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SCS Faculty Director Dr. Erinn Tucker Participates in MLK Initiative Event on Food Equity, Racial Justice in DC

Georgetown’s MLK Initiative is an annual celebration of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and consists of events, programs, and other opportunities to deepen the University’s commitment to the principles that animated Dr. King’s life and witness. Mission in Motion has written about one facet of the initiative, “Teach the Speech,” an annual invitation for students, faculty, and staff to explore critical dimensions of a speech by Dr. King with particular relevance for contemporary events.

Mission in Motion takes a closer look at an MLK Initiative event this week, “Cultivating DC’s Food Economy to Sustain Racial Justice,” which featured a panel of experts, including SCS Faculty Director Dr. Erinn Tucker

This past week, the MLK Initiative convened a panel to discuss issues of food, racial justice, and grassroots advocacy in Washington, D.C. The event, “Cultivating DC’s Food Economy to Sustain Racial Justice,” was a conversation among experts with experience in the hospitality industry, local government, community-based farming, food culture, and environmental sustainability. Dr. Erinn Tucker, SCS faculty director of the Global Hospitality Leadership program, as well as co-founder of DMV Black Restaurant Week, offered her insights about how the COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged an ecosystem among Black-owned restaurants and increased awareness of what Black-owned restaurants need to sustain their businesses. The hour-long program was a deep exploration of how we at Georgetown can engage in the critical work of food justice in our local communities.

Christopher Bradshaw, founder and executive director of Dreaming Out Loud, a local food equity non-profit organization (featured in Mission in Motion as a site of SCS staff member Tremell Horne’s regular volunteer activity), made the foundational point that we care about food because it is a common bond that we all share and it tells a story about us. Food reveals not only the ways our society comes together, but also the ways that our society is divided. Bradshaw called attention to the ways that Black farmers have historically been driven from their land, contributing to a significant racial wealth gap that persists today.

The MLK Initiative event is part of a year-long series of programs to deepen Georgetown’s intentional commitment to living out the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Erinn Tucker focused many of her contributions in the discussion to the way that the COVID-19 pandemic has surfaced the need for collaboration in supporting Black-owned businesses. A healthy, sustainable business ecosystem requires cooperation among many stakeholders. The pandemic has highlighted, for example, how small Black-owned businesses need more support from the technology industry in order to meet consumer demands during a prolonged period of take-out ordering. Dr. Tucker commented that many in this hospitality space are wondering how to most effectively harness the increased corporate financial support and interest in Black-owned businesses in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. An ongoing challenge, which all of the panelists presented on to some degree, is to sustain and build upon some of the pandemic-related lessons learned about how to advance the goals of Black-owned restaurants and small businesses.

The MLK Initiative event was an important reminder about the critical importance of sustaining mutually-beneficial partnerships with local communities. The academic and professional discourses about food justice, the hospitality industry, and urban policy development provide opportunities for further exploration. The discussion illustrated two important insights about integral ecology and local culture from Pope Francis’s teaching document Laudato Si:

“There is a great variety of small-scale food production systems which feed the greater part of the world’s peoples, using a modest amount of land and producing less waste, be it in small agricultural parcels, in orchards and gardens, hunting and wild harvesting or local fishing…To ensure economic freedom from which all can effectively benefit, restraints occasionally have to be imposed on those possessing greater resources and financial power. To claim economic freedom while real conditions bar many people from actual access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to practice a doublespeak which brings politics into disrepute. Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good (129).

A consumerist vision of human beings, encouraged by the mechanisms of today’s globalized economy, has a levelling effect on cultures, diminishing the immense variety which is the heritage of all humanity. Attempts to resolve all problems through uniform regulations or technical interventions can lead to overlooking the complexities of local problems which demand the active participation of all members of the community… There is a need to respect the rights of peoples and cultures, and to appreciate that the development of a social group presupposes an historical process which takes place within a cultural context and demands the constant and active involvement of local people from within their proper culture. Nor can the notion of the quality of life be imposed from without, for quality of life must be understood within the world of symbols and customs proper to each human group (144).”

