A screenshot of the Instagram account of Georgetown’s Campus Ministry. You can follow along a series of Magis Immersion pilgrimages to Ignatian Spain, involving students, faculty, staff, and alumni.
“The time has come to set out for sacred ground … that will stir our sense of wonder. It is down the path to the deeply real where time stops and we are seized by the mysteries. This is the journey that we cannot Not take. The old hermit along the side of the road whispers, Stranger, Pass by that which you do not love.” ― Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred
The Ignatian Year officially ends on July 31, 2022, on the Feast Day of St. Ignatius. Georgetown has celebrated this 500-year anniversary in many ways throughout the last 12 months, including a Storytelling event in the fall semester and a Sacred Lecture in the spring. A University committee came together and, among other things, created a universally appealing bookmark intended to spur discussion, reflection, and action about the Ignatian Year across the campuses.
And as the Ignatian Year officially comes to a close, Georgetown has embarked on a series of pilgrimage trips to the Ignatian holy sites in Spain during the months of June and July. Separate experiences for students, faculty and staff, and alumni are offering participants a direct opportunity to explore together the sacred sites of the Jesuits’ founder.
Pilgrimage is an appropriate way to bring this year to an end. For St. Ignatius, all of the spiritual life is essentially a pilgrimage. Ignatius’ own autobiography is described as a “pilgrim’s journey” and details how he literally traveled much of the world and figuratively traveled in his own soul in order to discover the ultimate, authentic purpose of his life. Andria Wisler, Executive Director of Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service, is fond of sharing Cousineau’s quote above at the beginning of Magis Immersion Trips (like this one to the U.S.-Mexico Border). There is a strong link between Cousineau’s images of the pilgrimage as an of real holy ground that stirs wonder and the Ignatian notion of Finding God in All Things.
For St. Ignatius, no experience is too mundane to potentially become an encounter with the Divine. By paying attention to the details of our outward and inward journeys, whether they be the magnificent Spanish sites of Ignatius’ life or our own daily commutes, we can enter into deeper communion with the transcendent mystery of our lives. It is through this daily pilgrimage, and the discernment that it entails, that we travel closer and closer to our ultimate destination and purpose.
In the coming weeks, Mission in Motion will share more about Georgetown SCS’s participation in the Ignatian pilgrimages to Spain.
This week’s Mission in Motion reflects on a recent podcast by Georgetown’s Institute for Transformational Leadership. Listen to the podcast.
Of the many deeply mission-aligned programs at SCS, the Institute for Transformational Leadership (ITL) is one of the most obvious. Mission in Motionhas previously reflected on the deep connections between Georgetown’s mission and values and the work of ITL. Recently, ITL, through its podcast, hosted an important discussion about the relationship between body intelligence and transformational leadership. ITL academic director Bill Pullen interviewed Marcia Feola, a master certified coach and faculty member in ITL.
What resonated strongly is an opportunity in the conversation to make more explicit the relationship between leadership coaching and a diversity of religious and spiritual wisdom teachings about the body. Bill and Marcia use the language of “whole person” to describe an approach to embodied leadership development, which links up nicely with the commitment in the Spirit of Georgetown to “Educating the Whole Person.” This value encourages all of our endeavors at Georgetown SCS to integrate the holistic development of the human person’s many facets – intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual – in the learning experience.
The podcast helped me appreciate how much good leaders need to attend to knowledge of their own bodies in the work of exercising transformational leadership with and for others. It is common to speak of the need for emotional intelligence, a reflective self-awareness of how affective sensations influence one’s thoughts and behavior. But body intelligence is no less important. And this focus on the body is manifested in different religious and spiritual traditions.
Ignatian spirituality, which gives rise to the Spirit of Georgetown, emphasizes the body as a location for encountering God. St. Ignatius of Loyola, in the Spiritual Exercises, invites the retreatant to experience the mystery and love of the Divine by encountering God in one’s own body and in the body of Christ. God’s desire to be in relationship with human beings does not occur in the abstract but through the fleshy, incarnational reality of the human body. The Australian Jesuits offer further insights about this connection between the body and the Spiritual Exercises in this piece: “Ignatian Spirituality and the Wisdom of the Body.”
Other faith traditions also speak to the central importance of the body in the quest for spiritual insight and knowledge. The Jewish tradition describes the need for healthy living with particular emphasis on caring for the body. So many of the teachings and laws of the Hebrew Bible focus on care for the physical self. The Islamic tradition similarly draws attention to this connection between a sound body and a healthy spiritual life. For Muslims, the human body is a gift from God and humans are responsible for being good stewards of this gift.
