Category: Service in Action

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2023 Dean’s Report Highlights SCS Commitment to Integrating Jesuit Values

The 2022-2023 SCS Dean’s Report shines a spotlight on how Georgetown’s Jesuit values come to life across the school’s diverse portfolio. 

Regular readers of Mission in Motion should be well aware of this platform’s enthusiasm for the diverse ways that SCS students, faculty, staff, and alumni uniquely live out the University’s Jesuit values. In recent years, the blog has especially focused on how the set of values in The Spirit of Georgetown present invaluable opportunities for deeper personal and social transformation during times of conflict, adversity, and challenge. As we continue to transition away from the COVID-19 global pandemic and face ever-changing social and economic dynamics in the world around us, the mission of SCS to deliver a “world-class, values-based education to a diverse array of communities and individuals throughout their academic and professional careers” could not be more important. 

The 2022-2023 SCS Dean’s Report, “Catalysts for Change,” exemplifies the spirit of the SCS commitment to living out Georgetown’s Jesuit values across the School’s extensive portfolio of educational offerings. What really distinguishes this year’s report is the degree to which every article and every piece of data presented connects to a thread of The Spirit of Georgetown. You will read about students and alumni across a range of professional disciplines who are applying their values-based SCS education in the service of justice and the common good. Those unfamiliar with the organization of SCS and its many different programs will learn how each professional field represented at the School has something to offer in making the world more just and generous. For example, the report highlights the way that Amanda Fratterelli, 2023 graduate of the Master’s in Integrated Communications program, used her Capstone project to raise global awareness among Gen Z about malaria. The skillful and creative deployment of communication and media resources to inspire others to care about the needs of the least advantaged and most vulnerable is truly at the heart of Georgetown’s Jesuit values. 

The Dean’s Report tells the story of how SCS shares the Spirit of Georgetown with students, faculty, and staff through inclusive retreats and other spiritual programs. 

This year’s report also features several articles that call attention to the very explicit ways that SCS manifests The Spirit of Georgetown. In particular, an article I authored about how SCS offers inclusive, Ignatian-animated retreats for students, faculty, and staff, “SCS Cares for the Whole Person: Restorative Spiritual Retreats,” tells the story about what is possible when adult professionals take time for spiritually grounded rest and renewal. Always faithful to the dynamics of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, SCS retreats strive to faithfully meet participants where they are on their professional journeys and present resources and practices that can deepen their interior lives. Readers of the report will also find an interview with Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Advisor for Spiritual Care, and learn how SCS delivers retreats in a way that recognizes and honors the incredible diversity of our community. 

An article about the School’s partnership with Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), “Empowering Bright Futures: SCS and the Jesuit Refugee Service Increase Educational Access,” amplifies a deeply mission-aligned project that speaks to how SCS leverages its educational assets in service of the world’s great needs. Mission in Motion has previously reflected on this incredible partnership model, led by the English Language Center (ELC) at SCS, which connects SCS staff and faculty volunteers with JRS-support refugees seeking weekly English conversation and mentorship. My hope is that readers of the Dean’s Report will take away from these examples how it is possible to deliver a transformational suite of applied professional programs in ways that meet both the needs of the marketplace and the needs of the common good. 

It is with healthy pride that I encourage you to check out the 2022-2023 Dean’s Report and reflect on how SCS continues to advance Georgetown’s critical mission in many unique ways. 

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Toward a Meaningful Diversity: Ignatian Resources for Realizing an Inclusive Community

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This week’s post considers the resources of Ignatian spirituality for the work of justice, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Check out how SCS is committed to this work through its Diversity, Equity, Belonging, and Inclusion Council (DEBIC). 

A new semester is underway and with it comes a new group of students beginning their educational journeys at Georgetown. This week, SCS welcomed these new students and intended to do so in an evening reception featuring remarks by Dean Otter and other school leaders. While inclement weather postponed the formal welcome event, program staff and faculty oriented the new arrivals with information, resources, and advice about how to succeed at the University. A central piece of this orientation to SCS is the Catholic and Jesuit heritage of Georgetown and how it influences student experience in tangible ways. 

An introductory reflection for new students about what they can expect from studying at the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university might begin with this e-story: “What’s So Different About a Jesuit Education? Seeking Something Greater.” This post makes clear that students are encouraged to cultivate spiritual practices that develop a healthy interior life as they pursue their SCS programs. The attention that Georgetown places on interiority, through guided reflections, retreats, religious services, and daily meditation, is a distinctive feature of the SCS experience. This attention to interiority is emphasized because such an inner life of contemplation ultimately leads to healthy and generous actions in the world that advance social justice and the common good. New students will quickly come to learn that Georgetown distills the five-century-old tradition of Jesuit education into 10 values, The Spirit of Georgetown, that reflect our “way of proceeding” as a learning community. In this week’s post, I would like to call attention to the value “Community in Diversity.” 

