‘I had a role in writing lives’: Retired professor helped students explore their faith

Andy Hohman, a retired philosophy and theology professor at Marian University in Indianapolis, sits by a relief sculpture of the adoration of the Magi on its campus on July 30. He recently retired after spending 40 years on the university’s faculty. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)

By Sean Gallagher

When the new academic year began at Marian University in Indianapolis last month, a big change happened in the life of the community there.

A member of Marian’s faculty who had been an integral part of the university for 40 years was no longer walking across its campus, meeting with students in and out of classrooms, and supporting Marian’s Catholic identity.

Professor Andy Hohman retired from being a member of Marian’s philosophy and theology department at the end of the 2024-25 academic year.

Completing his 40th year at Marian was a challenge for Hohman, who is dealing with health issues.

“Even though I was sick, it was a big deal for me to finish 40 years,” he said in an interview with The Criterion. “I still enjoy teaching. In the fall [of 2024], I was undergoing so many treatments that I was teaching from home half the time.”

Being on campus and interacting with and mentoring students in and out of the classroom had always been a high priority for Hohman.

For him, teaching the different topics of philosophical and theological courses was integrated into a larger goal: helping form the faith of college students by accompanying them as they asked deep and probing questions about what it means to believe in God and how that shapes the decisions they make in life.

“My position has always been that you cannot lead people deeper into the faith by teaching if you’re not willing to walk along with them,” Hohman said. “If you’re not willing to deal with this raising a lot of questions, new challenges and a need for discernment, then don’t teach this subject.”

Recruiting other philosophy and theology professors who had the same priorities was an important part of Hohman’s work at Marian as he led the philosophy and theology department during most of his time there. As the department’s chair, he had a hand in interviewing potential new professors and in hiring decisions.

“I asked people about their commitment to working with students,” Hohman said. “Were they willing to work with students [more broadly]? If they weren’t, then I wasn’t going to be able to hire them.”

This commitment to helping form students at a critical time in their lives had an effect on Hohman’s professional life. Unlike many people who teach in colleges and universities, he didn’t make writing journal articles and books and presenting papers at academic conferences a priority. He made a conscious decision to make his students his priority.

“The students were my books,” he said. “I firmly believe that.”

Many of these students are now serving in schools, parishes and archdiocesan ministries across central and southern Indiana and beyond. The faith that Hohman helped form in them they are now seeking to pass on to people to whom they minister.

Meeting students where they were

Father James Brockmeier was a student at Marian from 2007-11. He arrived at the school as a San Damiano Scholar. Hohman helped create the program at Marian some 25 years ago. It helps prepare some students for ministry in the Church and others going into professions to have their faith consciously inform the way that they approach their work.

After graduating from Marian in 2011, Father Brockmeier became an archdiocesan seminarian. He now serves as rector of SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis, director of the archdiocesan Office of Worship and chaplain at Butler University in Indianapolis.

During his four years at Marian as a student majoring in philosophy, Father Brockmeier benefited from both Hohman’s teaching and his mentoring.

“He really met me where I was in questions about theology, philosophy, the kind of work I wanted to do, the best way I could prepare to do that, the best things for my discernment,” Father Brockmeier said. “I had a confidence that he wasn’t trying to push me in any particular direction. He was trying to help me go deeper where the Lord had me in that moment.”

Sometimes exploring such depths can lead to difficult and challenging questions, Father Brockmeier noted, that had driven philosophical and theological reflection and research for centuries. Sometimes, those questions could raise doubts in the minds of college students.

Father Brockmeier said that Hohman encouraged students to explore those doubts “not because he wanted people to doubt for doubt’s sake, but because he really wanted people to engage and embrace their belief and their knowledge of the truth and of our faith.

“But, to do that, you have to be able to answer the difficult questions that history has posed to the faith and that people pose to the faith on a daily basis,” Father Brockmeier said. “You can only answer those questions if you have taken them seriously.”

The priest also noted that Hohman was convinced this exploration of faith and how it can affect one’s life is best done in the midst of a community of people on the same journey. As a result, Hohman fostered such a community of like-minded students at Marian.

“Andy was good at building a culture of that,” Father Brockmeier said. “The way that he brought people together and taught people to think fueled conversation outside of the classroom. It fueled people to have genuine interests and ways of thinking.”

After benefitting from Hohman’s teaching and mentoring at Marian, Father Brockmeier now seeks to lead Butler students deeper in their faith.

“College students are asking difficult questions,” he said. “The witness of someone who’s willing to sit with people in their questions and be with them there is a help when people are going through times where they’re not so sure.”

Piles of books, stacks of questions

Meredith Elam was a San Damiano Scholar at Marian at the same time that Father Brockmeier was attending the university. She grew up active in her faith as a member of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Franklin and a student at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis.

Since graduating from Marian in 2011, Elam has served at St. Roch Parish in Indianapolis and at its school. At the parish, she ministers as its music director. At the school, Elam serves as assistant principal and teaches music and religion.

“The first time that I met Andy, I was still in high school,” Elam recalled. “There were books piled on the floor of his office. And I remember thinking to myself, ‘What am I getting myself into?’ But I recognized that it was going to be something good. I was excited from the beginning.”

Hohman’s accompaniment of Elam in her learning and exploration of the faith led her to create her own pile of books.

“Every time I had a question, it would lead to another question,” she said. “Every time I read a book, it would lead to three or four other books that just kept piling.”

The questions and the growing piles of books had a long-lasting effect on Elam because Hohman was there with her at an important time in her life to help her grow deeper in her faith.

“He was such a good listener,” Elam said. “He would ask questions of me that I didn’t even realize that I was thinking about, but I maybe deep internally was. He was really perceptive.”

Some of those questions led Elam at first to be less sure about her faith than she had been when she started at Marian. Hohman, she said, accompanied her in exploring more fundamental questions, confident that she could come out on the other side with a stronger faith.

“He was going to help me get there, but I was the one who was going to have to figure out what that meant for me and what was going to happen next,” Elam said. “He helped me navigate through those difficult times.”

‘I had a role in writing lives’

By the time that Father Brockmeier and Elam were students at Marian, Hohman had been accompanying students in their exploration of the faith for more than 20 years. Yet, it never got old for Hohman. He had as much love for spending time with students in 2025 as he did in 1985. He also remained keenly aware of the challenges to faith that students experienced throughout his time at Marian.

“I told them that I had been down that road and know what it is to feel like when new questions are raised,” he said. “There is a God. I can tell you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We can get to that. But we have to be willing to honestly face the questions that we recognize are honest questions for us.”

“He always took your questions and the things that you were weighing very seriously,” said Father Brockmeier. “When you were with him, he engaged very seriously with the questions that you had, with your experiences, with where you were.”

A lot of that time that Hohman dedicated to his students could have been spent doing research and writing, making a name for himself as a professional philosopher and theologian, filling up his curriculum vitae with lists of publications.

That was unimportant to Hohman. His students, on the other hand, were always at the forefront of his mind.

“I have more living books that are read by more people than highly published authors,” Hohman said. “I had a role in writing lives.” †