Author: Jamie Kralovec

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Welcome to the Spring Semester!

Preparing for Inclement Weather | Office of Emergency Management | Georgetown University
This week’s post invites a reflective pause at the beginning of a chilly and snowy spring semester. As you enter this new period, what are your desires for this semester? How are you taking time to pause and reflect?  

The spring semester is upon us! It is a funny time to enter a “spring” season when the weather in Washington, D.C. feels pretty far away from the delightful summer temperatures of May. As is customary in the life of an academic institution, however, the changing of the semester is an opportunity to reflectively transition from what came before to what comes next. The life of a university seems to stop between semesters but the world obviously does not. We enter a 2025, both filled with hope and possibility and mired in despair and suffering, evidenced by the devastating wildfires this week in California. Such an event reminds us of the mission of Georgetown for which we are all responsible and calls us to transform our education into a generous force for justice and the common good.

SCS is a dynamic and diverse learning community whose students operate within a range of program formats, meeting times, and modalities. However, every semester at SCS welcomes new members to our community. So whether you’re a new SCS student beginning your first semester, a continuing student, or a member of our faculty or staff, this opportunity to slow down, catch your breath, and prepare your mind, body, and spirit for the coming semester might be a welcome invitation. Here are three ideas for how to meaningfully enter into quiet before a new semester begins. 

Renew. As you prepare for a new Georgetown semester, take some time to get in touch with your motivation for being here. What drew you to Georgetown? What inspired you to take on your particular program? What are your desires for your experience at this University? As you begin to reflect on these questions of your “why,” it might help for you to familiarize yourself with the deeper purpose of Georgetown as an educational community. You can spend this time with this Mission in Motion post: New to SCS? An Introduction to Georgetown’s Mission and Values in Four Points. 

Review. Spending time renewing your commitment to your Georgetown education might lead you to consider your future and where you are heading. But it is also important to take stock of where you have been and how you arrived at this current moment. Reviewing your past for the sake of reflecting on how your prior lived experience might inform your present and future is at the heart of the Jesuit spirituality that animates the mission of Georgetown. New members of our community might benefit from better understanding how Georgetown lives out its Catholic and Jesuit mission by reading through the most recent Mission Priority Examen self-study report. One of the core practices arising from the Jesuit tradition that helps in this review process is the examen of consciousness. You might consider signing up for the SCS Daily Digital Meditation sessions, which include a weekly examen that occurs every Friday. In whatever ways you construct a practice of review, I invite you to explore how your present self reflects the authentic fullness of your entire journey of life. 

Recharge. Taking up “rest” as a meaningful practice of spiritual wellness is a challenge in a culture that values constant activity and valuing one’s life choices on the basis of utility or value maximation. Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Advisor for Pastoral Care, reminds us that the Jewish tradition of “Shabbat” requires that we “leave behind the regular flow of time and the productivity we imbed in it. We do this not in order to escape life, but in order to enter into it more deeply.” My hope is that you can find some intentional ways to truly rest in the time as this busy semester gets underway. Take lots of walks and try to transform your walks into spiritual experiences (you can even try out a Walking Examen!). Take time for silence. Truly enjoy the company of others. Give yourself some space to unplug from the daily distractions. Your soul will thank you! 

One of the great joys of working at Georgetown is welcoming new members into our community multiple times in the year. There is so much anticipation as a new semester begins. The anticipation at SCS is even greater in this new year as we plan for a move to 111 Massachusetts Avenue this summer and the creation of an ever more cohesive Capitol Campus. My hope is that you can savor these chilly days and arrive most fully in the early weeks of this new semester. 

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A Reflective Review of 2024: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going

This week’s post is a reflective Examen about 2024. 

Since Mission in Motion began nearly five years ago, the blog has posted a year-end Examen that reflects on the most mission-significant occurrences of the past year. My intention, like a classic Examen practice, is to take stock of the experiences of greatest meaning in our collective life as a university and reflect on how these events have shaped us as members of the SCS community. Such a review brings up moments of both consolation and desolation, inviting each of us to reflect on how we have been transformed by our shared experiences and how we desire to journey into the year ahead. This practice is an opportunity to name gratitude for the multitude of ways that students, faculty, and staff live out Georgetown’s mission and values. A look back at 2024 can be especially helpful as SCS prepares in 2025 to move from its current location at 640 Massachusetts Avenue to its new 111 Massachusetts Avenue home on the Capitol Campus.