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SCS Dean and Vice Dean Publish Chapter on Jesuit Values Guiding School’s Strategy in Response to the Pandemic

SCS Dean Kelly Otter and Vice Dean for Education and Faculty Affairs Shenita Ray have published a book chapter in Moving Horizontally: The New Dimensions of At Scale Learning in the time of COVID-19 about how the School has relied upon Jesuit values to guide its decision-making during the global pandemic. The chapter entitled, “Strategic Leadership and Partnerships to Scale a Remote Teaching Infrastructure Rooted in Jesuit Values,” speaks to the way that SCS administrative and faculty leadership have created a “thriving organization in the midst of uncertainty” by applying two key Jesuit values: cura personalis (care of the person) and cura apostolica (care of the work or institution). The text is an informative and inspiring insight to the degree that Georgetown’s mission and values have been intentionally embedded in SCS strategy and operations in recent years.

In this week’s Mission in Motion, a recently published book chapter by SCS Dean Kelly Otter and Vice Dean Shenita Ray highlight how Jesuit values have informed the School’s strategy in response to COVID 19.

Dean Otter and Vice Dean Ray introduce the chapter with the many shared and differentiated challenges facing SCS in particular and Georgetown as a whole. This respect for the unique context frames the SCS approach and is consistent with the first step in the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (more on the IPP and teaching in the Jesuit style here in a prior Mission in Motion post). SCS’s considerable experience in creating, developing, and growing online programs made it a valuable institutional partner when the pandemic forced a quick transition to remote coursework in March 2020. The School focused on a three-pronged approach, writes Otter and Ray: “Creating a remote course template faculty could use to rapidly develop, deploy, and transition a face-to-face course to a remote class; restructuring and training existing internal personnel to support the transition for all full- and part-time faculty (400+); and establishing a faculty development program to provide weekly and one-on-one instruction on online pedagogy.”

The complexities of scaling this effort to meet the needs of students and faculty required significant collaboration and coordination of many units across SCS. These efforts were undertaken after coalescing around shared principles for the endeavor, like adaptability as conditions and exigent factors shifted, and shared goals, like raising awareness and changing the language across the instructional community about the distinctions among online, remote, and in-person courses substituted with synchronous tools. With a framework in place for strategic decision-making, Dean Otter and Vice Dean Ray point to the way that applying Jesuit values explicitly in this work reinforced a sense of community in teaching and learning when the virtual learning environment had the potential to foster significant dislocation, reduced educational quality, and a sense of disconnection.

The chapter by Drs. Otter and Ray illustrates how Georgetown’s Jesuit values have been intentionally integrated in the course design and delivery process during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The chapter goes on to outline strategic implications revealed by COVID-19, presenting a series of challenges that the pandemic surfaced and the way that SCS addressed these challenges. Of note, Otter and Ray point out that strengthening the School’s focus on integration of Jesuit values helped guide these efforts and ensured the University’s commitment to academic excellence: “Faculty and staff recognized that relying on ethics and values such as cura personalis and cura apostolica as the foundation for identifying and analyzing alternatives to solve unprecedented challenges in extraordinary times, would help to assure the quality of the School’s collective decision-making processes.”

It is with hope that the chapter ends. COVID-19 has helped SCS sharpen its approaches to key elements of decision-making and ongoing strategy formation. With “renewed vision for teaching and learning,” Dean Otter and Vice Dean Ray offer some key lessons about how an intentional incorporation of Jesuit values in working, teaching, and learning can help address the myriad challenges facing our communities and the world. This chapter reminds me of several themes from Jesuit history of education. In his chapter “Mission and the Early Jesuits” in the book Saints or Devils Incarnate? Studies in Jesuit History, renowned historian Fr. John O’ Malley writes that the educational strategy of the religious order has always been ministerial and about boldly serving mission in spite of challenging circumstances:

“First, the schools became an instrument of ministry that the Jesuits carried with them as they set out to new places in Europe or elsewhere, and in that way the geographic sense of ‘mission’ continued to be fulfilled. Second, the schools were themselves a great innovation for a religious order, and hence can be understood as going out to meet a challenge rather than sitting passively on the sidelines. Constitutive of the idea of ‘mission’ was ‘seeking out,’ as Paul had done. The schools were simply one more instance of the inventive proliferation of new ministries in the sixteenth century that the Jesuits promoted and exemplified – signaling a great break with the highly formalized and ritualized service offered by the local clergy. This was all part of being ‘apostolic.’”

I see some parallels in the inspiration for Jesuit schools in its early period and the way that SCS has innovated to flexibly and adaptably meet the working, teaching, and learning needs arising from COVID-19. As this chapter makes clear, SCS has gone out to meet great challenges in the midst of uncertainty by relying on Georgetown’s foundational values and mission.

