Servant-Leadership and Catholic Social Teaching: Intersections and a Response

[Originally Published in Update - a publication of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, Spring 2019]

By Patricia M. Bombard, BVM, D.Min., Director, Vincent on Leadership: The Hay Project, DePaul University

“Leaders are not trained, they evolve.” —Robert Greenleaf

Today, a number of publicly held companies are proving the leadership development model first described by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970 as “servant-leadership” can produce results that make even shareholders happy, including The Container Store, Southwest Airlines, and Starbucks.1 Greenleaf described the servant-leader as someone with “the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.” It is this feeling that draws an individual into wanting to lead by serving others.2 

For me, Greenleaf’s ideas raise two questions: (1) What is the origin of this “natural feeling”? and (2) How, as faculty and staff of Catholic universities, can we cultivate that feeling more strongly in ourselves and in our students? 

I have the same questions about the body of writings known collectively as Catholic Social Teaching (CST). As I consider Greenleaf in light of CST, it seems to me there is an important intersection between these two sets of teachings that might help answer my questions. 

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops lists seven themes found within CST on its website. One of these is an “Option for the Poor and Vulnerable.” The basic moral test of a society, this theme suggests, is “how our most vulnerable members are faring.” The Gospel story of the Last Judgement (Mt. 25:31-46) compels all Christians to be attentive to the needs of the hungry, thirsty, homeless, sick and imprisoned. 

Greenleaf also suggests there is a “best test” for the servant-leader within institutions and organizations: “I prefer to say that all of those persons who are touched by the institution are served and, while being served, they grow as persons; they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants. Furthermore, whatever the action, the least privileged in society will benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived.”3 

There is yet another point of intersection between CST and Greenleaf: the call to build community. Larry C. Spears, former president and CEO of The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, says, “The servant-leader senses that much has been lost in recent human history as a result of the shift from local communities to large institutions as the primary shaper of human lives.” He goes on to say, “Servant-leadership suggests that true community can be created among those who work in businesses and other institutions.”4 Greenleaf himself advised: “All that is needed to rebuild community as a viable form for large numbers of people is for enough servant-leaders to show the way, not by mass movements, but by each servant-leader demonstrating his [or her] own unlimited liability for a quite specific community-related group.”5 

Greenleaf’s admonition to servant-leaders to build community echoes another theme of CST: “the Person in Community.” The authors of Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret speak to this point, suggesting that, “Human dignity can be recognized, developed and protected only in community with others.”6 

While CST and Greenleaf certainly point the way, I have long believed that no statements of principles, guidelines, teachings, or commandments from outside oneself will create a caring human. I have written elsewhere about how we are wasting our most needed human resources by not attending adequately to developing the potential for good in each person alive on the planet. I want to quote here the spiritual teacher and author, Eknath Easwaran, who called for a new Manhattan Project dedicated to understanding human development. Referring to the research project that led to the atomic bomb, Easwaran wrote: “We study how to remake the world, but not how to remake ourselves.”7 

Along these lines, we might note that Hamilton Beazley, writing in the foreword to The Servant-Leader Within: A Transformative Path, suggests that servant-leadership is a concept more “caught than taught.” He explains: …” the teaching of servant-leadership requires a practice component as well as formal instruction because servant leadership is largely experiential, it is intellectual only in its foundation.”8

 Now we are at the crux of the answer to my questions. Cultivating a servant-leader must happen through experiences and reflection on those experiences. It must be modeled and encouraged. What might a university do to provide such opportunities for experience, reflection, and role-modeling? Certainly, the growth of service-learning has been one response to both CST and Greenleaf. Yet I have another thought: Might a Catholic university become a model of servant-leadership by focusing its efforts first and foremost on serving “the least privileged” on its campus? 

Who are these least privileged? You may be surprised to learn, as I was some four years ago, that hunger and homelessness now are widespread among students on college campuses. A recent survey published by researchers at Temple University and the Wisconsin HOPE Lab and reported by National Public Radio revealed that more than a third of college students “don’t always have enough to eat and lack stable housing.” 