Most institutions of higher education emphasize the importance of a diverse community as part of their mission statements, programing, and marketing. The value of a diverse workforce, manifested in many markers and indicators of human diversity, is undisputed. In today’s globalized world, it is imperative that well-prepared professionals have the competency and skillfulness to meaningfully engage with diversity in all of its forms. But at Georgetown, a religious heritage university anchored in the Catholic tradition, diversity is more than a secular value. The Catholic and Jesuit moral and spiritual tradition prizes human diversity as a gift of a creative and loving God who desires that communities flourish by sharing together the richness of their various gifts. Celebrating diversity then becomes both a moral and a spiritual imperative. What, you might ask, does the advancement of a diverse community have to do with spirituality? 

This week, a group from Georgetown and other Catholic colleges and universities is gathering at the University of San Diego for a conference, “Lighting the Way Forward: The Purpose of Catholic Higher Education in a Changing World.” The gathering, organized around four themes, seeks to reflect on how Catholic higher education in the United States is being called upon to help address the most pressing social challenges of our age, including “climate change, structural racism, lack of trust in institutions and breakdown of communities, polarizing political discourse, religious disaffiliation, and more.” One of the core themes is Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, reflecting the moral imperative at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching to create truly inclusive communities by combatting the forces in social, economic, and political life that exclude, marginalize, and “otherize” individuals and groups in the social minority. The Jesuit tradition, embodied in the practices of Ignatian spirituality, has a particular contribution to this work of advancing meaningfully diverse communities. 

The root of all Ignatian spirituality is the Spiritual Exercises. This retreat framework, developed by St. Ignatius, is offered in various formats and is structured as a relationship between a retreatant and a spiritual guide or director based on the retreatant’s experience of daily prayer. The entire journey of the Exercises, divided into four major themes of self-discovery and development, is guided by the principle that all human beings need to free themselves from “disordered attachments” in order to fully realize their deeper meaning and purpose in life. These attachments, which impede the realization of personal and social flourishing, are the kinds of impediments that get in the way of realizing our full capacity to love. Some of these impediments are “blind spots” that we possess, preventing us from seeing reality clearly and truly. Blockages to true freedom might be in the individual, like a tendency to continually self-doubt or self-criticize in ways that chip away at our healthy self-esteem and self-understanding. Other blockages might be social, like an intentional lack of awareness or curiosity about social and economic injustices in the world around us. Whatever these blockages might be, the Spiritual Exercises journey aims to help the individual realize, with the assistance of a loving God, how to attain true inner freedom for the sake of participating in God’s project of justice, hospitality, and kinship. 

At the “Lighting the Way Forward” conference, I will be presenting with Tony Mazurkiewicz, Chaplain for the Athletics Department, on an Ignatian retreat being co-sponsored by Georgetown and Holy Trinity Parish. The presentation, “The Long Journey to Spiritual Freedom: Making the Mission Case for a Racial Justice Integration Role at Catholic Colleges and Universities,” is centered around Setting Captives Free, a 6-week retreat in daily life modeled on an adapted format of the Spiritual Exercises. Georgetown faculty and staff are invited to register for this retreat. 

Retreatants participate weekly in a small reflection group where they share about the spiritual fruits of their daily prayer. Each of the six weeks is organized around a different theme in which participants ask God for a particular gift related to the journey of growing in freedom about one’s own participation in the structures of society that maintain racism. This journey to freedom begins by growing in greater awareness about the reality of racism and the retreatant is challenged to experience this not as an abstract, distant reality but one that is personalized and evident in one’s participation in the structures of daily life. 

Ignatian spirituality is well-suited to this critical work of striving for racial justice because the developmental framework of the Spiritual Exercises is ultimately about personal and social transformation of unjust and sinful personal and social structures. How is God moving and calling me to advance a more inclusive community not only at Georgetown but in the world beyond? What work is there for me to do in combating the forces that marginalize and exclude on the basis of race and other categories of human diversity? This journey to spiritual freedom might be long and arduous, but it is a path to realizing an inclusive community that flourishes amidst its differences. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the Setting Captives Free retreat, taking place from the weeks of February 11 through March 17, please check out the retreat website or reach out to me (pjk34@georgetown.edu) for more information. 

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An Examen To Review 2023

This week’s post invites quiet reflection on our year together by using the Jesuit spiritual practice of the Examen. The May 2023 student retreat stands out as a moment of great gratitude. 

