Category: Reflections on COVID-19

With the fall semester already underway, students, faculty, and staff have begun to settle into the rhythms of return. New members of the Georgetown community, especially students in their very first semester, ask lots of questions in these early weeks that range from the quotidian to the existential. A common question that I hear, which animates our work of mission integration at SCS and across the university, goes something like this: So what exactly are the Jesuit values that I hear so much about? What do these Jesuit values mean and how will they influence my Georgetown experience? 

Mission in Motion regularly shines a light on the diverse ways that SCS articulates the meaning of the Spirit of Georgetown and puts these characteristics of a Jesuit education into practice throughout our community. Whether in classroom activities, spiritual programs like meditation and retreats, or community-engaged service and justice opportunities, Jesuit values manifest at SCS in ways that are unique to our context as a dynamic center of professional and continuing education. One of the most essential components of living out the Spirit of Georgetown is through service and a commitment to social justice. This commitment, which is crystallized in the University’s mission statement, is evident in the work done by Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service (CSJ). 

SCS works closely with CSJ to facilitate opportunities for members of the community to engage deeply with Jesuit values by participating in the Center’s mission to “advance justice and the common good” and promote “community-based research, teaching, and service by collaborating with diverse partners and communities.” One of the critical ways that CSJ accomplishes this mission is through critical immersion experiences like the Alternative Breaks Program (ABP). Grounded in the Jesuit pedagogical model of context-experience-reflection-action-evaluation, CSJ ABP immersions are intended to give students, staff, and faculty the opportunity to engage with “diverse and vibrant communities through direct service, immersion, and reflection in a substance-free environment.” Fostering intersectional solidarity and inspiring lasting commitments to service and social justice, the ABP experiences are meant to return to Georgetown by living on through the witness of participants. For years, SCS community members have been participating in CSJ-sponsored immersion opportunities. I have previously reflected in Mission in Motion about my own critical immersion experience along the U.S.-Mexico border and SCS Vice Dean Shenita Ray has shared her reflections about her immersion in Peru. 

This year, there are 10 year-long ABP immersions with in-person travel over Spring Break from March 5-12, 2022. In addition to the immersive travel (which is planned for in-person at the time of this writing), the ABP experience consists of pre-trip learning and community building along with post-trip activities. You can read more about the trip descriptions, which range from exploring the legacy of slavery in Montgomery, Alabama, to rural poverty and the need for economic justice in Pulaski, Virginia. There is no cost for participants or trip leaders as ABP fully subsidizes transportation, lodging, and meals. The application for both participants and trip leaders is due before 11:59 pm ET on September 17, 2021. Questions can be directed to the ABP board at altbreaks@georgetown.edu. 

I encourage members of the SCS community to consider applying for the ABP. The experience of direct engagement with pressing social injustices can be transformative to one’s ongoing education and discernment of a professional vocation. The theory of social change at the root of the ABP experience is echoed in these words by former Jesuit Superior General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach: 

“Solidarity is learned through contact rather than concepts. When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is a catalyst for solidarity which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection.”

The inspiring message of hope from last week’s Mission in Motion was put to the test in recent days as tragic events around the globe demand our attention and response. A humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and the devastating impact of Hurricane Ida on communities along the Gulf Coast point to the urgent need for action in response to human suffering. These crises also illustrate how vulnerable people and communities endure disproportionate harm and are least able to withstand the effects of environmental degradation and war. 

Events in Afghanistan and the Gulf Coast can return our attention to a cornerstone commitment of a Jesuit education. The Spirit of Georgetown calls all of us to be people for others and to live out a faith that does justice. An education that does not challenge and inspire action to support vulnerable people in times of need and address the structural conditions that create such need is not consistent with the Jesuit values that animate our work at Georgetown. In their recent proclamation of Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs), the Jesuits worldwide have made Walking with the Excluded an explicit orientation of all Jesuit and Jesuit-animated activities. According to the UAPs, walking with the excluded means: 

“To walk with the poor, the outcasts of the world, those whose dignity has been violated, in a mission of reconciliation and justice. Sent as companions in a mission of reconciliation and justice, we resolve to walk with individuals and communities that are vulnerable, excluded, marginalized, and humanly impoverished…The path we seek to follow with the poor is one that promotes social justice and the change of economic, political, and social structures that generate injustice. … We confirm our commitment to care for migrants, displaced persons, refugees, and victims of war and human trafficking.” 

