Category: Centered Pluralism

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Lent Offers Opportunity to Confront Personal and Social Realities, Commit to Healing

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This week’s post invites deeper reflection on the Christian season of Lent. Sign up to receive daily Lenten reflections from Georgetown students, staff, and faculty

One of the greatest strengths of Georgetown is the way it honors the holidays of the different religious traditions represented across campus. As a Jesuit and Catholic university grounded in a centered pluralism, Georgetown seeks greater mutual understanding and dialogue about the broader significance of special events on each tradition’s religious calendar. In this way, those outside of a particular tradition, or no longer practicing within one or not affiliated with one at all, can still find personal and collective meaning because of the invitation to learn more, follow along, and potentially commit to some actions related to journeying alongside particular religious communities. 

This week, Christian communities at Georgetown and around the world entered into the holy season of Lent. These 40 days, which lead to Holy Week and Easter, focus on the journey to greater spiritual freedom by embracing the paths of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, which Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., Vice President for Mission and Ministry, described as the “the touchstones of this spiritual journey each year” in the introduction to this year’s Lent Devotional series (sign up for these daily Lenten reflections from students, staff, and faculty across the campuses, including SCS). In Christian terms, the season is an opportunity to follow Jesus along the path of suffering that ultimately leads to redemption and new life in the Resurrection of Easter. 

Such a seemingly solemn season, so often associated with “giving up” one’s favorite treats or enjoyments for a month and a half, is about recognizing the ultimacy of our lives. What are we living for? And what is getting in the way of realizing our deeper purpose and calling? In his practical theology book, I Was and I Am Dust: Penitente Practices as a Way of Knowing, David Mellott presents a “dust theology” based on the Scriptural passage, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Lent, which begins with the marking of ashes on Ash Wednesday, invites participants to consider how they form a part of the Cosmos and each of these parts, however finite, has much to contribute to the ultimate purpose of the whole. In Mellott’s telling, these Lenten practices are about “coming to terms with reality, and in particular, with oneself.” This notion of growing in clearer awareness of reality is critically important to becoming the kinds of agents of consolation and love that we are called to be. 

The broken reality of the world and the need for great repair, healing, peace, and justice should animate all of our activities at Georgetown. The commitment to using our gifts and talents, resources and knowledge in service to the common good is shared across spiritual and religious traditions. Lent presents the Christian community with a particular opportunity in the religious calendar to more deeply commit to this work. 

One excellent opportunity to deepen a personal and communal commitment to non-violence is a training being offered by Georgetown’s Center on Faith and Justice, MLK Initiative, and endorsed by the Justice and Peace Studies Program. On February 16, the DC Peace Team will offer a session on Active Bystander Intervention and De-Escalation. The purpose of the session, in the context of situations of potentially escalating violence, is to equip participants with the “tools to recognize when you’re a bystander, understand the potential outcomes for all involved, and take nonviolent action.” You can RSVP and learn more here.

Sign up to receive Georgetown’s Lent Daily Devotionals! 

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New to SCS? An Introduction to Georgetown’s Mission and Values in Four Points 

This is an exciting time of year at Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies. With the summer calendar coming to a close, our attentions turn to the beginning of the fall semester. While the academic programs at SCS tend to start for students on a rolling basis throughout the year, the inauguration of the fall semester has a special calendar significance at SCS. With new student, staff, and faculty orientations soon underway, this is a good opportunity to offer a brief introduction to our University’s distinctive mission and values and how they will influence your Georgetown experience. 

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This week’s post introduces the Spirit of Georgetown to new members of the SCS community. 

Many new members of our community ask similar questions at this time of year: What does it mean to be part of Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in the United States? What’s so different about an education inspired by the Jesuit tradition? 

There is a longer story here than a short blog post allows (If you’re a student and really curious about the deeper answer to this question, you might consider taking a special free elective offered at SCS called “Jesuit Values in Professional Practice.” Similar seminar opportunities are available for faculty and staff). 

Here are four important ways that the University’s Jesuit mission and values will come to life in your time at Georgetown. 