Readers of Mission in Motion recognize the Examen as a common feature of the blog. Many articles describe this core Jesuit spiritual practice or use it to inspire reflection about an event or program at SCS. Sometimes, the blog even constructs a post as a form of Examen. This practice is one that invites interior reflection on the events of a period of time with the purpose of prayerfully and sensorially re-engaging with those experiences and making spiritual meaning of them. 

The reflective steps of the Examen process involve settling in and becoming centered in the presence of the Divine and then growing in awareness of particular encounters with gratitude, consolation, desolation, and a hoped-for resolve for the future. The point is to sift through the data of experience to discern how one is called to move from reflection on experiences, both the joyful and the challenging, toward choices and actions of greater love and generosity. Individuals can do the Examen and so can entire groups or organizations, like Georgetown, which is currently undertaking its own Mission Priority Examen, a reflective self-assessment of the University’s commitments to Jesuit mission and identity.

As we sit on the precipice of a new year, I offer a brief Examen on SCS in 2023. In next week’s post, Rabbi Rachel will offer some reflections about the year we had and the year to come. In this spirit of deeper meditation on the meaning of our shared Georgetown experiences in 2023, I invite you to join me in this Examen. Take a few minutes to settle into some quiet. This is especially important as we transition from a long semester of work and study and prepare for some time of quiet and rejuvenation. As you settle in, I invite you to ask for insight and new self-knowledge during this time of quiet. When you feel grounded in the silence, I then invite you to ponder these questions slowly: 

  • Take a few minutes and notice all of the significant events of the last year. These might be personal events or events you experienced with a group (for example, a class, a work team, family, community organization, etc.). Allow these significant moments to flow by in your consciousness one-by-one as in a parade. Do not yet judge or assess the moments, just allow them to pass back into your present awareness. 
  • As you sift through all of these significant moments, what experiences rise to the surface? In particular, what encounters with Georgetown feel most important to you at the end of the year? I invite you to focus on the most important moments and let the less significant experiences move to the side. 
  • What is one significant moment from this last year that brings you deep gladness and joy? A moment that, in Jesuit spirituality, brings consolation? These kinds of moments stir within us an impulse and an inclination to savor more greatly, express more gratitude, and share ourselves with others with more magnanimity. 
  • Take a moment to explore a moment that brings the opposite feelings of desolation. Was there a significant experience in 2023 that challenged you to the core of your being, perhaps causing you to doubt your self-purpose or become skeptical about the good intentions of others? Did times arise in this year that drained you of energy and led to nagging self-doubt or disbelief? 
  • As you consider the year ahead, what from 2023 would you like to do differently, or better, or more lovingly in 2024? Grounded as we are in the Spirit of Georgetown, how are you called in the next year to be an agent of more justice in the world and more generosity and understanding in your communities? 

As I look back on our SCS 2023, I notice lots of gratitude that arises from my prayerful Examen. I recall the generous availability that students demonstrated during our annual retreat (“SCS Student Retreat Steps Outside of the Ordinary into Rest and Reflection”). I also remember students, staff, and faculty coming together to support one another after the tragic loss of a member of our community (“Coming Together in Times of Challenge and Loss”). I remember the inspiration I felt during Jason Kander’s 2023 Commencement address when he challenged us to reconsider what it means to be brave by acknowledging our needs for mental health support (“SCS 2023 Commencement Emphasizes Celebration, Care for Self, Commitment to Others”).  

There are so many other important moments from the year that rise to the surface of a longer reflection on our SCS commitment to Jesuit mission and values. For now, I am going to look ahead with gratitude and hope for another year of journeying together with you in this sacred work. 

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This Veterans Day, Reflecting on the Military-Connected Patron Saint of Jesuit Education

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St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, was a military veteran like many SCS students. This week’s post considers the relevant connections between this saint of the 16th-century and the military-connected population at the University. 

This semester, a group of SCS staff are going through the four-part Ignatian Tradition Seminar, a deep exploration of the enduring meaning and significance of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. The four-part series takes place over the span of a semester and invites close reading, group discussion, and discernment about how to make Jesuit mission and values, as they arise from the life of Ignatius and the development of the Jesuit order, a part of one’s work at Georgetown. The seminar examines the history of Ignatius and the founding of the Jesuits, the origins of Jesuit education, contemporary Jesuit commitments to social justice, and the ways that Jesuit universities like Georgetown bring to life their Ignatian identity. 

Each Jesuit institution is unique, reflecting the context of its operation. This particular seminar at SCS emphasizes Georgetown’s abiding commitment to multi-faith and inter-religious dialogue. Of particular interest to the SCS participants is the opportunity to consider the relationship between the School’s hallmark incorporation of technology into learning and the heritage of Jesuit history and values. In other words, what can a 500-year-old tradition of humanistic education offer the ongoing development of innovative online and technology-mediated learning like at SCS? 

