Club history

In 1915, a group of Catholic students formed a Newman Club on campus for the benefit of Catholic students. They sought formal recognition as a student organization on campus but were denied it by school authorities. However, in the early nineteen twenties, formal recognition was granted and since then the Newman Club has been an official student club on campus. During the first forty five years of the Newman Club's existence, the officers of the Club sought out priests in the neighboring parish, Immaculate Conception, to be "unofficial chaplains" to the organization.

With the coming of Bishop John Wright (later Cardinal Wright) as the first Bishop of Worcester in the Spring of 1950, Priests of Immaculate Conception Parish were officially assigned to be chaplains to the Club. In 1961, the Rev. Peter J. Scanlon, priest of the Diocese of Worcester, was charged by Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan, the second Bishop of Worcester, to establish Catholic Campus Ministry at all colleges in the diocese. That included the WPI campus. In 1969, Father Scanlon was appointed the Bishop's Vicar for Campuses and quasi-parish structures were established on all campuses within the diocese. In that same year, Father Scanlon began full time ministry at WPI. In 2006 Father Scanlon retired from his role as Chaplain; Father Rob Loftus became the new Chaplain.

Newman Club flourishes as a student organization, while Catholic Campus Ministry carries out the parish aspects of the ministry to the faculty, the students and the staff. This Worcester Model has proven such an effective ministry that it has been copied in many other dioceses throughout the United States.