Practicing care for the body happens in many ways. A mindfulness meditation practice, like the one offered in the SCS Daily Digital Meditations (sign up here), typically begins with a body scan exercise that relaxes the body and makes one more present and aware of their physical sensations. The body communicates its status with all sorts of sensations, but making sense of these signals requires paying mindful attention to them. Reflective awareness of our emotions, another key feature of mindful meditation, depends on our achieving some sort of grounded centeredness in our physical bodies. In these SCS mindfulness meditations, one enters into greater emotional awareness through conscious breathing exercises. The body, the mind, and the spirit all co-exist in an interdependent and interrelated relationship.
I encourage you to listen to the ITL podcast on body intelligence and reflect on how you might grow in deeper awareness of how your body affects – in both positive and negative ways – how you lead in the world.
Last week’s post was dedicated to spiritual and self-development resources, namely an examen meditation inspired by the Jesuit tradition, that one might try out during the summer months when life and work tend to be slower for many people. But summer is actually a very busy season for others, including the dedicated team of staff and faculty that run Georgetown SCS’s Summer Sessions and Summer High School programs. Mission in Motion sat down with Caitlin Cochran, who oversees the SCS summer team, to discuss the mission commitment of the summer programs, the opportunities and challenges of this work, and personal reflections on her time at the University. An alumna of Georgetown College with years of service at the University, Caitlin is also nearing the completion of a doctoral program in education focused on leadership and learning in organizations.
This week’s Mission in Motion post is an interview with Caitlin Cochran, SCS Associate Dean, Summer and Special Programs. She reflects on the mission significance of Georgetown’s diverse summer offerings and provides some insights about the status of higher education.
1. You’ve been a member of the Georgetown community for some time, beginning as an undergraduate student and now years later serving as the SCS Associate Dean for Summer and Special Programs. Can you share some reflections about your Georgetown experience and what stands out to you during your journey at the University?
It has been a long journey, and so many things stand out. GU is just a really special place, and so is SCS. I actually chose Georgetown for college because I wanted to get far away from my hometown, but I struggled to fit in and find a place. The term “imposter syndrome” was not really used much then, but I definitely felt like I didn’t belong. I worked 30+ hours a week, actually for SCS, but it was called SSCE then (School for Summer and Continuing Education), plus I was a student-athlete and had to be enrolled full-time every semester. So I didn’t have a lot of free time to make friends or try things out like other students, and I really let that get to me. But one of the best things about Georgetown is that while you are here, you meet people who change you for the better.
I’ve been here a long time, so that list of people is pretty long for me and includes faculty, coaches, teammates, co-workers, and, of course, my former deans. I actually don’t think I would have finished my degree here if it wasn’t for my advising deans in the College. I remember talking to Dean Cloke after class one day because I wanted to take a leave of absence my junior year. I was tired, anxious, depressed, burnt out, and for some inexplicable reason I registered for Mathematical Modeling which basically sealed the deal on my self-doubt and made me wonder why I was even here. After reassuring me that I did not need to be a mathematician, Dean Cloke said to me, “It doesn’t matter how you got here. What matters is what you do with the opportunity you have.” I don’t know why that made all the difference, but it did. Maybe it’s because I needed the reassurance that indeed I was not a unique failure in the system and I was not the first (or last) student to struggle. When I think back on that conversation, I can still feel a sense of relief and freedom at a renewed understanding of the word “opportunity.”
My education here was never anything I took for granted, yet I almost gave it up in a blur of stress and loneliness. What has driven me since then is finding ways to provide opportunities for others and making it easier and more accessible for students, especially those doing it all on their own. In a lot of ways, I have come full circle and I can only hope that I have a similar impact along the way that my deans had on me.
2. SCS runs many programs in the summer. Can you tell us more about these many different programs and how they all fit together as a unified whole?
The summer team offers something for everyone. Literally, a learner at almost any stage can find something with us. On our non-credit and pre-college side, we design our offerings around career development theory which explains the different stages one experiences as they explore, test, and ultimately develop an affinity and identity within a certain field. High school-age students are in the career exploration stage, which focuses on information seeking, self-cognition, and testing the environment. So we provide opportunities for about 2,000 students every summer to experiment with different areas of study in a variety of ways so they can start to determine if the area and the environment match with their interests and abilities. A big part of this is reflection and understanding one’s beliefs, values, and passions, so incorporating Jesuit tools like the examen or simple reflection is built into a lot of our programs.