As an example of a servant-leadership response to this crisis, I want to tell a story unfolding at DePaul University in Chicago. DePaul has as its namesake St. Vincent de Paul, who founded the Congregation of the Mission (also known as Vincentians), who in turn founded DePaul University in 1898. The university is part of the larger “Vincentian Family” that includes other organizations connected to the legacy of St. Vincent de Paul, such as the Daughters of Charity (DC) and the St. Vincent de Paul Society. 

The issue of homelessness among DePaul University students was highlighted by a university staff member at the fall 2014 Vincentian Family gathering in Chicago.  It was estimated at that time that there were approximately 50 homeless students every quarter. 

Following that initial revelation, members of the Vincentian Family in Chicago responded. A core group of DePaul University faculty and staff began meeting voluntarily to understand more fully the challenges and opportunities facing DePaul’s under-resourced students, especially students facing hunger and homelessness. The group invited students and representatives from various DePaul student services departments to provide input and join in our explorations. We learned a lot in the process about our own assumptions and the struggles students face within the university community, while also growing together in our desire to serve. 

Meanwhile, the staff of Depaul USA, another Vincentian Family organization focused on ending homelessness, also responded. They created the “Dax Program,” named after the French village where St. Vincent de Paul lived as a college student. The program is coordinated by Sister Judy Warmbold, DC, who regularly visits frontline campus departments and students. 

The success of the DAX Program in just three years has been remarkable. Nine students have graduated from DePaul after receiving housing assistance in host homes, rented apartments, rented rooms, donated dorm rooms, and a Dax House. Twenty-one students remain enrolled in school. About half of the 21 found stable housing and no longer need assistance. The program was featured in January 2019 on the CBS News Sunday Morning show as one of several responses to the thousands of homeless college students in the United States. 

There is still a lot a university can do to be of help, and perhaps in the process build a stronger community wherein faculty, staff, and students cultivate and practice servant leadership. Responding to the “least privileged” among us must happen both inside and outside the classroom. Beazley suggests that in addition to teaching servant-leadership, role modeling to illustrate servant-leadership principles and an environment designed to facilitate its learning are critical elements. 

One of our core group’s learnings over the past several years has been that, while the university has many resources available for students, many of the truly needy do not or are not able to seek them out. One reason is the stigma of being homeless. For example, one of the first students to be helped reported being bullied by other students in the dorm after they found out he was there because he was homeless. 

What small step could you take to help model the way toward building a university community more deeply steeped in servant-leadership and CST? Perhaps Greenleaf’s final words in his 1970 essay say it best: “In the end, all that matters is love and friendship

1 James W. Sipe and Don M. Frick, Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership: Practicing the Wisdom of Leading by Serving (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2015), 3. 

2 Larry C. Spears, “Understanding the Growing Impact of Servant Leadership,” in The Servant-Leader Within: A Transformative Path, Robert K. Greenleaf (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2003), 16. 

3 Robert K. Greenleaf, The Servant-Leader Within: A Transformative Path (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2003), 132. 

4 Spears, “Understanding the Growing Impact of servant leadership,” 19. 

5 Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1977), 39. 

6 Edward P. DeBerri and James E. Hug, with Peter J. Henriot and Michael J. Schultheis, Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003), 23.

7 Eknath Easwaran, The Compassionate Universe: The Power of the Individual to Heal the Environment (Tomales, CA: Nilgiri Press, 1989), 60. 

8 Hamilton Beazley, foreword to The Servant-Leader Within: A Transformative Path, by Robert K. Greenleaf (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2003), 3.

Easing the Burden of Health Insurance for Part-Time Employees

 By Gary Miller

[This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 issue of  Update, a quarterly publication of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities]

I remember my first experience teaching a class on employee benefits in the graduate school of business. At the end of the first class, a student came up to me with some encouraging words, saying that it seemed like it was going to be an interesting course. Then she thanked me for not complaining about not having any benefits from the university. Apparently, adjuncts were not reticent about sharing their disappointments with students. I had benefits, being a full-time member of the staff, as well as an adjunct.