Through all of the seminar’s many conversations,St. Ignatius remains a central character in the narrative. Participants engage with the many personae of the patron saint and what relevance this 16th-century Spanish figure bears today for our work and study at Georgetown. Mission in Motion has previously reflected, as part of the Ignatian Year 500, about the aspects of the Ignatian biography that most align with the culture and characteristics of SCS. There are four ways that St. Ignatius and his story align so closely to the community of learners at SCS. St. Ignatius was: an adult learner, used technology as part of his leadership strategy, developed a model for incorporating contemplation into a busy and active civic life, and served in the military. It is this last attribute, Ignatius as military veteran and wounded warrior, that motivates this week’s reflection in light of the Veterans Day holiday.

Georgetown honors its military-connected students and faculty through dedicated resources and celebrations of the stories of these individuals that focus on their service. The core of the University’s efforts extends from student veterans to military spouses, caregivers, and other military-connected persons. A sizable military-connected population exists at SCS and has access to a comprehensive set of resources provided by Georgetown’s Military and Veterans’ Resource Center. 

The whole-person approach to caring for student veterans is evident not just in tangible resources but also in intentional messages and the creation of hospitable spaces for this community. At last year’s SCS commencement, for example, Jason Kander, military veteran and accomplished politician, gave a stirring address that focused on the particular mental health challenges facing military veterans. Kander made the point that self-care is not selfish, an idea that might seem anathema to a community that is so accustomed to putting others’ needs before their own. This emphasis on self-care provides a relevant connection to the military meaning of the Ignatian story. 

In their article in the magazine Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, “Wounded Warriors: Ignatius of Loyola and Veteran Students,” Thu Do and Mary Dluhy make explicit the contemporary relevance of St. Ignatius for modern military veterans: 

“Ignatius is recognized as the patron saint of veterans because of his knighthood and military experience. Like Ignatius, veterans, service members, and wounded warriors experience both physical and spiritual sufferings. Leaving the military and returning to the civilian life, veterans often miss the sense of commitment to an important mission, deep fellowship, and intense stimulation on the battlefield.”

Ignatius provides a set of discernment resources and a structure for spiritual development that can help any person grow into the meaning and purpose of their life. The Ignatian biography, which included dramatic shifts in vocational choices—from courtier to soldier to pilgrim and finally to administrator of a global company—reveals that a person’s deeper meaning and purpose can stay the same even as the circumstances of one’s life can change. The important takeaway for veterans and other military connected students is that the entire University community has an important role to play in helping this community reconnect to their sense of mission and purpose after military service is complete.

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Jesuit Heritage Month Presents Opportunities to Pause and Ponder Georgetown’s Mission

Mission in Motion recently posted about the ongoing Mission Priority Examen that Georgetown is undertaking this academic year. This reflective, university-wide process of more deeply considering how effective Georgetown is at living out its Catholic and Jesuit mission will provide insights that shape the future of this work at the University. One of the themes that typically emerges in this collaborative process of reflective self-assessment is how to make explicit what it is often implicit in terms of Georgetown’s Jesuit mission and values. 

 The bell at the top of Dahlgren Chapel on Georgetown’s Hilltop Campus is a visible sign of Georgetown’s Jesuit identity. This week, Mission in Motion explores the reflective possibilities of November’s Jesuit Heritage Month.

Every November, the University makes this movement toward the explicit with Jesuit Heritage Month, a series of events and programs intended to invite deeper connection with the Jesuit values and the Spirit of Georgetown. Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., Vice President for Mission and Ministry, describes this annual occasion as an opportunity to reflect on not only the Jesuit and Catholic dimensions of Georgetown’s unique identity but also the ways that the Jesuit values affirm a commitment to interreligious understanding: 

“This month is also a time to reflect on, and reaffirm, the core aspects of our university mission. Since its founding in 1789, Georgetown has been a home for all faiths. Our commitment to interreligious understanding – especially over the last 25 years – is rooted in our Catholic and Jesuit identity, informed by the documents of Vatican Council II on interfaith dialogue, and shaped anew by the call of Pope Francis to deepen our fraternal love for one another. These values shape the best of who we are as a university.”

As a mission integrator for the SCS campus, I am aware that many in the community feel like Georgetown is a very active place, sometimes too active. Every day at the University there are public events and other gatherings promoted through regular emails broadcasted to the entire Georgetown community. Each week, a list of events communicates the depth and breadth of conversations happening across the campuses. Students, faculty, and staff, who are busily engaged in the work of academic excellence in classrooms, have to make decisions about what extra-curricular experiences enhance their academic pursuits. The amount of potential activity to choose from can feel overwhelming. Especially for our adult learning population at SCS engaged in professional education, there are significant opportunity costs in choosing how to expend limited resources of time given other demands of work, family, and civic obligations. 