The high school students can also take our credit courses. We typically see students who are further along in their career exploration participate in these courses, and many of them are testing the waters here at Georgetown to see if this is the right fit for them. Anecdotally, I have come across quite a few GU undergrads who participated in one of our programs while they were in high school, so that must be a good sign!
In addition to the almost 200 high school students who enroll in our credit courses, we also serve over 1,000 GU undergraduates plus close to 200 visiting students from around the world in our Summer Sessions. Students range in age and stage in these courses. By that I mean, some students are still exploring career options while others are actually exploring career changes. We have some students who are coming back to college to take courses required for a graduate or professional program or to reskill in preparation for a new job. And for our international students, our summer session courses are a way for them to experience higher education while being exposed to American culture.
3. Your service at Georgetown has been distinguished by your commitment to the University’s mission and values. For example, you serve on the leadership group of the SCS Diversity, Equity, Belonging, and Inclusion Council (DEBIC). In what ways do you think the summer programs that you oversee uniquely animate Georgetown’s mission?
One of the things I love about my job is that I get some freedom that a lot of people in similar positions in higher education don’t get–freedom to try things that aren’t always about enrollments or revenue. Education accessibility, affordability, and opportunity are truly important to me and need to be a part of my work, and I am so lucky to have a team of people who are just as passionate about these issues as I am. Despite long days and heavy workloads, I have never had a teammate shy away from helping with a mission-driven program.
Our Summer College Immersion Program is the one that always comes to mind because it is long-standing and has proven to be effective. In the 12 years the program has been running, close to 85 percent of SCIP alumni graduate college in four years, which is over 30 percent higher than the national average. We’ve even seen close to 100 SCIP alumni graduate from Georgetown.
New this year, we are partnering with SFS to offer a program for HBCU students interested in exploring security studies as a career option. We have the chance to administratively support this program and be “behind the scenes” which is a new perspective for us but one we are happy to take on so we can be a part of these students’ journeys and embody our values.
4. As a higher education professional and scholar-practitioner studying and writing about leadership in organizations, do you have any final reflections to share?
We’ve all heard it already, but higher education is truly at a critical moment right now, in so many ways. There has always been a tension between the desire to change and evolve and the need to remain stable and true to traditions, but we see the unintended consequences of resisting change. From very real decreases in enrollments and students questioning the value of a degree to students demanding change because the systems and processes were not designed for them–these are all consequences of maintaining the status quo of certain normative systems, structures, and cultures. And these systems, structures, and cultures are at the very heart of the student experience. Faculty and administrators have a role to play in creating this environment. As it is now, there are pockets of individuals or departments who are ready, willing, and able to embrace change; however, leaders at all levels need to embrace change if we want to course correct and change people’s minds and hearts about higher education. And some of that change may seem radical and scary. Things like rethinking degree requirements, faculty tenure, and how to truly support a diverse student body could have a meaningful, positive, and lasting impact.
I would be remiss if I did not emphasize the importance of university staff in all of this. So often the focus and attention and accolades go to faculty, but staff play a critical role, too. I worry about the state of higher education when staff everywhere are burned out, under-resourced, and overwhelmed. We are all human and have a finite capacity to withstand certain conditions, and when we are near our capacity so consistently, things break down. Interpersonal relationships and communication suffers. Processes break down. People break down. Cultures break down. In our ecosystem, when staff break down, faculty break down and then students break down. It behooves us to take care of one another and for leadership to look after and value its staff as much as they value faculty and students.
Summer can be an excellent time for deeper reflection. The prospect of some rest and relaxation with friends and family is energizing and renewing. Of course, not everyone has a lighter schedule of activities and work when others are headed to beaches, pools, or outdoor barbecues. At SCS, the school’s summer team handles both the Summer Session and Summer High School programs at Georgetown. The dedicated staff expects nearly 3,000 students and the team is hard at work preparing for the first in-person summer program since 2019. Mission in Motion has previously amplified the work of the summer team, particularly the Summer College Immersion Program, a deeply mission-aligned three-week Georgetown curricular and co-curricular residential experience for rising high school seniors from the Cristo Rey Network, KIPP Foundation, and other select school systems, networks, and community organization.
This week’s Mission in Motion invites readers to take some time in the summer for quiet meditation, suggesting a form of the examen tailored to summer-time.
No matter how much down time you can expect this summer, I encourage you to make some space for dedicated reflection, prayer, and meditation. There are many options for engaging in such spiritual exercise. You might consider logging into one of the SCS Daily Digitation Meditations (sign up here), taking a nature walk, or doing some slow reading. You may also consider adding the Jesuit-styled Examen of consciousness to your menu of inner practices. The examen, a style of reverential reflection on the meaning of your daily experiences that arises out of the tradition of Jesuit spirituality, is an especially useful tool for busy people. St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, emphasized flexibility and adaptability in the selection of spiritual practices that meet one’s needs. You can try out the examen in a way that works with your life circumstances and commitments.