  1. SCS is committed to sharing the Spirit of Georgetown, the 10 values distilled from five centuries of the Jesuit tradition of education, in an inclusive and invitational way that respects a plurality of religious and philosophical perspectives. This is why the University’s Office of Mission and Ministry houses a large multi-faith team of chaplains and staff that are available to spiritually accompany students, faculty, and staff across the campuses. The mission of Georgetown comes alive in a unique way for each individual person and no one will have the exact same experience as someone else. 
  1. Academic excellence is core to realizing Georgetown’s mission. This means that our rigorous and high-quality style of professional education is not by accident but an outgrowth of a living tradition that strives for the highest standards of teaching and learning as a way of reverencing the divine. At SCS, you’ll likely notice this commitment in the innovative and creative uses of technology to enhance the learning process. 
  1. A signature value of Jesuit education is a commitment to being People for Others. In this way, all learning, teaching, and working has a potential connection to supporting social justice and the common good. You will see this manifested in community service outside the classroom, course projects that focus on the needs of marginalized persons and groups, opportunities for social impact entrepreneurship, and the University’s public advocacy for justice. 
  1. Finally, you might find that “Cura Personalis,” or the value of Care for the Whole Person, is more than a superficial buzzword – it’s a deep-seated commitment to paying attention to all facets of the human person. Being a student at SCS is more than acquiring technical knowledge or skills; it is about attending to the emotional, spiritual, social, and physical aspects of developing as a well-rounded professional. A mission-committed faculty and staff are key to making this aspiration a reality. As a student, you can take advantage of this commitment through retreats, meditation, and other co-curricular experiences that animate Georgetown’s striving to form graduates who are generous life-long learners in the service of others. 

The start of a new semester is always filled with a mix of emotions. Whether you’re feeling mostly excited or mostly nervous (or a mix of both) about this new experience, I hope you find some comfort in the mission-based resources that are here to accompany you along the way.

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Bringing Interreligious Understanding to Life in the Classroom

With the fall semester approaching as summer courses enter into their final phase, faculty are reviewing and preparing their syllabi for next semester. One of the exciting parts of teaching at SCS is the ongoing opportunity to evaluate teaching strategies and make changes for the better. Teaching professionally applicable content and skills at SCS, which are dependent on ever-evolving trends in society and the marketplace, demands this kind of regular review. Through student feedback and other means, faculty are encouraged to continuously refine their pedagogical methods in pursuit of Academic Excellence, one of the core values in the Spirit of Georgetown. Regular evaluation that informs reflective action is also an essential component of Jesuit Pedagogy, a framework for teaching and learning inspired by the dynamics of Ignatian spirituality. 

This week’s post examines “Interreligious Understanding,” one of the Spirit of Georgetown values, by reflecting on a recent podcast on the topic put together by the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. 

SCS has made considerable efforts in recent years to support its faculty with guidance and resources about how to incorporate the University’s defining mission and values into online and on-ground courses. The SCS “Strategies to Integrate Georgetown Values into Online and On-Campus Courses” takes each of the Spirit of Georgetown values and offers ideas about how to operationalize these values into practical learning activities. The value of “Interreligious Understanding,” which we hold dear at Georgetown given our long-standing commitment to honoring a pluralism of religious and spiritual traditions, deserves a closer look. In my experience, many faculty are uncertain about how to make this particular value animated in coursework or might be inclined to avoid it altogether because of the potential for conflict or misunderstanding about a sensitive topic like religious difference. 

Recently, Georgetown’s Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) took up this teaching challenge by hosting a podcast, “Religious and Spiritual Diversity in the Classroom.” In a packed 30 minutes of insightful conversation, religious leaders at Georgetown representing Jewish, Muslim, and Dharmic communities offered insights about the concerns that arise for students when religious identity is marginalized or ignored. There are several important takeaways from the conversation that I would like to highlight as best practices for faculty who want to discern how to activate religious diversity as a valuable component of the learning process. 

Rabbi Rachel Gartner (most recently Director for Jewish Life), Imam Yahya Hendi (Director for Muslim Life), Brahmachari Sharan (Director for Dharmic Life), and David Ebenbach (Professor of the Practice at CNDLS and the Center for Jewish Civilization) point to the need for faculty to express humility and a willingness to listen and learn about religious traditions with which they are unfamiliar. 

Georgetown SCS produced a document, “Strategies to Integrate Georgetown Values into Online and On-Campus Courses,” to help faculty integrate values, like Interreligious Understanding, into the learning experience. 

First, false assumptions about religious traditions can be perpetuated unless the classroom fosters an open-ended atmosphere in which individual students are invited to educate the class about their religious or spiritual identities. Having book knowledge about a cultural or religious tradition is not the same thing as having felt knowledge based on a relationship of trust with someone belonging to that specific tradition. While sharing openly about religious identity might not be comfortable for everyone, it is good practice to provide the opportunity (either in a group setting or individually) for students to express this part of themselves during a class. 

Second, learning is inhibited when students feel like aspects of their religious identity are not properly respected or valued. This often comes up when seemingly harmless comments are made about religious practices related to wardrobe and eating. Faculty can encourage respectful engagement about such cultural differences by establishing a set of shared community agreements at the start of the course and then regularly reinforcing their importance during moments of conflict that come up along the way. 

Finally, learning is an opportunity for growth. In today’s increasingly globalized workplaces, there is an ever-greater need for interreligious literacy and understanding. By actively listening to the experiences of religiously and spiritually motivated students, especially those belonging to non-dominant traditions, classrooms can become a place where religious difference is more than merely tolerated. These learning experiences have the potential to be transformative for all involved.