But how to go about this personal accompaniment when the injustices on display this week may seem distant from our daily experience? In order to live out this mission of reconciliation and justice, Georgetown has provided useful information for anyone who wants to respond to the refugee and asylum crisis arising from the conflict in Afghanistan and the destruction caused by Hurricane Ida. 

The Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security (GIWPS) has long worked in solidarity with Afghan women and has created protectafghanwomen.org. Through the site, you can donate to help the evacuation of at-risk Afghan women, call your representatives to urge further action, and spread the word about the conditions in Afghanistan for women, civil society, and human rights leaders. Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service (CSJ) has provided information on its website about how to support Afghan allies through Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service and the Jesuit Refugee Service. And the GU Veterans Association has provided information about how to support Afghan refugees. 

In the wake of Hurricane Ida’s destruction, many people in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast have been left with no power and few resources. To find out how you can support disaster relief efforts during this time, please visit this Disaster Response page by the CSJ.   

Responding generously, creatively, and courageously to social, environmental, and economic injustices is a characteristic of Jesuit education. You can see this demonstrated in how Spring Hill College, a Jesuit institution in Mobile, Alabama, responded by providing temporary housing for students at Loyola University New Orleans, a peer Jesuit institution directly impacted by Hurricane Ida. Actions like these are necessary to sustain hope. 

Mission in Motion often highlights SCS degree and non-degree programs that advance Georgetown’s mission and values by offering professional educational opportunities that respond to pressing social and economic needs. Given the School’s experience in developing technology-mediated certificate education, SCS is uniquely positioned to leverage university resources and community partnerships to create these kinds of socially responsive programs. This way of proceeding as an educational entity at Georgetown is an important way that SCS contributes to the common good, deepening the commitment in the University’s mission statement to educate “women and men to be reflective lifelong learners, to be responsible and active participants in civic life and to live generously in service to others.” 

SCS, in partnership with Georgetown’s Center for Child & Human Development, Medstar Georgetown University Hospital Department of Psychiatry, and the Center of Excellence for Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation, recently launched certificate programs intended to address the mental health needs of infants, children, and their caregivers, and families. 

There are three new non-credit professional certificates: 

• The Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Family Leadership certificate
• The Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation certificate; and 
• The Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health certificate

The intended audience for these certificates indicates in a powerful way how a Georgetown program, working in collaboration with subject matter experts and community resource providers, has the potential to serve critical needs while building capacity in a community to sustain more lasting change. By targeting professional clinicians, consultants, and community health workers in the field of infant mental health, these programs are working in a holistic manner by focusing on the ecosystem of care for infants and young children. The programs also reflect a pressing need surfaced during the global pandemic to create healthier, more resilient communities that can provide care and attention for children and their families, especially the most vulnerable. 

Jeffrey Warner, Senior Director of Professional Development & Certificates at SCS, articulated the mission commitment of the infant and early childhood mental health certificates when he said: 

“This program embodies the spirit of Georgetown University as an opportunity to learn to support more effective caregiving of all children, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or class. Our University’s Jesuit tradition of cura personalis is emphasized throughout the curriculum as it encourages care and individualized attention to the needs of children and their families, distinct respect for their circumstances and concerns, and an appropriate appreciation for their particular gifts and insights.” 

These new certificate programs reflect the valuable ways that SCS lives out the University’s Jesuit values in partnership with others at Georgetown and beyond. 

You can read more about these exciting new certificate programs on the SCS homepage: “Georgetown Launches New Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Certificate Programs.” Learn more about all of the professional certificate programs offered by SCS. 

Since the start of the global pandemic, Mission in Motion has provided resources, information, and reflections about how the School of Continuing Studies, rooted in the Spirit of Georgetown, is addressing the needs of our diverse community. For more than a year, the blog has shared inspiring examples of work at SCS grounded in a commitment to educate the whole person. SCS students, staff, faculty, and alumni have sustained the bonds of community despite being dispersed across the country and the globe. SCS and larger Georgetown efforts to promote racial justice that aspire to our University value of Community in Diversity have been a major focus of these weekly reflections. Along the way, the blog has hopefully helped readers understand what is distinctive about an approach to professional and continuing education animated by the Jesuit tradition. 

This week, I call attention to a course opportunity this fall that incorporates the University’s Jesuit values in a holistic way. Since 2016, “Jesuit Values in Professional Practice” has been offered as a free elective open to any degree-seeking student at SCS. The course, which Mission in Motion highlighted last year, is a unique option in the SCS curriculum in that it is truly interdisciplinary by bringing together students from across the academic degree programs. The course is also unique in that it is community-based learning, organized around opportunities for students to address the direct needs of vulnerable persons through service opportunities facilitated by Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service.  