This student's statement, however, caused me to do a little research. It did not take much digging to discover that many adjuncts across the country were struggling with being able to find affordable health insurance. I’d probably complain as well, or at least worry a lot, if I had a medical condition I couldn’t afford to treat or thought I could go bankrupt because of a necessary medical procedure that had to be paid out of pocket.

Adjuncts are particularly vulnerable to being uninsured or having to resort to low-cost limited health plans that leave them exposed to significant coverage gaps. As part-time employees, sometimes working for multiple universities, many simply are not working the equivalent of 30 hours per week, which is the eligibility threshold for many university benefit plans. This threshold happens to be the Affordable Care Act “shared responsibility” standard, which requires large employers to offer health insurance to full-time employees, that is, those who work at least 30 hours per week.[1]

Many university administrators wrongly assume that most part-time staff and adjuncts can easily acquire an affordable comprehensive major medical plan on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Insurance Marketplace, also referred to as the insurance exchange and Obamacare. While it’s true that the Marketplace can be a good option for those without access to an employer’s group medical plan, these plans can only be purchased each year during the open enrollment, typically November 1st through December 15th or during a special enrollment period if there is a qualifying event. While the limited enrollment period may be an obstacle for some, the real challenge with Marketplace plans is that they are no longer affordable for many individuals and families.

Major medical plans purchased via the Marketplace or on a state exchange, where available, offer premium subsidies (technically referred to as premium tax credits) for those who qualify, typically those with household incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty level. These subsidies make it possible for many Americans with household incomes below the U.S. median to afford a comprehensive Marketplace plan. The extremely poor, those below 138% of the federal poverty level, generally now have access to Medicaid, thanks to the ACA.

Many of the people who are now in a difficult place, however, are those who earn too much to receive a premium subsidy, but not enough to afford the unsubsidized premium cost of a Marketplace plan. To get an idea of this cost, in Cook County, Illinois, an unsubsidized Marketplace Silver PPO medical plan with a deductible of $6,600 and an annual out-of-pocket cost exposure of $16,300 (not including premiums) will run a couple, age 45, earning $70,000 with no children $1,198.70 per month.

A Life Issue

The precepts of Catholic Social Teaching, foundational to the mission and strategic direction at most Catholic universities, draw a strong relationship between human dignity and healthcare. The U.S. Bishops captured it concisely: “Every person has a right to adequate health care. This right flows from the sanctity of human life and the dignity that belongs to all human persons who are made in the image of God.”[2] As a life issue, healthcare is a prime concern for universities, not only for the communities beyond its borders, but also for their own internal communities of faculty, staff, and students.

One underlying premise of the ACA rests on the relationship between health insurance coverage and adequate healthcare. An abundance of research supports this premise: Those without health insurance are more likely to suffer premature death. This is not surprising, given that people without health insurance are more likely not to take the medications necessary to treat chronic conditions or address major health concerns.[3]

Beyond the moral consideration of health insurance as a life issue lies some practical ones: What is the impact to the university of classes being taught by adjuncts who may be experiencing serious medical debt, have untreated illnesses conditions, or who are not taking the necessary medications to control chronic conditions? Is there a negative impact on the university’s brand, student retention, or quality of teaching? Such negative outcomes could far outweigh any savings that come from limiting participation in the group health plan.

Beyond the moral consideration of health insurance as a life issue lies some practical ones...

It is unlikely that this affordability gap will be addressed by the nation in the foreseeable future. In fact, next year, the Supreme Court will rule on yet another challenge to the ACA’s constitutionality, possibly even dismantling the entirety of this important safety net. In the meantime, there are practical ways that universities can help their contingent faculty and part-time staff who need insurance. While some options are apparent, such as simply broadening health plan eligibility, these may not be feasible because of restricted budgets. The recommendations below are either low-cost or cost-neutral.