If you find yourself this summer with extra time and space to devote to your inner life, I encourage you to try out the examen. And here is a suggested framework for a uniquely summer-time reflection:
Take a few moments to enter into a time of stillness. Attend to your body and mind quieting down. As you transition into quiet, put yourself into contact with the Transcendent of your life, whatever the sacred relationship that grounds you. Allow yourself to experience the nearness of the Divine.
As you feel yourself letting go of your distractions and preoccupations, allow yourself to settle your body, mind, and spirit. Quiet yourself by taking some intentional breaths. Try breathing in “peace” and breathing out “distraction.” Move onto the next step when you find your whole self quieting down and settling into this sacred experience.
Now, use all of your senses to experience again the major moments of your day (or if you are reflecting on a longer period of time, your week, or month, or past semester). Savor all of the significant moments, tasting, smelling, and hearing again all of the details. Imagine that you are at rest in the shallow waters and these experiences are like the incoming waves that come into shore one after the next. Just let yourself feel all of these memories again.
As you sift through the major moments, get in touch with your feelings of gratitude. For what in the past day (or week, month, etc.) fills you with gratitude and connects you more closely with the source of these gifts? In the spirit of summer time, what experiences of your life help encourage you to take time for rest and relaxation? Where in your life are you finding peace?
Now spend some time with the opposite experiences and feelings. What in your life is drying you out and sapping up your energy? Moving from the personal to the interpersonal and then to the societal, what events in the world cause you desolation and even despair? How are these feelings of desolation affecting your actions and habits? Sit with these feelings, however difficult, for a little time.
Begin to bring your time of quiet examen to a close by looking ahead. With whatever new insights or deeper awareness that you’ve gained in these moments of stillness, how would you like to make a change in your next day, week, or month? Are you sensing an invitation to become a more generous, loving, and mindful person? End your examen by giving thanks for this time and reminding yourself of your goodness.
This whole sequence can take 10-15 minutes. One of the best things about the examen is that you can do it at any point in your day. In these summer months, as you take stock of your need for rest and recharge, I hope that this invitation to quiet reflection gives you some inner resources for the journey ahead.
In the last few weeks, I have struggled to find sensible words to use in response to the mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York. I know that I am not alone in this feeling. Words feel unsatisfactory to the task of making sense of these hate-filled massacres. The pattern of mass violence is all too predictable in our national life: unimaginable death has been routinized and, as a consequence, a temptation sets in to become numb to the carnage and inert about making positive changes in the way we live as a collective.
In this week’s post, Mission in Motion considers hope in the midst of the misery of recent mass shootings and other armed violence. The recent Class of 2020 Baccalaureate Mass, with reflections from President DeGioia and a homily by Fr. Greg Schenden, S.J., centered on the theme of hope. You can watch the mass here.
So it might come as a shock to some that the resource that I’m going to these days is hope. Let me be clear at the beginning: I am not talking about a facile, saccharine, naïve hope that is based in wishful and unrealistic thinking. No, I am talking about the kind of critical hope that arises out of Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit tradition and the other religious traditions that have their home at this university. In the midst of this continuing cycle of despair and desolation about the now routinized cycles of senseless loss, I think that a bold and daring hope is what grounds me and can serve as a shared resource for all of us in these difficult days. Because hope is a virtue that extends beyond individual thoughts and actions and calls on everyone to share together in the work of healing, mercy, and justice.
Hope is especially important to name as it relates to our task as a university community in responding to the crisis of armed violence in the United States. The educational mission of Georgetown, grounded as it is in Catholic Social Teaching, reminds us that a just society balances rights, on the one hand, with responsibilities, on the other. We are responsible for one another and have a special obligation to the most vulnerable in our society. Our learning, teaching, and service at Georgetown invites us to evaluate how we are called to participate in the healing and restoration of the brokenness in our society and culture. How can we apply our learning and our professional gifts and talents to build a society that makes its members, especially its most marginalized, feel safe and welcomed?
The actions needed in a time like this are both small and large. In our daily lives and interactions, how can we instill the virtues of tenderness and compassion? How can we extend grace, forgiveness, and seemingly minor acts of charity in the day-to-day? How can we be more sensitive about the language we employ and consider how it is received by others? And in the larger work of structural change: how can we contribute to changes in law and policy that can help reduce the overall incidence of armed violence? What gifts, talents, and resources of our own can we add in a shared struggle for peace and justice in our country and throughout the world?