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Interfaith Service Prays to End Anti-Asian Violence and Violence Against Women

Georgetown’s Campus Ministry came together for an interfaith service to pray for an end to anti-Asian violence and violence against women in the wake of recent attacks. Ven. Yishan Qian, Sr. Thu Do, and Umbreen Akram, representing the Buddhist, Catholic, and Muslim traditions, prayed at the service. You can watch a recording here https://www.facebook.com/georgetownuniv/videos/521880068795769

In light of increased violence against the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, and recent murders in Atlanta and across the country, Georgetown came together last week to denounce hate crimes against AAPI and women. In a demonstration of solidarity with the AAPI community and others impacted by this hatred, and an affirmation of the university’s commitment to religious diversity, Campus Ministry hosted an interfaith service to pray for healing and for justice. You can watch a recording of the service here on the University’s Facebook page.

In addition to honoring the loss of innocent life, religious leaders summoned the Georgetown community to rise to the challenge of eradicating hatred and dismantling systems of racism that pervade our society: Rabbi Rachel Gartner, director of Jewish Life, invited us to have courage to speak truth to power–fueled by a righteous anger against hatred that is grounded in justice, not revenge; Umbreen Akram, Muslim residential minister in Henle Village, prayed for the empowerment of women and the rooting out of xenophobia; Rev. Ebony Grisom, interim director of Protestant Christian Ministry, asked us to repent our culture’s allegiance to toxic masculinity and white supremacy; Ven. Yisah Qian, Buddhist residential minister in Copley Hall, implored the community to see the interconnection of all beings and to experience an awakening in compassion; Sr. Thu Do, Roman Catholic residential minister in Village A, called on us to be prophets of reconciliation and peace who build up our communities in love; and Fr. Greg Schenden, director of campus ministry, appealed to our Jesuit principles and our Ignatian spirit in responding to the cries for justice.

The prayer service was a powerful reminder of the strength of our community in diversity, a commitment at the heart of the Spirit of Georgetown. I invite you to experience the service for yourself and take to greater prayer and reflection on how we might work together to dismantle the structures of violence in our communities.

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Reflections from SCS Diversity, Equity, Belonging & Inclusion Council on Racial Bias Incident at GU Law Center

Over the last week, Georgetown leaders have issued strong condemnations of the racial bias incident at the Law Center.  As many know, two (now former) faculty members of the Law Center were involved in a conversation that revealed a pernicious form of racism that would have remained hidden had the discussion not been recorded. In the wake of this incident and the responses that followed it, this episode has been framed as a learning opportunity for engaging more deeply in the shared work of realizing racial justice, equity, and inclusion at Georgetown. But what can be learned from this and who needs to learn it? How can we make sense of the reality that each of us, because of our different identities, have different learning edges and needs arising from this case?

Kristen Hodge-Clark, Ph.D, SCS senior assistant dean for program planning, Janet Gomez, Ph.D, SCS assistant dean for summer and special programs, and Michael Canter, JD, SCS senior associate dean for students and academic operations, offer personal reflections about the racist incident at the Law Center.

In this week’s post, Mission in Motion offers space for personal reflections from three SCS staff members who serve on the leadership committee of the Diversity, Equity, Belonging & Inclusion Council (DEBIC).  These personal reflections are intended to provide material for deeper exploration and engagement with the myriad issues surfacing from this particular incident.

In their book about facilitating dialogues around race, Race Dialogues: A Facilitator’s Guide to Tackling the Elephant in the Classroom, scholars Kaplowitz, Griffin, and Seyka maintain that the vulnerable sharing of personal narrative about race is “an important factor for breaking down unconscious and conscious bias, stereotypes, entrenched prejudice and discrimination” because “research on storytelling reveals that in the long run, people are more likely to remember a personal story than data.”  Through their personal sharing, Dr. Kristen Hodge-Clark, SCS senior assistant dean for program planning, Dr. Janet Gomez, SCS assistant dean for summer and special programs, and Michael Canter, SCS senior associate dean for students and academic operations, offer us narratives that can deepen understanding about the reality of racism at Georgetown and in other higher education spaces.

Kristen Hodge-Clark: “The racist assumptions and statements made by two GU Law faculty have reminded me of my daily reality and the painstaking questions I ask of myself almost every day as a participant in several spaces (within and outside of Georgetown) where I am one of a few, or the only person of color.   

I often wonder, now that I am here in this room, what is assumed of me because of my race before I even speak?  What judgements will I face because of my race before I even work? What is said about me because of my race? How will what I say or do be measured against a standard that was predicated on racism and bias?  Will who I am, what I have achieved, what I have contributed, what I have “proven” ever be enough to shield me from racist assumptions? Of course, I already know the answer to that question. So, I live another day with this burden on my back and these questions in my mind. 