My invitation is to spend this Jesuit Heritage Month as an opportunity to pause and slow down. There are some good events to spur deeper engagement with the materials of Jesuit mission and values. You can check out the list here. But I also invite you to take a pause, especially in the context of the coming Thanksgiving holiday, and reflect on what Georgetown’s mission means to you. Is this mission at the center or the margins of your conscious awareness? Do you desire a shift or a transformation of your understanding of Georgetown’s mission and how it might be relevant to your work and study at the University? 

At SCS, we work to bring the Jesuit values to life in ways that meet the contextual needs of our unique community of learners. One of the ways you can directly engage with the spirit-mindfulness tradition of Jesuit practices is by signing up for the SCS Daily Digital Meditation. The meditations take place each day of the workweek at 12 p.m. ET. The sessions all occur on Zoom (registrants receive the link and instructions for joining via email) and last around 15 minutes. From Monday through Thursday, the session is organized as a mindfulness meditation that consists of a short body scan, intentional breathing, and then a period of silent, centering meditation with a melodic piano track playing in the background. The Friday meditation is reserved for an inclusively presented Examen meditation, modeled on the reflective practice arising from the Ignatian tradition of spirituality. The Examen consists of five reflective prompts that invite participants to notice with sacred awareness the significant events of their past week, exploring in more reflective detail times of gratitude, consolation, desolation, and hope for the week ahead. 

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“I Didn’t Want to Let More Time Pass” – Emergency & Disaster Management Alumna Reflects on Her Values-Based Commitment to Protecting Vulnerable People

This week’s Mission in Motion is an interview with Aideé Stephanie Jiménez Ávila, an alumna of the Executive Master of Professional Studies in Emergency & Disaster Management. Currently serving as the Resilience Policy Coordinator in the Government of Mexico City, Stephanie reflects on her inspiring journey to Georgetown’s program that required her to overcome a personal health challenge by seeking out the care and support of others. She offers thoughtful insights about the need for human-centered decision-making in disaster prevention and response and shares about the importance of trust in building healthy, resilient teams. 

  1. Tell us a little bit about your inspiring story and what led you to the Executive Master of Professional Studies in Emergency & Disaster Management? 

In a way, I believe it was destined. I had worked in international cooperation, and my experience was that several social programs would be disrupted when disaster strikes, though previous and emerging needs increased. This led me to have an interest in finding a multi-sectoral program with a managerial vision that targets this lack of coherence in local development.

Initially, I found spaces for certain careers or programs that focused on first-response activities. That’s how I found the program, signed up for the newsletter, and saw the bulletin listing the trips they took to share the experiences of practitioners. It seemed unique to me. Later, I took on another position and postponed the plan of pursuing a master’s degree. With the occurrence of the 2017 earthquake in Mexico, I was working for the United Nations system, and as I learned that disasters were on the rise, I didn’t want to let more time pass without being able to guide governments.

However, I wouldn’t have known that months later I would stop walking due to spinal injuries, causing that dream and interest to be left behind once again. I was fortunate to find a surgeon who, even though I couldn’t walk, said, “You need to go fulfill a dream, what would you like to do?” At first, I thought he was crazy, but he changed my treatment and physical therapy. During those days, a newsletter from the Program arrived, and I applied. A few months later, I was in the Program, which allowed me to continue my treatment, learn, and be in a practical, multicultural program with a humane and quality staff, faculty, and my cohort.

I never imagined that I would be fulfilling a dream while learning to walk and be independent again. My personality before this condition would have never considered it.

  1. You have also received some important awards for your leadership. Can you share more about this recognition and what it means to you? 

Of course! Recently, in September 2023, the Women of the Future organization awarded me as a Rising Star in ESG. This is a global initiative and I’m very happy to be one of the 50 women whose work is not only endorsed by allies who nominated me for the projects I’ve driven in Mexico throughout the years, but it was also evaluated by leading experts from various sectors and regions globally. 

Knowing that issues like partnerships for accountability in disaster prevention and empowerment of young women, like me, in mid-level careers in disaster risk reduction, is not only critical but also inspiring for further Initiatives. With the Program, I now have a network of allies with whom I can learn, raise visibility, and express concerns. That guidance and support are invaluable and desirable for any professional.

  1. Of the 10 core values of the Spirit of Georgetown, what value do you think most expresses how you are putting into professional practice what you learned at the School of Continuing Studies?  