All of this talk of hope, as unexpected as it might seem these days, comes on the heels of two weekends of Commencement celebration at Georgetown. Dr. Shaun Harper invited the 2022 graduates of SCS to live into the continuation of hope as an antidote to the social ills that plague us. And this past weekend, both President DeGioia and Fr. Greg Schenden, S.J., Director of Campus Ministry, in the Baccalaureate Mass for the Class of 2020, called out the theme of hope from the Jesuit tradition of spirituality. President DeGioia, reflecting on a reading from St. Paul, invited the assembly to be witnesses to hope and consolation through all of the loss, pain, sadness, difficulty, and disruption. And Fr. Schenden, referring to the writing of the Jesuit historian Fr. John O’Malley, reminded the audience that our mission at Georgetown is to form people for others who serve as ministers of consolation. In a wounded and weary world, this is the kind of hope that we so desperately need.
Last week, Georgetown SCS celebrated the Class of 2022 with multiple ceremonies. The annual Tropaia awards took place in Gaston Hall on May 18 and the traditional Commencement exercises occurred on Healy Lawn on May 20. This was the first time since 2019 that both of these formal proceedings were realized in-person.
The collective joy and relief of returning to one another, a theme first picked in Mission in Motion at the Mass of the Holy Spring that began the 2021–2022 Academic Year, were palpably present during these events. And while the SCS community continues to adapt to the changing conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Commencement sets into motion a renewed way of proceeding at Georgetown.
There were many insights, ideas, experiences, and notable occurrences to highlight during the week of Commencement. Tropaia featured award-winning students and faculty members across the School’s degree programs, including this year’s SCS Spirit of Georgetown award winner Lorena Chinos (see Lorena’s Mission in Motion interview here). Faculty directors noted the adversity and challenge that these community members overcame in realizing their academic goals while serving their communities. The theme of service and commitment to others was also loudly expressed during the Commencement ceremony.
Shaun Harper, Ph.D., a globally recognized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) thought leader and practitioner, inspired the assembly of those gathered in person and online by noting the collective resilience displayed by the Class of 2022. But more than offering platitudes and empty encouragements, Dr. Harper challenged the graduates and everyone assembled to continue the work of justice, service, and compassion for one another. Dr. Harper offered an insightful take on the double meanings of continuation and discontinuation. (In case you missed it, his remarks begin at the 1:15:25 mark.) On one hand, he encouraged graduates to continue their habits of study and life-long learning and deep service of their families, friends, community, and society. In this way, graduation is not an end but a continuation.
The 2022 SCS Tropaia awards took place in Gaston Hall. Lorena Chirinos, a 2022 graduate, received the School’s Spirit of Georgetown Award and is seen pictured with SCS Vice Dean, Shenita Ray, and SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration, Jamie Kralovec.
But on the other hand, Dr. Harper presented a considerable challenge. Moving ahead in one’s profession and life, formed by a Georgetown SCS education, means standing up for principles and values and working individually and collectively to discontinue those practices and policies that separate and divide our communities. He pushed the graduates to realize more completely a just and inclusive society, one that begins in the home but then extends to every sector of the society. And while there continue to be reasons for discouragement and desolation about the world’s state of affairs, Dr. Harper ultimately delivered a hopeful message: There is hope, he maintained, in the continuation.
Georgetown President John DeGioia also picked up on this theme of hope in his concluding remarks. He referenced the concept of “sentire,” or felt knowledge, which President DeGioia presented during his Sacred Lecture as part of Georgetown’s celebration of the Ignatian Year. Rooting his remarks in the Ignatian and Jesuit spiritual tradition, President DeGioia expressed the hopeful possibilities that result from being educated at Georgetown. Knowledge itself and the continual pursuit of it can spark new discovery, new possibilities, and new solutions to the challenges that we face.
We all have a shared stake at Georgetown, whether as current students, staff, faculty, or alumni, in working together to realize a more just future. My hope is that this week of celebration serves as a continuing reminder of the deeper purpose of our educational tasks at the University and a resource for continuing to navigate the disruptions that challenge us.
Every year, Georgetown SCS honors a graduating student or alumni who exemplifies the University’s values, grounded in our Jesuit heritage, of people in service to others, commitment to justice and the common good, intellectual openness, and leadership. A committee of SCS faculty and staff select the winner of the Spirit of Georgetown award after a thoughtful and discerning review of nominating statements that come in from across the community. The winner receives this prestigious award at the conclusion of the SCS Tropaia Ceremony taking place in Gaston Hall on the Hilltop campus.