At this moment, I am also reflecting on the horrific tragedy and hate crime in Atlanta that resulted in the murders of several women from the AAPI community. I am again reminded that racism is both a pernicious and pervasive beast that rears its ugly head every day in every way imaginable. Racism and its devastating impact on numerous communities is nothing short of a national crisis. As an academic institution, we have a moral imperative to work every day and in every way towards dismantling the assumptions that lead to racist rhetoric and racist actions.“

Janet Gomez: “As many have articulated, the events that occurred at the Law Center are horrifying, dehumanizing, and have no place in our Georgetown community or anywhere. Events such as those underscore the need for more anti-bias and anti-racist training and education. It underscores the need for inclusive pedagogy training and practice. It underscores the need for difficult conversations that lead to proactive measures and not reactive bandaids until another event. It underscores that our work here still has a long way to go. We not only need to do better as a community, we need to BE better. If you are as angry as I am, you should be, but anger without productive action does not lead to change. What will you be doing about it?”

Michael Canter: “I made the goal of attending law school around the age of eight. Long before I understood what studying the law meant or what I would have to sacrifice to attend in the first place. Yet as a child, and more notably now, it was the power and allure of words that drew me to that profession. The ways in which people frame their statements. Their choice of tone and length. The structure of rules and regulations. And ultimately, the way in which the above shapes the experience of all members of our society. It has fascinated me. Inspired me. And infuriated me. All at the same time. 

During my time in law school, I was very focused on my own experience and attempting to survive what at times seemed like an impossible task. I often never thought of those alongside me and what those individuals had to sacrifice on their own before their matriculation, but then most importantly, in the classroom. I wasn’t recognizing that I was taking my privilege of safety and comfort as a white man for granted—I could ask questions, perform poorly, put myself out there without a thought. Fail. Rinse and repeat. And do it again the next day without judgment. But what of my fellow students? Where was I in understanding their experiences? 

Learning is vulnerable. Allowing our minds to expand. Challenging our ideals. Making mistakes. And pushing the boundaries of inherent skill sets. All make the classroom such a sacred place. And the leaders of the classroom, trusted figures. We entrust them with guiding students to success and most importantly pushing them towards their own personal evolutions. 

Learning of the videos, I immediately viewed and reviewed as I am sure many others did across the world. I was, of course, drawn to the words. The tone. The framing. The pauses. All of which infuriated me. Not only for the loss of trust within our sacred spaces. Not for the feedback about budding legal scholars. Not just because of the disappointment in the faculty members. But I was angry with myself. Angry about my own ignorance from many years ago when I attended law school. Angry that I didn’t move to put my passion for words into action. Why did I not look to the left and to the right at my classmates? Did situations like this occur for them? Why was I unwilling to wrestle with my privilege? I don’t have answers to these questions but I do know that my heart and mind are ready in the present. Ready to use my words. And ready to continue to confront my privilege and to fight against systemic racism. “

For more Mission in Motion content on the relationship between Georgetown’s mission, values, and the quest for racial justice, see:

“A Resource for Doing the Interior Work of Racial Justice“

“How Our Religious Traditions at Georgetown are Responding to Cries for Racial Justice and Solidarity” 

“What’s the Connection Between Our Mission and the Work of Racial Justice?”

“Violence at the U.S. Capitol and Reflections from the Jesuit Network” 

“Association of Jesuit Colleges & Universities Introduce ‘Anti-Racism Examen’”

“Recent SCS Programs Emphasize Mission, Diversity & Inclusion Values”

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Recent SCS Programs Emphasize Mission, Diversity & Inclusion Values

The School of Continuing Studies advances the overall mission of Georgetown University while promoting its own unique mission from within the context it serves:

To deliver a world-class, values-based education to a diverse array of communities and individuals throughout their academic and professional careers; to improve employability and develop workforces; and to contribute to building a civic-minded, well-informed, and globally aware society.

This statement gives a clear sense about how SCS connects the students and communities it works with to the relevant knowledge, skills, and values needed in the marketplace and larger society. The SCS liberal and professional education curriculum responds to changing social and economic trends, striving to anchor its many programs in the values that animate Georgetown University. By being so directly grounded in professional life and practice, the School enacts its mission through its many partnerships with external organizations, companies, and governmental agencies.