Undoubtedly, “cura personalis.” I usually have clear boundaries between my professional and personal life, but when collaborating and leading teams their environments also influence their performance. If we can take five minutes to engage, offer our support, or exchange ideas, then we can find further opportunities to be better humans and professionals.

Currently, I am looking through several ways to give back the care and support I received at home, from the faculty and my cohort in the Program in daily life, so that my teams and professional networks know that we are in a trusting environment with support and looking out for their well-being and growth.

  1. What advice would you share with other students, especially those students whose journeys to Georgetown involve similar challenges to the ones that you overcame? 

I know that having a network of care and support is a significant privilege, but there’s an entire community of professionals who are interested in building a sense of community and teamwork during and after the program. In SCS, I recognize what “we got your back” really means.

My advice would be: First, TRUST in yourself. In SCS, there’s a whole community during and after the program that is interested in supporting your potential. Second, make every moment an opportunity to propose projects and ideas. In my case, I believe I’ve been very fortunate that even while learning to live with a chronic condition, I received job offers during the program from people who were aware of some of my limitations. This is invaluable and a practice I now seek to adopt in my initiatives. Third, share and create new ways to contribute to society; the networks in SCS will undoubtedly help you continue to grow.

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In Times of Global Crises, Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Realizes Value of “People for Others”

Georgetown is a large enterprise and relies on a constellation of mission-driven units to animate the mission and values of the University. So much of this animation rests on the Office of Mission and Ministry and Campus Ministry, who provide critically important spiritual care to the community in ways that further meaning, belonging, and purpose. These offices are understandably associated with the Spirit of Georgetown and a team of chaplains and ministry staff carry much of the work of mission integration across the campuses. But there are other key partners that realize Georgetown’s Jesuit mission and values and do so in explicit ways that invite deeper engagement with the larger meaning and purpose of Jesuit education.

This week’s post shines a light on the mission-committed work of Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service (CSJ). CSJ not only helps the Georgetown community respond to humanitarian disasters around the world but also offers an array of programs, like Hypothermia Outreach Team, to realize the Georgetown value of being People for Others.

One of these key partners is Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service (CSJ). The organization’s mission clearly expresses its mission-serving purpose: “In order to advance justice and the common good, CSJ promotes and integrates community-based research, teaching and service by collaborating with diverse partners and communities.” The statement registers as a distinctive element of Jesuit education, which has been clear about the social justice implications of teaching and learning in this tradition. 

Current Jesuit Superior General Arturo Sosa, for example, through a global discernment process, has made this commitment a pillar of the four Universal Apostolic Preferences, an orienting set of principles that should guide all Jesuit works across the world. One of these four, “Walking with the Excluded,” invites each Jesuit institution to “walk with the poor, the outcasts of the world, those whose dignity has been violated, in a mission of reconciliation and justice.” The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) makes this commitment to justice one of their seven guiding characteristics of all Jesuit schools. AJCU Characteristic 3, “The Pursuit of Faith, Justice & Reconciliation,” challenges Jesuit institutions to actively “respond to the most morally urgent issues of our times in ways that reflect the deepest sources of the Jesuit, Catholic tradition; anchor healing in truth; and recognize the fulfillment of justice as the forging of right relationships.” At Georgetown, the CSJ is centrally involved in realizing these global and national Jesuit priorities. 

The start of the fall semester has coincided with several global crises. These disasters have included wildfires in Maui, earthquakes in Morocco, and floods in Libya. In each of these instances, the University community has received a broadcast email with resources for support and information about how to respond to these situations of profound human need. You can review CSJ’s dedicated responses to each crisis here. Every notification includes opportunities to support disaster relief by tapping CSJ’s network of Catholic, Jesuit, and mission-based partners that are serving in affected regions. At moments of global challenge and disaster, it is a consolation that CSJ is in a position to help members of the Georgetown community respond to human suffering in a timely way. 

Responses to humanitarian disasters is only one part of the CSJ’s portfolio of programs and resources. SCS students, faculty, and staff should consider all of the opportunities made available for greater engagement. Of particular importance in the Downtown Campus is the work of CSJ’s Homelessness Outreach Meals Education (HOME) program. This is a comprehensive effort to promote human dignity and respect for people experiencing homelessness through outreach, education, and direct service. In the coming months, there will be more information about how the SCS community can become more involved in HOME efforts in the Downtown. 

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URP Celebrates 10 Years: A Reflection on Mission Commitment in Urban Planning Education @ Georgetown

This week’s post celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the Master’s in Urban & Regional Planning program at SCS and emphasizes how the program forms students to pursue the work of mission and values in their careers. 