Public honors like this are important for the work of mission integration because they publicly communicate the values and commitments that SCS aspires to. This year, SCS is proud to give the Spirit of Georgetown award to Lorena Chirinos, a 2022 graduate of the Master of Professional Studies in Integrated Marketing Communications.
Lorena came to Georgetown from Venezuela to realize a dream for herself and her family, and in only a few short years has made a considerable impression on fellow students, faculty, and colleagues because of her commitment to public service. One of her nominators reflected on Lorena’s generous spirit: “Lorena is a living, breathing example of our Jesuit values personified in her commitment to social justice through education. … She has not just excelled academically but also applied her values and experience in support to the university.”
This week’s Mission in Motion is an interview with Lorena about her time at Georgetown, her advice for students, and lessons she is taking away for her professional future.
This week’s post is an interview with Lorena Chirinos, a 2022 graduate of the Master of Professional Studies in Integrated Marketing Communications, who will receive the Spirit of Georgetown award at next week’s SCS Tropaia ceremony.
This week’s post is an interview with Lorena Chirinos, a 2022 graduate of the Master of Professional Studies in Integrated Marketing Communications, who will receive the Spirit of Georgetown award at next week’s SCS Tropaia ceremony.
1. Congratulations on winning the SCS Spirit of Georgetown award! What was your reaction to learning of this news?
I was so proud and excited at the same time. I can’t believe that two years ago I was receiving the news that I got into Georgetown, and now I get to graduate and receive this incredible award. For the past two years I have been a full-time student, while working at Georgetown, and dealing with many of the pressures we immigrants and international students have to deal with, and to receive this recognition just makes me feel like all my hard work was worth it and also noted by everyone around me.
2. How has your education at Georgetown SCS informed your professional discernment? What are you taking away from Georgetown for your next steps in life and career?
The education I received at Georgetown SCS has taught me to be a well-rounded professional. Prior to attending Georgetown, I obtained my B.A. in Mass Communications back in Venezuela and worked as a marketing coordinator for several years. Even though I had extensive knowledge of the industry, Georgetown SCS’s IMC program gave me the strategic tools to make the most out of my expertise. Additionally, I believe that being able to customize your own path by picking the electives that make the most sense to you gives you the opportunity to hone the skills you will need in the future. During this time I also found a deep passion for market research, which has made me want to learn more about this industry and maybe even work at a market research firm someday.
3. What advice would you give to an incoming student at SCS?
First, enjoy it! It is surprising how fast time flew by and how much I’m going to miss going to Georgetown. Secondly, to connect with everyone around you: other students, faculty, and staff. As you navigate graduate school you are going to learn how valuable these connections are, not only professionally but also for your personal development. And lastly, treasure every piece of knowledge you obtain during your journey at Georgetown SCS. I know it can feel overwhelming at times being a grad student and, for many of us, working at the same time. But everything you learn at Georgetown is going to make you a better professional and, overall, a better person.
4. What are you most looking forward to about Commencement?
To see my mom! I haven’t seen my mom in almost three years, and I am very excited to share this celebratory moment with her. I’m also very happy to see my fellow classmates in person. Even though I have had the immense pleasure to meet some of them, I know there are a lot of my online classmates that are going to be coming to the ceremony. It is so crazy and exciting at the same time that I get to meet them after two years since we started the program.
5. How has the Spirit of Georgetown, the Jesuit values that animate the University, come alive for you during your time here?
I loved my time at Georgetown and all the opportunities it presented for me to live the Jesuit values in my day-to-day life. For over a year I had the chance to work as a marketing assistant for Biomedical Graduate Education at Georgetown University. During my time there I had the opportunity to help other fellow Hoyas in their professional development. This position also gave me the opportunity to actively promote resources for other international students and to advocate for diversity and inclusion among our student population. Additionally, I had the pleasure to work with The Red House organization under Georgetown. Working with them helped me understand even further our student population and how we can transform education by breaking paradigms while aspiring to build whole persons that go beyond academic excellence. Lastly, I have had the pleasure to be part of the organizing committee for the first Multicultural Graduation Ceremonies for graduate students at Georgetown University. This experience has allowed me to connect with different Hoyas from different cultural backgrounds and has been an overall enriching experience that I will never forget.
This week, Georgetown honored Sr. Thea Bowman during a naming ceremony of the Copley chapel. Mission in Motion reflects on the significance and implications of Sr. Thea’s life for us today.