As part of a newly developed SCS program, “Hoyas Ask Experts,” Dawnita Wilson, VP of Diversity and Inclusion at JBG Smith, offered guidance and reflections about the behavioral and cultural changes needed to realize a more equitable organization.

Two recently launched programs demonstrate how SCS lives out its mission in this education context by incorporating principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion that are critically needed today:    

  • This spring, SCS launched a partnership with the National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA) to create the Innovative Leadership in Public Administration Certificate Program. Developed around leadership and professional development skills, the program helps address the challenges facing public administrators in diverse communities. By cultivating and forming leaders through an innovative, applied curriculum that attends to the whole person, the program aims to transform the communities served by these public administrators.

    Georgetown’s Jesuit values are being intentionally incorporated into this leadership program. In an interview with The Hoya student newspaper, SCS Dean Kelly Otter noted how the program’s culminating Capstone provides opportunities for participants to develop strategies rooted in social justice to improve their local communities. Julia Murillo, senior director of custom programs at SCS, highlighted the program’s emphasis on cultivating mindfulness and self-care, making a direct connection with the Jesuit value of cura personalis. You can learn more about the program in this SCS webstory and in this article printed in The Hoya student newspaper.
  • The second recent SCS program event examined how local and global companies are developing and advancing diversity and inclusion strategies in response to the racial and social justice movements of 2020. The event took place as part of a new series, “Hoya Ask Experts,” and featured Dawnita Wilson, vice president of diversity & inclusion at JBG Smith. Convened by Mike Canter, SCS senior associate dean of students and academic operations, and Walid Bouiachi, student in the Master of Professional Studies in Real Estate program, the hour-long session explored the criteria for an effective and meaningful diversity and inclusion strategy.

    Dawnita Wilson presented on the way that she has shaped JBG Smith’s framework in diversity and inclusion, emphasizing that intentionality and leadership’s commitment to change are critical components of cultural and behavioral transformation on issues of diversity. A thorough assessment of the existing culture needs to guide the diversity and inclusion approach, said Wilson, and should attend to both champions of this equity work and those who are resistant. I was struck by the emphasis in the presentation on the importance of individual conversations that can guide and inform the overall work of greater inclusion in an organization.

Mission in Motion has addressed why diversity, equity, and inclusion are a constitutive element of SCS mission and values. These recent programs highlight some of the ways that the School has committed to this integration.

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SCS Staff Leader Offers Guidance on Managing Difficult Interactions

This year of living in a pandemic has challenged our university community in unprecedented ways. With grace, patience, and creativity, SCS students, staff, and faculty have upheld the standards of a Georgetown education while navigating difficult circumstances that have required flexibility and new ways of thinking and working. One area of the SCS educational experience that has dramatically shifted is the relationship between student and student advisor.

Photograph of SCS staff and faculty on retreat. Meg Cohen offers lessons about how staff can pause, reflect, and find their sanctuary before responding to difficult advising situations.

Meg Cohen, SCS senior assistant dean, offered an insightful set of reflections and guidance this week in a piece entitled, “It’s Been Emotional: How to Manage Difficult Student Interactions.” Meg’s suggestions for how staff can manage challenging situations that involve “heavy emotional burdens” are deeply anchored in our Georgetown Jesuit values. I would like to make some connections between the guidance offered by Meg and the lessons of Ignatian Spirituality that are at the heart of the Spirit of Georgetown.

Give Yourself Permission to Experience Your Emotions: In an advising situation that involves a strong emotional reaction, Meg recommends resisting the urge to react in the moment by taking some time and space to get in touch with the emotions that arise in the advisor. Feeling your emotions is ok and normal, not something to avoid or resist. This lesson connects powerfully with the reflective tool of the Examen. This reverential review of one’s day (presented here) is fundamentally about naming one’s emotions, both positive and negative, consoling and desolating, so as not to be controlled by them. Connecting with one’s emotions is a way of resisting the temptation to be overcome by powerful emotions. These emotions are signals that we should pay attention to. As advisors with busy schedules and heavy loads of students, it might seem difficult to find this time and space in the midst of activity. But Contemplation in Action invites just this kind of reflection for active people. It is in the midst of activity that we ground ourselves in deeper contemplation. Ignatian Spirituality is inherently practical.