What to Do — and What Not to Do

Perhaps the best starting point is to understand the extent of the problem by surveying the adjuncts who are ineligible for the group plan. Are they finding ways to secure major medical insurance? This information could be used to gauge whether a coverage gap exists for a university or campus; if a gap is found, the findings could be used to develop a customized solution. It may be that most of the adjuncts at a university have other full-time positions or are covered by a spouse’s plan and a solution is needed only for a few individuals.
Do Not Endorse Limited Health Plans

Try a web search on “low-cost medical plans” and you will find plenty of carriers offering to sell limited medical plans. Most of these plans have pre-existing condition limitations as well as extensive policy exclusions. A particular type of limited medical plan, short-term medical, has an additional risk. In many states, these policies must have expiration dates. In Illinois, for instance, policies can be issued for a maximum of six months. A serious health condition developed during a six-month coverage period could make it impossible for an individual to renew for the next period. While limited plans can provide helpful reimbursements for some medical services, because of their coverage gaps, annual maximums, and other limitations, they also put the adjuncts who purchase them at risk of serious medical debt. While there are legitimate uses for some of these plan types, they are not ideal as standalone coverage.

Not endorsing limited benefit plans means making no mention of them on any university website or in any official university communication, unless they are used to supplement the university’s comprehensive group medical plan. For instance, an accident or hospital plan could be used to help faculty and staff offset major medical plan high deductibles. If used in such a fashion and paid for on a pre-tax basis by employees, then they would also have to be listed in the university Section 125 plan document, as well as ERISA documents.

Even worse than endorsing a standalone limited medical plan as an alternative to major medical insurance would be to incorrectly describe it as “comprehensive.” I am aware of a limited benefit student plan that is currently described on a university’s website as a “comprehensive health plan.” This misinformation could possibly create liability for that university. Even the insurance company that provides this policy advertises it as a limited health plan.

Avoid the Family Glitch

Universities that cover adjuncts and part-time staff should be aware of the ACA Family Glitch.[4] This applies when the group plan requires employees to make little or no premium contribution but requires disproportionately higher contributions for spouses and children. An employee with low annual earnings, such as an adjunct, may only be able to afford employee-only coverage. When the spouse turns to the Marketplace for coverage, he then finds that he is not eligible for a subsidy and cannot afford these plans either.

Families that have access to an affordable major medical employer health plan are not eligible for a subsidized Marketplace plan. The glitch is created by how the ACA determines whether an employer’s group plan is affordable. If employee-only coverage is less than 9.78% of household income, then the group health plan is considered affordable not only for the employee but also for the person’s spouse and children. Because the plan is considered affordable based on the employee-only premium, none of the family members are eligible for subsidized insurance on the Marketplace.

Consider a family of two adults and two children, with a household income of $75,000, an income that would qualify for a substantial Marketplace subsidy. Assume that only one of the adults was employed and had access to a group medical plan. If the parent with the group medical plan had a required premium contribution of $150/month for employee-only coverage, the employer plan would be considered affordable by the ACA because the annual employee contribution would only be 2.4% of the family’s household income, well under the ACA threshold. Even if the addition of the non-covered adult and children caused the family’s premium contribution to increasing to $1,200 per month, 19.2% of the family’s household income, the non-covered spouse and children would still not be eligible for a Marketplace premium subsidy. That’s because the ACA determines affordability based on the employee-only premium contribution amount. Thus, the disproportionately high family premium, in this case, would likely have put comprehensive health insurance out of the financial reach of this family.

Take away: Group health plan premium contributions should be structured in such a way as to keep the medical coverage affordable for spouses and children. Even creating a separate plan for part-time staff and adjuncts that excluded spouses would, in many cases, be a better alternative for the employees’ families than to require a disproportionately higher premium contribution for spouses and children.


Overinform Faculty and Staff of the Marketplace Option

Given the variability in many adjuncts' teaching schedules, those who are covered by the university’s medical plan may have periods of ineligibility. When adjuncts lose coverage, they are entitled to continue coverage at their own cost through the provisions of COBRA. Such continuation can be very costly, and the Marketplace may be a more affordable option because of the availability of premium tax credits. Unfortunately, employers are only required to notify employees of the Marketplace option at the time of hire.

Adjuncts who lose group health plan eligibility after participating in a university's plan for a period may not remember there is a Marketplace option. As a result, they may elect the extremely expensive COBRA continuation option and may likely find it unaffordable after a couple of months. Compounding matters, the ACA stipulates that the COBRA election disqualifies them from enrolling in a Marketplace plan until the next open enrollment period.