2024 featured some standard Mission and Ministry programming that brought together students, faculty, and staff to experience the resources of Georgetown’s Jesuit and multi-religious heritage. A newly designed oversight retreat in March 2024, “Journeying the Good life,” encouraged students to more deeply consider what daily practices help them flourish and live out their deeper purpose in life (see “SCS Retreat Invites Students into Reflection on the Meaning and Practices of the Good Life”).  Staff benefited from a new workshop about managing conflict through effective dialogue skills and greater emotional awareness (see “Becoming Spiritually Grounded Strategic Thinkers and Discerning Leaders”). Some of the learning from this new staff-focused program was incorporated into the inaugural “Strategic Thinking & Leadership Academy” offered by SCS as a non-degree certificate. 

This was a year in which SCS helped contribute to national events. In July, the Association of Jesuit Colleges & Universities (AJCU) held its tri-annual assembly on faith, justice, and reconciliation at Loyola University Chicago. SCS work on Ignatian pedagogical strategy for online course development that resonates with adult learners was featured in a national AJCU commission dedicated to Ignatian Pedagogy (see “AJCU Faith, Justice, and Reconciliation Assembly Brings Together University Colleagues at a Critical Time”). The presidential election provided another opportunity for mission resources to help the university community pause and process a mix of emotions (see “Civic Examen Helps Georgetown Community Reflect on the Emotions of Election Season”). 

2024 was another year when the blog featured the diverse voices of SCS students, faculty, and staff as presented in a range of interviews. Dion Thompson-Davoli, a May 2024 graduate of the Master’s in Urban & Regional Planning, reflected on his historic achievement: running down every single street in Washington, D.C. (see “Recent SCS Graduate Accomplishes Major Feat, Running Down Every Street of Washington, D.C., and Discovering More About Himself and the City Along the Way”). Another graduating student, Mary Delaney Fox, won the Spirit of Georgetown award at the SCS Tropaia ceremony and shared about her transformative efforts to promote organ donation (see “2024 SCS Spirit of Georgetown Winner Reflects on Gifts of Life, Family, and Georgetown”). And Haroot Hakopian, SCS assistant dean of student affairs, was highlighted in a Georgetown Faces profile about the many ways he brings a spirit of belonging and inclusion to the work of the summer programs (see “Shining a Storytelling a Spotlight on a Key Member of the SCS Summer Team”). 

More attention was paid on this platform to the evolution of a Capitol Campus and the initial plans for developing a more coherent culture and community among the different units and schools, including SCS, that will bring this campus to life. A dedicated overnight retreat in Fall 2024 for graduate, professional, and law students, with a special focus on students on the Capitol Campus, previewed more efforts to create reflective spaces for this mix of students (see “Fall 2024 Graduate, Law, and Professional Student Retreat Emphasizes Listening to the Voice Within”). Two new spirituality programs for the Capitol Campus brought together students, staff, and faculty to experience this new university reality through the lens of Ignatian spirituality (see “Walking Examen of the Capitol Campus Contributes to Jesuit Heritage Month”) and multi-faith dialogue (see “New Mission and Ministry Program on the Capitol Campus Explores ‘Practicing Pluralism’”). Also, the inaugural Mass of the Holy Spirit for the entire Capitol Campus, which is always celebrated on the Hilltop campus, established a solid foundation for the future of communal worship in this area of the city (see “Capitol Campus Mass of the Holy Spirit Encourages Openness to the New (and Old)”). 

2024 was a momentous year for Georgetown SCS for all of these reasons and more. As we journey into the next year, I invite everyone to take some time to reflect. What are the moments that stand out the most from this year? What experiences brought you the most joy and closest to your truest self? What led to the opposite, draining you of energy and your deeper purpose? How are you being called to renewal and recommitment in the coming year? 

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Walking Examen of the Capitol Campus Contributes to Jesuit Heritage Month

This post is about the inaugural Walking Examen of the Capitol Campus that took place during Jesuit Heritage Month. 