Empathize: The progression of responses to an emotionally intense advising situation leads to a shift in mindset grounded in empathy. Meg suggests that the advisor consider the student’s context and what might be happening at a deeper level. This move to empathy is also a move to honoring a student’s context, appreciating that Educating the Whole Person involves attending to all parts of the human person. This is precisely why the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (discussed by Mission in Motion here) begins in Context before moving onto Experience, Reflection, Action, and Evaluation. The student advisor cannot begin to fully assist the student without understanding what is happening in the background of the student’s life. The Ignatian Presupposition (covered here by Mission in Motion), which assumes the best of the other’s intentions, also comes to mind. This is not to say that advisors should see themselves as counselors or therapists. Rather, even the slightest expression of empathy by the advisor can engender trust and mutuality in the student advising experience.

Who Else Needs to Know About This? Meg offers that involving the perspectives of trusted colleagues can help the advisor determine the best response to a challenging situation. This points to the need for community and collegiality in the workplace and in the learning community. It is also a lesson with deep resonance in Ignatian Spirituality. St. Ignatius suggests always consulting with a trusted guide in order to make sense of one’s prayer experience and reflection. Our university mission is ultimately strengthened when students and their advisors feel like they are connected to the entire community.

These lessons, and their connections to the Spirit of Georgetown and Ignatian Spirituality, can apply to all professional interactions.  I invite you to consider how you might approach challenging situations, at work and elsewhere, by getting in touch with your emotions, practicing empathy, and consulting others, when appropriate, for guidance about how to proceed.

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“Press Pause” Series Highlights Diverse Contemplative Practices, Care of Mind, Body, and Spirit

The most recent edition of “Connections,” the online magazine of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU), focuses on the ways Jesuit schools, in the spirit of cura personalis, are serving the physical and mental health needs of students, faculty, and staff throughout the pandemic. Mission in Motion has written about several of the ways that Georgetown has met the physical, mental, and spiritual needs of our community during a time of unprecedented personal and collective stress, for example,  SCS’s Daily Digital Meditation, Monday through Friday at 12 p.m. EST, has offered a space for reflection and contemplation (consider signing up here). As a reminder, students seeking mental wellness resources should connect with the Counseling and Psychiatric Service (CAPS) and staff and faculty should reach out to the Faculty & Staff Assistance Program (FSAP).

The individual and collective stress caused by the pandemic has led to many initiatives that attend to the mental health and well-being of our community. Georgetown’s Campus Ministry is offering a weekly “Press Pause” Series in March and April to address our community’s spiritual health needs.

The article “Finding Peace of Mind at Loyola Chicago” especially caught my attention. This piece addresses the significant emotional and physical benefits of mindfulness meditation, something that Mission in Motion addressed this past summer. I resonated with the article’s concluding point made by Fr. Scott Hendrickson, S.J., a chaplain and Associate Provost for Global and Community Engagement at Loyola University Chicago. Fr. Hendrickson makes an important connection between the damage that unaddressed stress can do not only on our minds and bodies but on our spirits. He says: “These negative reactions [to stressful circumstances in our lives] often cause us to complain about, and to, other people, which is destructive in maintaining meaningful relationships – including our relationship with God.”

In an effort to meet the spiritual needs arising from our community as a result of pandemic-related stress, Georgetown’s Campus Ministry is offering a regular series called “Press Pause: Co-Creating Sacred Time.” The series begins on March 2 and ends on April 28 with each weekly session taking place at 5 p.m. ET over Zoom (you can log in each week here). Press Pause, building on Georgetown’s inter-religious commitment and multi-faith model of chaplaincy, will feature contemplative practices from diverse faiths, traditions, and cultures. The sessions are led by experienced practitioners and are open to all, offering accessible introductions to the practices while honoring their traditions of origin. You can see the entire schedule below.

The “Press Pause” series celebrates the diversity of faiths, traditions, and cultures while honoring the traditions of origin. Log in each Tuesday at 5 pm EST from the week of March 2 to April 28 through Zoom https://georgetown.zoom.us/j/94579629333

I invite you to take advantage of this unique Georgetown opportunity to experience the sacred by taking a pause in the midst of your daily life.

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Association of Jesuit Colleges & Universities Introduce “Anti-Racism Examen”

The AJCU has propelled forward the work of racial justice at Jesuit colleges and universities with a new resource, “Anti-Racism Examen,” which adds to a collection of resources available here https://www.ajcunet.edu/racial-justice

Over the last year, Mission in Motion has highlighted some of the ways that SCS has integrated mission into its efforts to cultivate an inclusive, anti-racist community striving to realize Georgetown’s value of Community in Diversity. Among other activities, SCS formed the Diversity, Equity, Belonging & Inclusion Council (DEBIC), a staff and faculty committee dedicated to supporting the integration of diversity and inclusion values into all aspects of the academic setting, and launched a series of community listening circles for students, staff, faculty, and alumni to share their honest experiences of racism in the university community. The work of racial justice at SCS continues as it does throughout Georgetown, demonstrated by a variety of ways that the university is exploring the systemic racism that continues to impact the lives of people of color.