As spring semester comes to a conclusion and the joyous celebration of Commencement approaches, Georgetown made time this week for several significant events related to Sr. Thea Bowman. Bowman, a Roman Catholic religious sister considered a “Servant of God” (meaning that she is on the path to canonization by the Church), made important contributions in her lifetime both to her faith community and to the world. University President DeGioia captured some of Sr. Thea’s defining legacies in his announcement:
“[H]er vibrant Christian faith; her Protestant roots; her joining the Catholic community and the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration; her courage in calling the Catholic Church and our nation to more fully engage with Black Catholics and to reject racism; her own academic background and role in establishing scholarship around the Black Catholic experience; her embrace of music as a form of ministry; and her faith-filled service and witness in living the Gospel.”
The context for honoring Bowman at the University is the naming this week of the chapel in Copley Hall in her honor. The chapel in Copley is both a consecrated Catholic chapel and the spiritual home for Georgetown’s Protestant community. An ecumenical service took place to commemorate the naming of the chapel and included the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, Wilton Gregory, as well as Fr. Mark Bosco, Vice President for Mission and Ministry; Rev. Ebony Grisom, Interim Director of Protestant Ministry; and Rev. TauVaughn Toney, Protestant Christian Chaplain. The event featured lively music provided by Georgetown’s Gospel Choir along with reflections by President DeGioia and testimonials about Bowman’s life from religious women who knew her well.
The celebration of Sr. Thea continued into the evening as the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life hosted a Dahlgren Dialogue: “Faithful Life, Powerful Legacy, Continuing Lessons.” The panel of distinguished leaders explored key questions about the implications and lessons of Bowman’s life. At the center of the discussion was the recognition of the burdens Sr. Thea bore in battling the intersecting oppressions of racism and patriarchalism. She faced these challenges along with other marginalizations as she sought to lift up the Black Catholic experience in a Church and society that too often excluded and excludes the fullness of Black identity and experience.
As part of the celebration of Sr. Thea Bowman’s life, a panel at Georgetown explored the lessons that we can take away from how she lived. You can watch a recording.
All of the panelists pointed to Bowman’s 1989 address to the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops for insights about how to proceed today with hope in spite of the dispiriting challenges to greater inclusion and justice for marginalized persons and communities. Sr. Thea’s lively and courageous embrace of her own authentic self was a resource for her loving actions in the world and offers inspiration for us today:
“What does it mean to be Black and Catholic? It means that I come to my Church fully functioning. That doesn’t frighten you, does it? I come to my Church fully functioning. I bring myself; my Black self, all that I am, all that I have, all that I hope to become. I bring my whole history, my traditions, my experience, my culture, my African American song and dance and gesture and movement and teaching and preaching and healing and responsibility – as gifts to the Church.”
The panelists described a necessary caution in interpreting the significance of Sr. Thea’s life. It would be a temptation to reduce her life’s work only to the cause of racial justice and fail to appreciate the many other ways that she worked against social structures of exclusion. To honor Sr. Thea in a genuine way, the panelists agreed, is to live out her message by proactively and continuously standing with people of color, through policies, practices, and ways of being community, in the pursuit of justice and the common good. That would truly be honoring Sr. Thea’s legacy!
A hallmark of Georgetown University is a commitment to Interreligious Dialogue. This commitment, enshrined in the Spirit of Georgetown, is evident in many ways throughout SCS and across the campuses. The aspiration to ecumenical and interreligious engagement and understanding is more than theoretical, however. Georgetown seeks to live out the fullness of this value not just because interreligious commitment is integral to a Catholic and Jesuit education but because interreligious understanding is an important skill to be fostered in today’s world.
This week’s post focuses on interreligious dialogue as a key value at Georgetown that is best realized through practice. During Ramadan, members of the University have been invited to join the Muslim community at the Iftar. You can learn more about all of the religious communities at Georgetown at the Campus Ministry website.
A recent report from the International Association of Jesuit Universities (IAJU) makes clear that fostering interreligious dialogue and action is key to the social mission of Jesuit schools around the globe. The IAJU Task Force on Interreligious Dialogue and Understanding issued a document, “Encounter, Dialogue and Action in a World of Religious Plurality,” that emphasizes a knowledge- and skills-based approach to this work:
“Jesuit education should expose students to other cultures to foster critical awareness, innovation and attentiveness by ‘leaving home’ – i.e. exiting their comfort zones of thinking and accepted paradigms. The practices of interreligious encounter have a value that transcends the strictly religious domain and can be applied to a range of fields, including supporting democracy, ecology, and reconciliation. University education can tend to apply scientific post-Enlightenment values as the only valid standard of judgment. In areas of deep secularization, religious literacy lags behind the realities of global religious diversity. In this light, interreligious encounters can be a prime educational tool and a value for our students, leading to enhanced intercultural competency in a rapidly diversifying yet interconnected world.”