The Examen, a cornerstone spiritual practice of the Jesuit tradition, is flexible and can be adapted to many different settings and contexts. Mission in Motion has covered the range of applications of the Examen and similar Ignatian approaches to prayer, meditation, and reflection through retreats, workshops, and pedagogical strategies. As part of November’s Jesuit Heritage Month, a team of Capitol Campus Mission and Ministry colleagues innovated this spiritual practice by offering a “Walking Examen of the Capitol Campus.” This event, broadcasted to the entire university community, brought together students, faculty, and staff to experience the growing and evolving Capitol Campus through the lens of Ignatian spirituality. 

The invitation to this experience made clear that participants would be engaging with the physical reality of the Capitol Campus in a reflective manner unlike most traditional building or walking tours. While the latter might be associated more with the orientation of a tourist or onlooker, this reflective walking experience was intended to promote deeper consideration about the meaning and implications of Georgetown’s growth in this area of Washington, D.C. Ultimately, the organizers hoped that this engagement with the Capitol Campus would lead to discernment about how members of the Georgetown community are called to engage with the campus through their work and study in the years ahead. For several participants, the walking Examen was their first time on the campus and a welcome opportunity to gain a comprehensive overview of the campus footprint in the city. 

As a trained urban planner with deep roots in Ignatian spirituality, I have always found particular resonance with the “Composition of Place.” This is a meditation that St. Ignatius encourages throughout the Spiritual Exercises, his lengthy guided retreat, to help retreatants enter more imaginatively into the inner experience of prayerful encounter with the characters of the Gospel scenes. According to the Exercises, the path to union with the Divine occurs not only in cognitive experiences of mental processing of words and ideas, but also in the affective or emotional experiences of imaginative wondering. There is great spiritual potential when we facilitate creative encounters with the nitty gritty realities of the scenes depicted in Scripture. This kind of exercise invites the retreatant to notice the particulars of the setting, with emphasis on the contextual elements of the place.

In urban planning lingo, I see much similarity between this Ignatian “Composition of Place” and the standard planning practice of existing conditions analysis in which practitioners survey a setting or situation, grow in awareness of its reality through observation and other data collection, and then reflectively assess needs and opportunities in relation to the planning process being considered. Both processes similarly require imagination, creativity, engagement with reality, and attentiveness to data of various kinds –  both the small and large details of data. 

Fr. Mike Lamanna, S.J., and I co-led the experience, stopping at five locations on the Capitol Campus and inviting deeper reflection and discussion about the meaning of the University’s growth in this area of the city. 

This walking Examen featured many of the elements of a classic Ignatian meditation that one might experience in the Spiritual Exercises. Fr. Mike Lamanna, SJ, a Jesuit priest and law student in Georgetown Law’s Class of 2025, and I alternated in leading each stage of the Examen. The experience began in St. Aloysius Church on the campus of Gonzaga College High School. This initial station provided the invitation to the experience and oriented the group to the spiritual dimensions of the walk. This transitional moment helped participants move into a reflective rhythm. The walking Examen consisted of five locations on the Capitol Campus, with each stop organized around a core theme related to Georgetown’s history, mission, and values. These locations and themes were: 

  • St. Aloysius Church/Gonzaga College High School (“Gratitude for our History and Desire to Rewrite it”)
  • 55 H Street Dorm (“Home”)
  • 111 Massachusetts Avenue (“Care for our Common Home”)
  • Eleanor Holmes Norton Green of the Law Center (“Justice and Reconciliation”)
  • McCourt School of Public Policy (“the Common Good”) 

Participants were invited to reflect in pairs between locations, sharing ideas and reactions to prompts provided by the organizers. Like a classic Examen, the activity ended with a resolution to act: 

“As I prepare to end this walking Examen, I turn to God with gratitude for this experience – both the joyful insights and whatever challenges it surfaced. I might begin to discern a decision to convert my reflections from today’s walk into some concrete choices. What do I want to learn more about? How would I like to share what I experienced with others? Is there something I am called to do at Georgetown or in the city related to the Capitol Campus? I sit with these possibilities for a few moments.”

The event formally concluded with fellowship over lunch and participants had the opportunity to engage in conversation about their time together. I sensed that this inaugural program would not be the last, and many others at Georgetown would benefit from such a reflective encounter with the Capitol Campus. 

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English Language Center Hosts Annual Panel About Thanksgiving Traditions

This week’s post is about the annual Thanksgiving panel and potluck organized by the English Language Center. 