This week, racial justice efforts at Georgetown and across the national network of Jesuit colleges and universities received a welcome resource to sustain this movement for greater racial equity. The Association of Jesuit Colleges and University (AJCU) launched an “Anti-Racism Examen” to help ground racial justice initiatives in the Jesuit spirituality that animates our schools. Thanks to a significant collaboration by many faculty and staff leaders across the U.S., the AJCU “Anti-Racism Examen” is a comprehensive set of resources intended to guide our Jesuit higher education institutions as we face the debilitating sin of racism and make good on our mission commitments. The intention of these resources is to link the personal to the institutional, fostering deepened reflection and action about how our AJCU institutions need to grow in order to realize an anti-racist future.

A core component of the AJCU “Anti-Racism Examen” is a 15 min Composition of Place video, which features images and audio from across the Jesuit network. The video is intended to spark further dialogue and reflection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-7k24NzdSA

The “Anti-Racism Examen” consists of three components:

  • Composition of Place Video: This 15-minute video adapts the guidance of St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits and author of the Spiritual Exercises, who invites the retreatant to imaginatively consider all of the aspects of one’s context and situation before entering into meditation or prayer. Similarly, this video invites viewers to look “both around and inside for landmarks. What is the racial reality right now on our campus and in ourselves?” Evoking significant feelings about the realities of racism, this video helps viewers to engage with the gritty reality of racism and serves as preparation for the dialogue and reflection of the Examen to follow.
  • Guided Examen: The Examen is a practice of interior reflection that helps the individual, and in this case the institution, more deeply align one’s motivations and actions to God’s invitation to build a more just and generous world (for a previous Mission in Motion reflection on the Examen, see here). The Examen, which has been inclusively adapted to a diverse range of audiences, invites us to get in touch in a very particular way with our inner motivations and movements. The AJCU “Anti-Racism Examen” (a guide for leaders is here) is meant to stir reflection and discernment about grounded and specific ways to dig into our experiences of racism by actively listening to one another and then holding ourselves accountable to the moral imperative of anti-racism.
  • Resources for Ongoing Discussion and Discernment: The hope is that the “Anti-Racism Examen” becomes an ongoing and continuous practice for units at the university and that it shapes concrete actions. To support action planning, the AJCU has created both a racial justice resource page and ideas for an anti-racist future.

I hope you spend some time reviewing this valuable AJCU resource and considering the ways that Ignatian spiritual practices can support the ongoing work of racial justice. More to come on how the “Anti-Racism Examen” can be more fully utilized in our SCS learning and working spaces.

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The Season of Lent Offers Opportunities for Self-Reflection, Community Healing

 Georgetown’s Campus Ministry marks the Christian season of Lent with a daily devotional reflection. Sign up here to receive a daily email during the Lenten season https://signup.e2ma.net/signup/1803259/1719680/

Next week, the Christian calendar turns to Lent, a season of preparation for Holy Week and the celebration of Easter. Georgetown’s Campus Ministry typically marks the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday, including a service in the SCS inter-faith chapel, but the pandemic has challenged us to reimagine the distribution of ashes. One helpful way to journey this season together is by following along with Georgetown’s 2021 Lent devotional (sign up here), a daily reflection from a diverse group of students, staff, and faculty. The devotional is highly subscribed throughout the world and is a helpful way to appreciate the Christian significance of Lent.

But what exactly is Lent and how might this season offer important insights, not just for Christians, but for all people? How can the Lenten journey be translated in a way that resonates universally and appeals to our common humanity?

For Christians, Lent is the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter marked by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The period tracks  Jesus’s journey from suffering and death to the new life of the resurrection on Easter. This period captures the core of the Christian mystery – healing and redemption of a broken world are made possible by a loving and merciful God who meets the world in its human condition.

More than just giving up things, like one’s favorite dessert or guilty pleasure, Lent is a time for inner transformation. Thomas Merton, a well-known contemplative Christian mystic, cautions against the temptation to treat Lent as an exercise in guilt:

“In laying upon us the light cross of ashes, the Church desires to take off our shoulder all other heavy burdens – the crushing load of worry and obsessive guilt, the dead weight of our self-love. We should not take upon ourselves a ‘burden’ of penance and stagger into Lent as if we were Atlas, carrying the whole world on his shoulders.”