Former Jesuit Superior General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., provided one of the most universally employed metrics to define what “success” looks like in Jesuit education when he said in 2000 that: 

“The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become. For 450 years, Jesuit education has sought to educate ‘the whole person’ intellectually and professionally, psychologically, morally, and spiritually. But in the emerging global reality, with its great possibilities and deep contradictions, the whole person … cannot be whole without an educated awareness of society and culture with which to contribute socially, generously, in the real world. Tomorrow’s whole person must have, in brief, a well-educated solidarity.” 

These words of Kolvenbach reverberated in my mind as I participated in last week’s 10-year anniversary of the Master’s in Urban & Regional Planning (URP) program.  

Over the span of four hours, a series of students, alumni, faculty, and special guests reflected on the most pressing issues facing the professional practice of urban planning today and how Georgetown prepares them to meet these challenges. The vibrant and spirited reflections in the auditorium kept attendees, which included program supporters from the University and the broader community, engaged and curious about what the Georgetown master’s program has to offer cities and their residents around the world. The formal convening later transitioned into a celebration in the SCS atrium where Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Advisor for Spiritual Care, and Dr. Kelly Otter, Dean of SCS, toasted the URP program and its visionary faculty director, Uwe Brandes. 

The 10-year anniversary celebration featured a reception with toasts by Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Dean Kelly Otter, and URP Faculty Director Uwe Brandes. 

As a faculty member in the URP program and the mission integrator for SCS, I reflected on how the entire event manifested the profound ways that this program at SCS is organized to advance the University’s mission and values. If the measure of our Jesuit universities, according to Kolvenbach, is who our students become, then it is quite evident that URP is meeting this standard. I observed both current students and alumni of the program articulating one after another how their time at Georgetown shaped deeper personal and professional commitments to mission. Students and alumni are advancing social equity, community building, cultural preservation, environmental sustainability, and other core values-based practice areas in a wide variety of ways. They are working at every scale of government and across the private and nonprofit sectors. But more important than a particular work area or site of work, I noticed that all of these program representatives manifested a passion for making cities and the world more just and more whole. 

In this way, I could more easily understand how urban planning can help realize the vision for the environmentally sustainable and socially just world envisioned in Pope Francis’ 2013 global encyclical, Laudato Si. In that document, Pope Francis names a special responsibility that urban planning has to realize an “integral ecology” that honors the gifts of God’s creation: 

“More precious still is the service we offer to another kind of beauty: people’s quality of life, their adaptation to the environment, encounter and mutual assistance. Here too, we see how important it is that urban planning always take into consideration the views of those who will live in these areas. There is also a need to protect those common areas, visual landmarks and urban landscapes which increase our sense of belonging, of rootedness, of ‘feeling at home’ within a city which includes us and brings us together.” 

This is not easy work and there is little delusion that urban planners alone can solve the great challenges facing the planet. But it helps now and again to step back, celebrate a milestone like a 10-year anniversary, and then step back into the urgent and necessary work a little more refreshed and perhaps more grateful about the role that programs at SCS, like URP, play in advancing the common good. Cheers, URP! 

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Care of the Person + Care of the Work = Care of the Mission

Georgetown Staff Appreciation Day took place this week and gives us an opportunity to explore two key terms in Jesuit mission: cura personalis (care of the person) and cura apostolica (care of the work). 

This week featured an annual highlight in the life of the institution: Georgetown Staff Appreciation Day. Converted to an indoor celebration because of the heat wave, the multi-hour event included lots of food, games, raffles, and even massages. Coming together as members of the staff community, arriving from a diversity of offices and campuses across Georgetown, is a welcome opportunity to enjoy each other’s company and reflect on the purpose of our shared commitment. 

This may come as a surprise, but I believe that this yearly event provides a rich platform to explore core concepts of Jesuit mission. In particular, the gathering of staff for the purposes of honoring their individual and collective contribution to the University brings out two Jesuit ideas that are fundamental to Georgetown’s mission and values. These are: Cura Personalis (care of the person) and Cura Apostolica (care of the work). You can read Jesuit Superior General Fr. Arturo Sosa’s much more detailed account of these terms in this universal letter issued to Jesuits across the world a few years ago. In short, care of the person in a Jesuit context is to always pay individualized attention to the needs, desires, strengths, and weaknesses of the individual when discerning how best to realize their potential. This commitment is realized at the University not only in the teacher-student relationship but also in the relationship amongst staff and between staff and faculty. 