The Thanksgiving holiday presents an invaluable opportunity to reflect on the diversity of the Georgetown community. The annual Thanksgiving panel hosted by the English Language Center (ELC) is one of the ways this diversity is honored and celebrated. Each year, ELC invites SCS faculty and staff as panelists to reflect for the ELC students about the meanings of the holiday. This conversation elicits laughter, cheers, and curiosity as students, most of whom are newcomers to American life and culture, learn about some differences and similarities in how Thanksgiving is observed in the United States. The panel is followed by a potluck in the atrium, with staff and faculty contributing home-cooked delicacies that give students a real-world taste of Thanksgiving customs. Embodying the themes of the panel discussion, the active hospitality of a Thanksgiving meal brings life to the authentic experience of the holiday. 

Mission in Motion has written before about how Thanksgiving observance has obvious resonance with the Ignatian spiritual emphasis on gratitude, which is primarily expressed and practiced through the Examen. This daily practice invites honest and realistic awareness of one’s inner movements of emotions, feelings, thoughts, sensations, etc., both the consoling and the desolating, for the sake of discerning how one is being moved to make choices. The focus of awareness in the Examen is intentionally about small details, the kind of things that often escape our notice when we are moving too quickly through our days and weeks. Savoring the small stuff of our experience can increase the likelihood that we notice more opportunities to give thanks. The data of the day, both the big details and the smaller ones, invite us to ponder with curiosity how we are being moved to act more generously in the world. An attitude of gratitude can lead to the disposition of loving kindness. 

This year’s panelists affirmed the centrality of gratitude in their experiences of the holiday by pointing to both the small details and larger significance of their observance of the holiday. I heard Thanksgiving gratitude expressed on the panel in many ways, including: much-needed rest from work and school at a busy time in the semester; the annual occasion of being with family and friends often dispersed around the country; and the longed-for opportunity to be in a safe space with trusted people who can disagree (sometimes vigorously) while maintaining the bonds of affection. Others named gratitude about the opportunity to shape the holiday in ways that reflect particular cultural identities and expressions. For example, Frances Bajet, SCS Senior Director of Communications and Events, reflected: 

“It was wonderful participating in ELC’s Thanksgiving event because it was an opportunity to share a few of my Filipino family’s holiday traditions. For instance, we always have some type of pancit, i.e. a Filipino noodle dish in addition to turkey! Although Thanksgiving is known as a very American holiday, my favorite aspect is how we’re able to tailor it to our own family’s traditions and culture.”

I believe the students walked away with a clear impression that there is no single way to live out Thanksgiving and this diversity adds to the holiday’s richness as a cultural ritual. As we contemplate how we desire to enter into the upcoming holiday season, I hope this Thanksgiving helps us grow our awareness for the gifts (small and large) of our lives.

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New Mission and Ministry Program on the Capitol Campus Explores “Practicing Pluralism”

Rabbi Rachel Gartner, seen here at last year’s SCS Student Retreat, helped co-facilitate a new staff series offered this fall by Mission and Ministry on the Capitol Campus, entitled “Practicing Pluralism”

Recently, Mission and Motion has devoted increased attention to the evolution and growth of Georgetown’s Capitol Campus, a unified anchor of academic programs seeking to leverage the experiential learning opportunities of proximity to the U.S. Capitol. Over the next years, the consolidation of different Georgetown schools and units on the campus will mean increased opportunities for collaboration and coordination. 

To foster more cross-unit community building, Mission and Ministry offered a staff-focused program this fall, entitled “Practicing Pluralism.” Co-facilitated by myself and Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Advisor for Spiritual Care and Co-Director of the In Your Shoes™ Research and Practice Center, the four-part series was organized to address these questions: 

  • How can I maintain my authenticity as a person and the values that matter most to me while serving others whose viewpoints and perspectives conflict with mine?
  • What does it actually mean to realize a Community in Diversity?
  • How to acknowledge our real differences while striving for meaningful unity that respects our identities?
  • How can I remain centered and focused when I hear things that are very difficult for me to hear, particularly when leading others through hard conversation? 