The course has been renamed “The Reflective Professional: Journeying Toward Mission-Driven Leadership” to signal how critically important reflection and leadership are in the development of professional students. The pandemic has demonstrated how necessary it is to form SCS graduates who are prepared to take on the economic and social justice challenges facing their communities in the U.S. and around the world. Inspired by the Jesuit tradition, an important motivation is an understanding that generous action in the world flows from habits of reflective self-awareness and self-discovery. This is an invaluable opportunity for students to pause and discern their values and how they want to apply these values in the workplace. The course, which is organized around the foundational concepts and applications of Jesuit education and spirituality, features professionally relevant topics like: 

• Frameworks for professional reflection
• Theories of leadership, including spiritual leadership
• Discernment as a strategy for professional decision-making 
• Exploration of Georgetown’s mission and values 
• Models for inter-faith collaboration 
• Contemporary social justice issues, like immigration reform and the climate crisis 

The class is open to and welcomes students from all faith traditions or no faith tradition and presents an important opportunity to engage with mission-driven leaders at Georgetown and beyond. An alum of the course described the transformative experience of hearing directly from such a diverse set of guest presenters: “The speakers who moved me the most had journeyed deeply inside their humanity and then touched mine.” 

Degree-seeking students who are interested in “The Reflective Professional: Journeying Toward Mission-Driven Leadership” (LSHV 480, CRN: 40526) should reach out to me, Jamie Kralovec, course instructor and SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration (pjk34@georgetown.edu).

In my mission integration role at SCS, I am often invited by faculty members across professional disciplines to amplify the University’s mission by presenting some material related to the Spirit of Georgetown in a way that is tailored to the course’s unique learning objectives. This week, I dropped into Ethics in Urban Planning and offered a Jesuit-inspired framework for knowledge, skills, and values in the area of ethical leadership. It was an engaging session that flowed in three movements: the foundational concepts of ethical leadership, an applied case study demonstrating these principles, and suggestions for personal practices that might develop ethical leadership capacity. Grounded in the Jesuits’ spirituality and philosophy of education but offered in a way that is inclusive of spiritual diversity, the concluding segment of the session provoked critical reflection about how spirituality might relate to ethical leadership. 

There are many ways into this conversation about how Jesuit spirituality and education relates to ethics and to leadership. I rely on ideas presented by Chris Lowney, a leadership expert in the Jesuit tradition, whose book, Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World, offers an Ignatian style of leadership that embraces self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism. 

Lowney contests traditional understandings of leadership theory grounded in competency models of what leaders need to acquire in terms of technical skills in order to be effective. While technical skills are important, the Jesuit tradition of leadership emphasizes interior self-development and the development of what many would call “soft skills” like emotional attentiveness, self-reflection, an attitude of gratitude, and a determination to care for others. This perspective on leadership emphasizes that: 

• everyone has the opportunity to lead (not only those at the top of the organizational chart); 
• leadership springs from interior self-knowledge (not just from actions); 
• leadership is a way of living and not just single tasks; and 
• leadership is an ongoing process of discovery of self and self with others.

An important takeaway of this model is that the exercise of ethical leadership depends upon taking regular time for quiet reflection in a way that facilitates greater self-awareness. Contrary to assumptions, regular silence in the form of meditation or prayer do not foster inaction and passivity in the face of pressing responsibilities but actually encourage more generous and ethical action in the world. Leaders grounded in self-awareness, cultivated by practices like the examen, are more likely to make meaningful contributions to social justice and the common good. And consistent with the Spirit of Georgetown value of Contemplation in Action, busy professionals, like the students at SCS, need this time for contemplation even more. 

One hope of a Jesuit education is that students come to realize more and more that their educations are not for themselves alone but also for others. Ethical leadership in the Jesuit tradition makes clear that one’s development as an ethical leader is not just about avoiding mistakes or bad decisions but about growing in habits of discernment about how one is called to use one’s gifts and talents in service of others, especially the most vulnerable members of society. I invite you to take this summer to reflect on these questions as they relate to your growth as an ethical leader: 

• What are the gifts and talents that you bring to leadership? 

• What are the values that matter most to you and why? In other words, what do you consider to be your “North Star” guiding principles for leading in the world? 

• How are you working to translate these values into action? How are you bringing your leadership values to your work at home, in the community, at the workplace, and in the larger world?