Monsignor James P. Shea
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Monsignor James Patrick Shea serves as
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Monsignor Shea was inaugurated in 2009 as the sixth president of the university and,
at the age of 34, became the youngest college or university president in the United
States.
He succeeded Sister Thomas Welder, O.S.B., who had served as president for 31 years.
The oldest of eight children, Monsignor Shea grew up on a dairy and grain farm near
Hazelton, North Dakota, just 38 miles from the University of Mary campus. He began
his undergraduate work at Jamestown College, majoring in English and history. He then
entered the seminary for the Diocese of Bismarck, earning a bachelor’s degree and
a pontifical master’s degree (licentiate) in philosophy at the Catholic University
of America in Washington, D.C. He studied classical Greek at the University of Texas
at Austin and continued at the Vatican’s North American College, studying theology
at the Gregorian and Lateran universities in Rome. He has studied management at the
University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business and is also an alumnus of the
Institutes for Higher Education at the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University.
Monsignor Shea has worked with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity at the Gift
of Peace AIDS Hospice while teaching religion at two inner-city elementary schools
in Washington, D.C. In Rome, he served as chaplain for the Bambino Gesù Children’s
Hospital and also at the Rome campus of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University
of Saint Thomas. Following his ordination to the priesthood in 2002, he returned to
North Dakota and served as an associate pastor in Bismarck and Mandan. During that
time, he was also the chaplain and an instructor at Saint Mary’s Central High School
in Bismarck. He then served as pastor to parishes in Killdeer and Halliday (North
Dakota), while teaching at Trinity High School in Dickinson. Deeply committed to the
education and formation of young people, he has been an inspirational teacher and
mentor for many students.
Monsignor Shea is a Knight Commander of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and serves
on the Board of Directors for FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students.
He has served on the National Advisory Council to the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops and the Governor’s Commission on Education Improvement for the State
of North Dakota. Monsignor is also a Trustee of Saint John Vianney Seminary in Denver
and a member of the Executive Committee of the Board for the Association of Benedictine
Colleges and Universities.