Lent then invites Christians to be in touch with their individual and collective sorrows – the ways that we block the love and goodness of the Spirit in our own lives and in our lives as members of a community. There is both grief and healing in this purification process of acknowledging all of the ways that we have failed to love. Questions to inspire deeper self-reflection include:

  • What holds me back from fully and freely loving myself, others?
  • What in myself is in need of transformation and healing so that I can let go of my attachments in order to be of generous service to others?
  • What is getting in the way of my truest and most authentic self?
  • With a particular focus on persons marginalized by our social systems and structures, who do I ignore or avoid in the world? How do I contribute to the marginalizing?
  • How am I being called to renew myself and my commitments?

So this Lent, wherever you are on your journey of life, I invite you to consider the possibilities that come with honestly and mercifully naming your faults in order to be transformed by them into greater love. In writing about Lent, Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, offers that a generous and sacrificial love is a lifetime job and that this love is the only way to the kind of transformation of body and mind that Lent invites:

“Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other’s faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.”

For a virtual streaming Ash Wednesday service, please visit Georgetown University’s Facebook Page on Wednesday, February 17 at 7 pm.

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SCS Events in February Highlight Black Voices, Future of American Democracy

In his message, “Our Democracy,” President DeGioia invited the university community to a deeper commitment to the common good in light of recent events that have reminded us of the fragility of the nation’s democratic institutions. As a university based in the capital city, with an ingrained Jesuit heritage, President DeGioia called upon the notion of public responsibility, first developed by Cicero and later adapted by the Jesuits into a civic spirituality (an integration, according to Jesuit historian Fr. John O’Malley, of classical humanism and Jesuit spirituality). The power of this civic spirituality is that it can fortify the entire community as we proceed through a “defining moment for our nation in how we choose to respond.”

In celebration of Black History Month, SCS is running a “Find Your Voice” social media campaign. This week, SCS staff member and Sports Industry Management alum Tremell Horne shared about his work with the food and health equity non-profit “Dreaming Out Loud.” You can watch his Instagram Takeover here https://www.instagram.com/georgetownscs/

This month, SCS responded to this invitation by designing several events and programs intended to foster deeper reflection and discerned action about how to meet the many social justice challenges facing Georgetown and the nation. SCS Dean Kelly Otter, in an announcement “From Insurrection to Inauguration: Implications For Our Democracy’s Future,” shared about two school events intended to explore the profound obstacles facing our society with the assistance of the intellectual and professional perspectives of the SCS faculty.

The first event, “Insurrection to Inauguration: Reflections Across Professions,” takes place on Tuesday, February 9 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST (you can RSVP here). Co-hosted by Dr. Kristen Hodge-Clark and Faculty Director Kerry O’Grady, the panel convenes distinguished local experts from four different fields – journalism, public relations, emergency and disaster management, and applied intelligence – to discuss and reflect upon the events that unfolded in Washington, D.C. (you can read a Mission in Motion interview from the summer with Dr. Hodge-Clark here).

The second event, “Current and Emergency Security Challenges in Washington, D.C.,” takes place on Wednesday, February 24 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST (you can RSVP here). Moderated by Faculty Director Dr. Frederic Lemieux, the event features D.C. Chief of Police, Robert J. Contee III, who will discuss existing and upcoming security challenges that the Metropolitan Police Department is facing.

SCS is convening two events in February about the future of American democracy in the aftermath  of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Both events take place in the context of February’s celebration of Black History Month. SCS is honoring Black voices, within Georgetown and throughout the wider community, with a “Find Your Voice” social media campaign. Each week, the campaign will highlight an influential figure in Black history, as well as share reflections about their impact. This week, SCS staff member and alum of the Sports Industry Management program, Tremell Horne, hosted an Instagram takeover that featured his service work at Dreaming Out Loud, a D.C.-based non-profit that addresses health and food inequities through economic opportunities in marginalized communities. You can check out Tremell’s Instagram takeover here as well as an interview he did here with Mission in Motion during the fall semester.

Taken together, these efforts reflect the special responsibility of Georgetown SCS being located here in the capital city just blocks away from the U.S. Capitol. As President DeGioia noted, affirmed by Cicero and Fr. John O’Malley, our university character strives to be shaped by an “unwavering commitment to truth, service, and the common good.”