Joseph G. Sandman, PhD
Recently completed a forty-three-year career in Catholic higher education, which included Director of Development at the University of Notre Dame and Vice President for Advancement at Xavier, Loyola Chicago, and Seton Hall Universities.
He designed and led capital campaigns that delivered historic results. At Loyola University Chicago, he worked closely with Joseph Cardinal Bernardin to secure the naming and funding of the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center.
Sandman earned an MA in English literature from Xavier University and a PhD in English literature from the University of Notre Dame. His dissertation is titled “Sacramental Dimensions in the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins.” He taught composition and literature at Notre Dame and Xavier.
He has provided pro bono fundraising consulting to more than 100 religiously affiliated institutions and
served on the board of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, affiliated with Georgetown
University, which undertakes the great majority of all research projects commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Sandman has been trained as an instructor in Centering Prayer by Contemplative Outreach, Ltd., has taught university courses in Centering Prayer and has led workshops and prayer groups. He published “Centering Prayer: A Treasure for the Soul” in America magazine and wrote a chapter on Centering Prayer in Catholic Spiritual Practices: a Treasury of Old and New, edited by Colleen Griffith and Thomas Groome (Paraclete Press 2012). Sandman has practiced Centering Prayer and has met with a spiritual director monthly since 1980.
Sandman and his wife, Tracey Robson Sandman, have three sons and three daughters-in-law, Andrew and Kristen, Peter and Kelly, and Mark and Mary - and five grandchildren.