The series, offered for staff on the Capitol Campus, was an intentional effort to more deeply explore the meanings and applications of being a “Community in Diversity,” one of the core values of The Spirit of Georgetown. It was also presented as an opportunity to build more relationships between staff members from across the campus, such as from the McCourt School of Public Policy and SCS, to name a few 

With a particular emphasis on the Ignatian and Jewish traditions, “Practicing Pluralism” began with the foundational commitments in religious traditions that affirm the case for pluralism. The Jewish tradition of reading texts in pairs and engaging in critical interpretative engagement with Torah affirm the need for pluralistic perspectives and views on the same source material and shared traditions. The Ignatian tradition, animated by the Post-Vatican II spirit of the Catholic Church, has made pluralism a guiding principle of Jesuit institutions. At a 2022 conference, organized by Georgetown’s Berkley Center, Jesuit Superior General Arturo Sosa affirmed the modern Jesuit embrace of pluralism when he said: “I prefer to speak of cultures in the plural in order to highlight one of humanity’s greatest riches: cultural diversity. Cultural diversity offers one of the most wonderful ways to participate in the creation is born in God and his Word.” The series invited participants to consider these foundations but also to assess their own trusted sources for positively engaging with pluralism. 

“Practicing Pluralism” was deliberately designed not as a seminar with a large reading load, but as a space for discussion and practice. All involved were invited to consider what is both energizing and challenging about a commitment to embodying pluralism in our work. Some skills introduced include practicing receptivity by resetting the table and asking questions that follow the meaning. Other practice-oriented suggestions included ways to create safety in situations of conflict by reinstating good intentions (this is a skill emphasized in “Crucial Conversations,” a book that this Mission and Ministry has used to help units in SCS work constructively through difficult conversations). 

This inaugural offering presents much promise for the future of the series’ stated goal to help build community on the Capitol Campus. All of us at Georgetown are encouraged to reflect individually and collectively about the gifts and talents we bring to realizing a true Community in Diversity. 

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Former Georgetown President, Fr. Leo O’Donovan, S.J., Reflects on “Coming Home”

This week’s post reflects on the Sacred Lecture given by Fr. Leo O’Donovan, S.J., during Jesuit Heritage Month. 

A signature event of November’s Jesuit Heritage Month at Georgetown took place this week in the Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart. Organized as a Sacred Lecture (which Mission in Motion has written about before), the event featured former Georgetown President, Fr. Leo O’Donovan, S.J., reflecting at length about “Coming Home.” The intention of the lecture was to promote deeper consideration about the various meanings of the word “home,” which can be opened up with questions like: “Is ‘home’ the place we can always return to? How does the Gospel call us to respond to ‘the homeless’? Is ‘home’ an appropriate image for heaven? And what practical effect does our understanding of home have on how we live our daily lives?” In an hour’s time, Fr. O’Donovan gave the audience plenty to think about in response to these questions. 

The lecture provoked some deeper pondering about how “home” can be understood both as a particular place in time with material reality as well as a more cosmically-significant reference. Fr. O’Donovan had in mind the person of Jesus who was incarnated, in one sense, into the material history of human existence at a particular place in time but also, on the other hand, is a living, present reality according to Christian Theology in the wider cosmos. In this way, God is both very particular and very much totally complete in a way that no finite person, place, or thing can be. This might seem like a very philosophical observation, but I think that the duality of “home” as particular and universal has much relevance for us at Georgetown. 

A panoramic view of Dahlgren Chapel during this week’s Sacred Lecture. Dahlgren is the spiritual home of the University’s Catholic community. 

Recently, Mission and Motion has increased explicit reflection about the meaning of the Capitol Campus’s evolution  in downtown D.C. I found myself making some concrete connections between the various meanings of “home” presented in the Sacred Lecture and our understanding of the Capitol Campus as a growing “home” for Georgetown. Fr. O’Donovan talked about how beauty can be uncovered in the “always new, always surprising.” In so many ways, the Capitol Campus, a project very much still in progess, reflects this potential. So much is new and so much is and will be surprising about this experience. But the Capitol Campus is also already a home to so many: both the existing academic units that inhabit the spaces of the Downtown East neighborhood, but also the student residents who occupy the rooms of the 55H dormitory. This literal home will grow to become more of a home to more students as the Capitol Campus enlarges. 