Where Cura Personalis is about the person, Cura Apostolica is about the work. In a Jesuit institution, this means that the individuals responsible for the work or the shared project need to pay attention to ensuring the flourishing of the organization as a whole. To care for the work is to discern choices on the basis of what ultimately serves the needs of the collective enterprise. Often, these two commitments are in alignment, but there are occasionally times of tension between the two. In some instances, commitment to the ultimate purpose of the work might result in less care of the person (and vice versa). According to Fr. Sosa, this tension is sometimes unavoidable but can be navigated in a way that ultimately serves shared mission:

“However, Ignatius’ experience shows that care, deeply rooted in his spiritual experience and his mystical journey, offers the true dimension of the unity cura apostolica-cura personalis, dimensions of one single cura, that is, care for mission. The single cura has as its focus persons, communities and works, which are the service of mission. It is mission, therefore, that must be the fundamental criterion that unites cura apostolica and cura personalis. Our mission includes and implies inseparably our way of living and relating to each other, of caring for people and communities. This care for our way of living and relating is also a mission in itself.”

The unity of these two communities – personal and collective – is possible through discernment about mission. This point affirms the need at Georgetown and other Jesuit institutions to share about the mission of Jesuit education and what this five centuries’ heritage and tradition mean for today. I hope that one of the takeaways of this reflection is to find time and space to more deeply reflect on how you are in relationship to the mission of Georgetown. How are you attentive to the needs of individuals in your work? How are you advancing the work overall? How are you relying on the resources of the mission to find unity when these two conflict? 

Staff Appreciation Day helps focus our attention on the various ways that day-in and day-out the members of the Georgetown staff community realize the University mission by caring for people and the work to which they have been entrusted. 

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Vocation, Discernment, and Decision-Making with the Summer College Immersion Program

This week’s post is about the Summer College Immersion Program. During their three weeks on Georgetown’s Hilltop, students experience a range of courses and experiential learning opportunities, including a four-session program entitled “Reflection in the Jesuit Tradition.” 

“I want to help people be proud of their smile, especially people who are embarrassed by their teeth.” 

I heard this during a mock college admissions interview with one of the students in the Summer College Immersion Program (SCIP), an intensive three-week residential experience on campus for rising high school seniors from the Cristo Rey Network and KIPP Foundation school systems around the country. Mission in Motion has previously covered this highly mission-aligned SCS program (“Summer College Immersion Students Enter Into Silence,” “Students in Summer college Immersion Program Experience Reflection in the Jesuit Tradition,” “Summer College Immersion Program Expands Access to Transformative Georgetown Education,” and “Making an Impact Along the Way: An Interview with Caitlin Cochran, SCS Associate Dean, Summer and Special Programs”), which comprehensively introduces high-achieving students to an experience of college life through academic coursework, community building, and experiential learning. The mock college interview is one of the final steps in the three weeks, presenting a practice opportunity for the real college application experience that these promising students will undergo in their senior years. 

The quoted student’s deep commitment to the service of others through a hoped-for college education in dentistry epitomizes the transformative potential of these students to use their gifts and talents for good in the world. I had asked in the interview for the student to share more about their hopes for the college search process and how they would like college to inform and shape their passions. This response stopped me in my tracks and I found myself in a profound pause before asking another question. I was relishing in the calm confidence expressed by this rising high school senior. I was amazed by the bold practicality of her vision: to fix smiles because too many people, especially families in the low-income community in which she lives, do not have proper access to affordable dental care. To join together an educational interest in dentistry with a mission commitment to serve others is to realize what animates the heart of the Spirit of Georgetown. 

SCS Dean Kelly Otter welcomes everyone to the final banquet of the Summer College Immersion Program. SCIP is a program that involves the dedication and generosity of many hands, including administrators, faculty, staff, and donors. 

This year I offered a four-session program entitled “Reflection in the Jesuit Tradition.” In the first session we explored the mission of the University and how it relates to the larger mission and purpose of Jesuit education. In the following session, we discussed and then practiced several forms of meditation, including the Ignatian-inspired examen of consciousness. This was a revealing session because it illuminated the various ways that these students experience silence. Like all the sessions, a mindfulness body and breath scan began our time together and a short examen meditation ended it. These bookends were restorative as I could see the students appreciating the opportunity at the end of a busy day to quiet their minds and push aside, however briefly, their daily distractions. In the final two sessions, we discussed discernment and decision-making in the Jesuit tradition, offering a set of resources and practices for how to engage in spiritual discernment related to a significant decision. The presentation became more real as students formed small groups and shared with each other an example of a decision in their own lives that they will contemplate in the coming year. 

I left this year’s program with a profound gratitude for SCIP and the amazing network of staff, faculty, and donors that make it possible. Several students asked me in their interview to reflect on my time at Georgetown and without hesitation I shared that this program is one that makes me especially proud to work at SCS.