinking that can complement our present capitalistic system.
I would love to. I know Fr. Hendrickson is hoping that we can work on something similar. Marquette’s Tuesday 10 p.m. Mass was special, and I enjoyed being involved with it for about 10 years. It was a community experience, with good music, and it was very uplifting and spiritually nourishing. So, yes, stay tuned.