As we reflect on the meaning of the Georgetown “home,” we are invited to consider the many ways that the University is a home. In the religious sense, Georgetown is a Catholic, Jesuit home for all faiths. In the disciplinary sense, Georgetown is a home for a wide array of humanistic, professional, and graduate programs. In the geographic sense, Georgetown is a global home for many different campuses, institutes, and experiential learning opportunities. And in the urban sense, Georgetown is a “home” within the home of Washington, D.C., a physical reality becoming more and more evident as the Capitol Campus emerges in new buildings and facility renovations. In these ways, there are both particular manifestations of Georgetown as a physical home but also ways that Georgetown is a more universal home in light of our mission. 

Fr. O’ Donovan shared that “home” is at one level the places where we most learn to be ourselves. This process is only realized if we give our time in a “home” to patience and fidelity to our truest selves. As we end this week and prepare for the months ahead, I invite you to consider where you are finding your “home” these days. How might you be called to grow in self-awareness and self-actualization about who you most authentically are in the places you call home?  

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Civic Examen Helps Georgetown Community Reflect on the Emotions of Election Season

This week’s post reflects on the range of emotions caused by election season. In the Ignatian tradition, the examen is an indispensable spiritual resource for navigating and discerning the movements and directions of our feelings. 

As the nation’s political capital, Washington, D.C. is uniquely focused on politics and policy. There are certainly other parts of the country where the daily chatter about the latest in political news is loud but no place comes close to the high volume in D.C. With voters besieged by television, streaming, and internet advertisements, with news coverage dominated by commentary about national, state, and local elections, and with polls continuously offering assessments of candidate races, it seems that conversation about the coming election is everywhere. At Georgetown, a university with a stated commitment to realizing justice and the common good, leveraging its D.C. location to support a range of curricular and co-curricular programs related to politics and policy, discourse, discussion, and activity related to election season is omnipresent. 

While there are many in our community who follow political events as part of their work and study and relish in this, many others find themselves overwhelmed by the frenetic pace–not only of political news but also the saturation of political chatter in seemingly every space of our lives. As Pope Francis reminds not only global Catholics but people of good will around the world, political participation is a virtue and a means to realizing the common good. Even if the frequency and volume at election season can feel like too much, it is important to remember that the democratic process demands active engagement. However fatigued we might become by them (especially as they seemingly start earlier and earlier every cycle), political elections are a healthy and necessary part of exercising our civic responsibilities. 

Just because elections are important, and our participation in them carries moral obligations, does not mean that we should not express our stress and overwhelmed feelings during election season. I have noticed in my work just how much the elections on November 5 are bearing down on members of our community. At times like this, we are reminded that reflection resources are critically important whenever we find ourselves needing to take a critical distance from whatever is pressing in on our daily lives. Thankfully, Georgetown is in a position to offer spaces and resources to its community that encourage us to pause, reflect, discern, and then return back to the pressing actions of our personal and professional activities at election time. 

Last week, as part of a university-wide menu of Election Care programs, I offered “A Civic Examen: Spiritual Grounding in the Ignatian Tradition at Election Time.” Modeled on the adapted examen created by the national organization, Ignatian Solidarity Network, this civic examen brought together the university community desiring a reflective and quiet space to journey together the tumult of feelings at election time. Ignatian spirituality, animated by a practical desire to help busy and civically-engaged people discern the inner movements of God in the midst of engaged lives for the purpose of more loving and mission-energized actions in the world, is well-suited to this kind of reflection. And the Ignatian charism, oriented as it is by a commitment to discerning personal and collective actions that serve the needs of the oppressed and marginalized, has a lot to say about why political activity is necessary. 

I would like to offer a few of the reflective prompts from the civic examen. I hope these open-ended invitations from the Ignatian Solidarity Network to deeper prayer and meditation open up the inner space needed to slow down the loudest and most challenging feelings that you are experiencing on the eve of election time: 

  • Consider the current realities of our country – for what and for whom are you most grateful? 
  • As you reflect on the United States and your participation in it, what energizes you or brings you closer to God? What distracts you or makes you feel farther away from God? 
  • What communities, groups, or aspects of creation in the United States need healing and reconciliation? 
  • Consider one or two of the strongest desires or feelings evoked by your prayer and reflection about the United States and your civic participation in it and bring these directly to God. 
  • Regardless of the outcomes of next week’s elections, how will you promote the common good in your personal actions? 
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Fall 2024 Graduate, Law, and Professional Student Retreat Emphasizes Listening to the Voice Within

This year’s Graduate, Law, and Professional Retreat attracted nearly 40 students from across Georgetown’s campuses. 