To help adjuncts avoid this pitfall and ensure they are aware of the possibly much more affordable Marketplace option when losing university coverage, a notice of the Marketplace option can also be included with the COBRA election form. The Department of Labor model COBRA election letter includes such notice. But even this extra step has a problem.

If a person enrolls in the Marketplace before her/his university coverage ends, then the Marketplace coverage will begin the first of the month following the date of loss of group coverage. Otherwise, if they don’t enroll in a Marketplace plan until they receive the COBRA election notice, possibly longer than a month, they can’t enroll in a Marketplace plan until the first of the month after a Marketplace plan is elected. The problem is that Marketplace coverage is not retroactive to the date of termination, like COBRA. The person could be forced into COBRA just to pay medical bills incurred in the gap period.

The simple solution is to provide more notice of the Marketplace option than is required by law. Ideally, a separate notice should be provided as soon as a person is informed that they are going to be terminated or become ineligible for the university’s medical plan. This will give them time to enroll in a Marketplace plan before terminating and allow for the earliest possible news coverage date.


Provide Tax-Advantaged Assistance to Adjuncts Not Eligible for the Group Health Plan

As of January 2020, a new way for employers to help employees with health insurance became available, the Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Account (ICHRA).

These HRAs can be implemented for just a single class of employees, for example, part-time faculty and staff not eligible for the group health plan but teaching a set number of courses or hours per week. Through an ICHRA, a university can make tax-free payments to the adjuncts to reimburse a portion of the cost of individually acquired health insurance. Not only would these reimbursements be tax-free to those eligible, but they also would not be considered pay and therefore would not create additional payroll taxes for the university.

One caveat: If an adjunct not eligible for the group plan finds that she is eligible for a premium subsidy on the Healthcare Marketplace, she would need to opt-out of the ICHRA to qualify for the subsidy. She would not be able to obtain assistance from the employer and from the Marketplace simultaneously.

A Macro Approach

A final suggestion: Given budget constraints caused by the pandemic, perhaps this would be an appropriate time for universities to consider pooling resources for the purpose of providing benefits. Collaborative arrangements among Catholic universities could potentially save millions of dollars.

What if universities collaborated to: 

• Share legal and consulting expertise, develop best-practice plan design options, and centralize administration?
• Contract with a company specializing in helping adjunct and part-time staff not covered by the group plan to understand their insurance options and help with their billing challenges? This service would not be excessively expensive and would be a much-appreciated employee benefit. This benefit could be extended to all employees who are recipients of surprise medical bills.
• Create a separate self-funded third-party health insurance program established among participating universities for adjuncts and part-time staff not eligible for the universities’ regular medical insurance? Perhaps the fund could be partially funded by grants as well as limited employer contributions and adjunct contributions.

Continuing to diminish health benefits for cost reasons with the justification that such changes are a competitive practice is reactive. Such a reactive approach does not address the underlying issues and ultimately will make high-quality plans unaffordable for many Catholic universities. Benefits issues can often fly under the radar of senior university officials. That is unfortunate because of the missed opportunities: significant savings to the university and its faculty and staff, the potential to improve faculty and staff retention, and most significantly, access to medical insurance for all employees.

Gary Miller is an employee benefit, human resources, and organizational consultant who works with both universities and businesses.


[1] For more information on the employer Affordable Care Act requirements, see this summary from the Society for Human Resource Management.


[2] NCCB/USCCB, “A Framework for Comprehensive Health Care Reform: Protecting Human Life, Promoting Human Dignity, Pursuing the Common Good,” Pastoral Letters and Statements of the United States Catholic Bishops, Volume VI, 1989-1997 (1998): 519-526.


[3] Regarding the relationship between lack of healthcare and mortality and morbidity, see these sources for starters: (a) https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2014/05/12/health-insurance-and-death-rates and (b) https://news.gallup.com/poll/269138/americans-delaying-medical-treatment-due-cost.asp.


[4] For a more detailed explanation of the glitch issue, see https://www.verywellhealth.com/aca-family-glitch-1738950.