The document goes on to consider how fostering an atmosphere of dialogue and encounter contributes to meaningful actions at a Jesuit university in service of the common good, which is at the heart of a humanistic Jesuit education.
During this season’s religiously significant sacred observances for multiple traditions (Easter, Passover, Ramadan, and Pascha), Georgetown has realized a practice-based commitment to interreligious dialogue. One particularly moving example of this is the way the University community has celebrated Ramadan with its Muslim community by actively participating in the Iftar, or the evening meal in which Muslims end their Ramadan fast at sunset.
During the holy time of Ramadan, different offices and groups have sponsored Iftars for the Muslim community, including the Office of the President and Dharmic Life. In sharing the opportunity with the community, Dr. Vrajivhari Sharan, Director for Dharmic Life, encouraged attendance by articulating a present connection between living traditions and appealed to the “examples of our great Dharmic Spiritual Teachers.” President DeGioia’s welcome message for Ramadan to the Muslim community noted that followers of other religious traditions can deepen in their own faith by engaging with the religious practices of others. And Provost Groves’ recent blog post, “The Nurturance of Groups: Large and Small,” reflected that the Iftar was an occasion of value because it was “being with those whose shared experiences at Georgetown, to gather sustenance from the bonds with those shared experiences.”
My invitation is to experience the practices of another religious tradition as an opportunity to grow in your own interreligious literacy and skills. Fostering this competency is especially valuable for students entering professional industries that are increasingly global in their focus. You might take advantage of Georgetown resources for this kind of encounter by first signing up for the newsletters of one of the many religious communities represented and animated at the University.
The 52nd anniversary of Earth Day takes place on April 22 and this annual milestone is an opportunity for us at Georgetown SCS to reflect on the threats facing planet Earth and discern what actions we can take to be part of the global movement for environmental sustainability. More than a single day, however, Georgetown has made this commitment to sustaining the Earth’s natural resources a core part of living out the University’s mission. The most recently added value in the Spirit of Georgetown, Care for Our Common Home, reflects the deepening efforts at Georgetown to make environmental sustainability a core part of both academic life and university operations.
The annual celebration of Earth Day on April 22 provides a welcome opportunity to reflect on how we are called at Georgetown to live into our mission of caring for the natural environment as a core Jesuit value.
This is an exciting time to join the global movement for environmental sustainability at Georgetown. Recently, the University announced the launching of The Earth Commons, an Institute for Environment & Sustainability that accelerates action, research, and education on the most pressing environmental and sustainability challenges both locally and globally. Within these categories of education, research, and action, there are many ways to get involved in the work of The Earth Commons.
Georgetown has also expanded and relaunched its Office of Sustainability, adding key staff members to help direct the University’s ongoing work to cultivate a culture of sustainability on and off campus. The office supports the academic mission of the University, but focuses on solutions to environmental challenges that can be realized and scaled on the campuses and in the community. To follow along and participate in these Georgetown efforts, you might consider signing up for the Earth Commons newsletter and getting involved in sustainability planning at the University.
Earth Day presents an opportunity for each of us to grow in our love for the Earth. Developing this relationship of affection with the natural environment can inspire our actions to care for it and protect it. The more one loves another, the environment in this case, the more one is moved to care about it and choose actions that preserve it. One suggestion for growing in love with the Earth is through a nature walk. This previous Mission in Motion post, “Exploring Nature,” explores this spiritually significant practice and how it relates to living out Georgetown’s mission:
“Walking in nature, admiring trees, creeks, flowers, animals, etc., has helped ground my perspective in this difficult period. The awe and majesty of the environment remind me to reflect on the source of all created things (it makes more sense to me why the natural world has inspired spiritual movements of all kinds, sometimes branded as Eco-Spirituality). As I enter into these reflections, take a deep breath, and soak up the gifts of the natural environment, my horizon and vision expand beyond more narrow daily concerns.
“Pope Francis, in his teaching document Laudato Si, describes how important it is to simply gaze at the wonders of nature, just like St. Francis, patron saint of the environment and animals: ‘Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise.’ The peace of a nature walk can translate not only into greater mindfulness and attention but also a deeper love for nature and a desire to protect it against harm. In my nature walks, I am often moved from awareness to gratitude and love for the peace that I feel in the natural environment.”
I hope the occasion of Earth Day grows the seeds of contemplation about how you are called to commit to care for the environment. At Georgetown, there are many ways for us to join hands in this shared work.