A now established annual tradition is an overnight fall weekend retreat at the Calcagnini Contemplative Center that brings together graduate, law, and professional students from across Georgetown’s campuses. This milestone will become even more important as the Capitol Campus grows and the population of graduate students becomes more spatially concentrated downtown. Georgetown’s graduate students represent such a diverse portfolio of academic and professional disciplines that building community spaces for this dispersed population is important. Developing a greater sense of communal culture and identity at the graduate level can yield fruitful outcomes, including partnerships and inter-disciplinary connections that lead to new research and new applied projects. 

This year’s retreat took place on the weekend of October 19-20, attracting nearly 40 students from all of Georgetown’s graduate, law, and professional programs. The cross-campus collaborative spirit among the students was also matched by the retreat leadership team, which included both student leaders, as well as Mission and Ministry staff and chaplains from the John Main Center for Meditation and Interreligious Dialogue, the Law Center, and the Capitol Campus. 

The retreat theme, “Rest, Recharge, and Renew,” provided opportunities for individual and group reflection as well as time to enjoy the majestic fall weekend at the Calcagnini Retreat Center. 

The retreat, themed again as “Rest, Recharge, Renew,” featured a mixture of short presentations led by the retreat team, structured small and large group reflections, unstructured time for individual reflections, as well as lots of time for fellowship and socializing. The autumn sun was resplendent and provided an inspiring background for the retreat’s meals, solo and group hikes, and general rest and relaxation. While the experience is fundamentally about students taking a break from their busy personal and academic lives, the retreat does present meaningful opportunities to more deeply explore the resources within and across spiritual traditions represented at Georgetown. 

Students took advantage of the opportunity to rest during the annual Graduate, Law, and Professional Student Retreat. 

One common theme in all of the talks and personal reflections from retreat guides was the need for active listening skills. So often, we assume that active listening is only about how we listen to other people. Certainly, developing the internal capacity to listen patiently with a desire for understanding others is greatly needed in a society and culture that does not always value true dialogue and intentional interpersonal communication. But there is also a need to actively listen to oneself, including the small voice inside of us that animates and expresses our truest selves. The ancient Greek axiom, “know thyself,” cannot happen without cultivating these methods of growing in interior awareness to the direction of one’s inner compass. 

Doing this consistently and regularly means committing to certain practices of rest, recharge, and renew. Michael Goldman, Jewish Chaplain for the Law Center, pointed out in his talk that we all need to take time for a kind of Sabbath or rest each week. Sonia Robledo, Program Coordinator for the Law Center, emphasized that we need to cultivate mindfulness about when our human batteries need recharging with rest, fun, healthy food, and prayer. Lisa Directo Davis, Program Director for the John Main Center, noted that regular somatic reflection about the state of our bodies is foundational to healthy contemplation and meditation. And I offered up the Ignatian examen of consciousness as a routine way for busy adults to take needed daily rest. Such moments offer an opportunity to contemplate the subtle emotional movements that move in us and ultimately lead us to spiritually-grounded discernment that our adult vocations call us to.

The hope is that students left this weekend experience with a small taste of retreat, so that they return to their active lives with a living memory of what is possible when we actively integrate rest, recharge, and renew into our daily lives.

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SCS Open House Creates Opportunity for Hospitality and Reflection on Georgetown’s Mission

This week’s Mission in Motion reflects on mission-oriented new degree programs at SCS tackling pressing economic, social, and environmental challenges. 

As the nation’s attention turned this week to the devastating impact of another high-powered weather disaster (if you’d like to support disaster relief efforts, the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service has identified organizations serving the affected regions), I was reflective about recent curricular news at SCS. The School has launched a new “Executive Master’s in Humanitarian Crisis & Emergency Management” program as part of its portfolio of market-focused and social impact-oriented degrees. You can read more about this new opportunity, “SCS Launches Exec. Master’s in Humanitarian Crisis & Emergency Management.” This new program follows another recent curricular addition by SCS in the creation of a Master of Professional Studies in Artificial Intelligence Management. You can read more about this new program, “Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies Launches Master’s in Artificial Intelligence Management.” 

I had both of these new offerings on my mind as the School opened its doors this week for one of its regular prospective student open houses. Regular readers of Mission in Motion will know that this blog pays some attention to the open house event. These open houses are more than occasions for the transaction of information and specific details about the admission process. I believe that the open house format, complete with nourishing and appetizing food as well as a full presence of spirited and committed faculty and staff on hand, is a reflection of the University’s commitment to a long-standing tradition of hospitality. I relish in observing the spontaneous conversations that arise during this event, watching at a slight distance as inquiring adults learn more about the many SCS offerings available. I also notice what happens when staff and faculty from across different programs convene in a shared space and pause for a moment of reflection in between providing resources to inquirers.

The addition of new programs that are tackling pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges from the perspective of skilled and ethical professional practitioners reminds us that a Georgetown education at SCS is about more than career advancement. The spirit in the space at open house also suggests, however implicitly, that everyone engaged in conversation is aware of this deeper purpose. New visitors to the building find visible indicators of the Spirit of Georgetown and the University’s Jesuit heritage and mission. They also experience this mission presence in the way that programs market degree outcomes in how alumni engage in service to the common good and the ways that staff and faculty speak with pride about how SCS prepares students to lead professional lives in service of others. 

There is much discourse about the changing nature of the higher education landscape. So many factors have affected what content, skills, and values are being offered to prospective students around the world. Technological innovations have greatly impacted how programs are delivered and in what formats. Global challenges, like the advent of artificial intelligence and the persisting reality of natural disasters requiring coordinated emergency response, make such professionally oriented, practice-centric programs so important. But what makes the Georgetown value proposition distinctive is the University’s mission. I hope that everyone partaking in the student lifecycle, from prospective students all the way through alumni, can take some time to appreciate this dimension of the Georgetown experience. 

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Another Election Season Resource: The Ignatian Presupposition

This week’s post explores the Ignatian “presupposition” of good intentions as an additional resource for the challenging debates and disagreements that arise during election season. 

In recent weeks, Mission in Motion has considered the many ways that Georgetown’s mission, values, and spiritual traditions can be animated during this political season. At the root of this encouragement is a recognition that active participation in civic life is a core virtue and part of the University’s ethos as a Jesuit university located in the nation’s capital. Contributing to the common good through public service is a defining feature of Georgetown’s educational legacy. But active participation in civic life also comes with significant costs. 

In this nation and throughout the world there is a persistent challenge in how to maintain and nurture the basic mechanisms of democratic practices and norms. To fully invest in the project of civic democracy is to recognize that active engagement requires some essential virtues related to managing conflict that arises in the course of vigorous debate and disagreement. How to disagree without being disagreeable? How to enter into policy decisions and political choices that do not go the way you wanted them to go without losing faith in the process or faith in fellow human beings? How to locate hope during times of crisis and hopelessness? 

All of these questions require meaningful reflection and some sustained introspection. Thankfully, the Jesuit traditions of education and organizational strategy provide some resources for this task. In particular, St. Ignatius of Loyola’s insistence on a generous interpretation of another’s words and actions, referred to as the “presupposition,” can be an asset for this ongoing project. The “presupposition” derives from Annotation 22 in the Spiritual Exercises, the Ignatian manual of prayer that has been practiced for 500 years: 

“We ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. Further, if we cannot interpret it favorably one should ask the other how the other means it. If that meaning is wrong, one should correct the person with love: and if that is not enough, one should search out every appropriate means through which, by understanding the statement in a good way, it may be saved.”

A recent article on the website of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities about work happening at Loyola University Chicago on political disagreement using the “presupposition” resource helps make the connection. In “Seeking the Common Good with Ignatian Civil Discourse at Loyola Chicago,” we learn about the “leaps of faith” that are necessary in order to engage in meaningful dialogue that embraces civic virtues, like the right to participate in the public square equally and ensuring that human dignity is preserved in the process. The article is reflective about what needs to change for us if we are to engage in this spirit of “presupposition.” Some suggestions include reframing how we define winning in the civic participation process, how we strive for compromise that charts mutually acceptable possibilities in a pluralistic society, and remembering “how” we engage in the process is often more important than “what” we say.

It would be a mistake to confuse this approach with simply accepting ideas and policies one disagrees with in a passive way without any contestation or challenge. But this reframing of the “presupposition” invites us to reconsider our own humanity and the humanity of others whenever we challenge particular ideas or structural realities in need of reform. The Ignatian tradition can help all of us sustain our continued activity in the public square with hopefully more generosity and mutual understanding.