Tag: Jesuit Education

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The City’s Role in Advancing University Mission

The post reflects on the city, motivated by this article in the most recent SCS Dean’s Report:

Caring for Our Common Home: Advancing Sustainability and Faith-Based Community Development

Image: L’Enfant’s Plan for the City of Washington, Source: Museum of the American Revolution

Jesuits have made cities a primary site of missionary activity since their founding in 1540. The religious order’s relationship with the urban is not an accident but represents the founder’s vision of Finding God in All Things. St. Ignatius believed urban communities were advantageous to mission because of the concentration of people and places. Cities are not only places of great opportunity but also of great need and Ignatius located the order’s early apostolic ministries in urban sites because Jesuits could help address the concerns of the poor living there.

The urban significance of the Jesuit educational mission is perhaps most evident today in the preponderance of Jesuit schools located within city boundaries. Georgetown is no exception to this and its urban location has multiple meanings as both a local metropolitan community and a global city whose civic relevance has always been tied to the university’s public service commitment to the common good of the nation and the world. But despite these deep historical roots, I have found, both as a professional urban planner and a trained Ignatian mission integrator, that there is not enough discussion and reflection about the connections between Jesuit educational mission and the city.

When you begin to consider this relationship at a deeper level, what comes to mind as a member of the Georgetown community? What role should the city play in how Georgetown and Jesuit schools like it attempt to live out their 500-year-old tradition of education and spirituality? How does engagement with the city, its people and places, factor into your experiences at Georgetown?

As SCS prepares for the next phase of the development of the Capitol Campus this year, perhaps the most significant urban investment in Georgetown’s history, I think it would be helpful to encourage more thoughtful reflection about these questions. This motivation led me to author this article in the most recent SCS Dean’s Report, “Caring for Our Common Home: Advancing Sustainability and Faith-Based Community Development.” This piece takes a detailed view of several SCS initiatives that have engaged with the mission opportunities of contemporary urban life. Both the Master’s in Real Estate and the Master’s in Urban & Regional Planning have addressed the needs of faith-based organizations in ways that are consistent with Georgetown’s commitment to Care for Our Community Home and the integral ecological vision of Pope Francis. Beyond these academic efforts, the School’s urban sustainability vision is further realized through staff-led community service programs, which include a river clean-up with an urban non-profit.

Pope Francis has offered deep insights about the moral implications of fostering just, equitable, and sustainable cities. This feels like an opportune moment to catalyze more discussion, research, and action about engaging with the city as a matter of our mission. I hope the article in the Dean’s Report and the leading examples highlighted in it spark more reflection about the relationships between Georgetown’s Jesuit values and the challenges of our contemporary cities.

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Dean’s Report Emphasizes How Mission Animates the Work of SCS

This week’s post highlights the new SCS Dean’s Report and its emphasis on the role of Jesuit mission and values in the life of the School. 

An anticipated annual production, which involves a lot of careful planning and execution from a dedicated team of staff, is the release of the SCS Dean’s Report. This year’s effort, which covers 2023-2024, sheds an important light throughout the document on the central place of Georgetown’s Jesuit mission and values in how SCS engages in curriculum, partnership development, student life, and service to the world. A quick glance at this year’s article titles makes this connection to mission abundantly clear. As Dean Otter notes in her introduction to this year’s report, mission animates the entire enterprise: 

“Our School is rooted in a 500-year-old tradition of Catholic and Jesuit education that compels each and everyone of us to ask tough questions of themselves and of their professions, rethink traditional solutions, and ultimately seek something greater than themselves.”

This year’s report shows how SCS students, faculty, and staff have done these things with an orientation to realizing justice and the common good. 

The inspiration of Jesuit mission at SCS comes through several articles in an explicit and intentional way. In “Empowering Veterans from Service to Scholarship,” Miranda Mahmud describes how the example of St. Ignatius, himself a wounded warrior, guides the School’s efforts to meet the needs of military-connected students. We learn in this piece about how military-connected students bring many of the Spirit of Georgetown values to life, including being People for Others and helping realize a Community in Diversity. These students find Georgetown’s emphasis on life-calling, mission, and purpose in academic programs to resonate with their military experience. 

Another article in the report, “Georgetown Explores Ethical Uses of Artificial Intelligence,” demonstrates how Jesuit education’s humanistic origins, including a heavy emphasis on ethical reflection, are being integrated into curricula that address the most pressing contemporary challenges presented by machine learning. Lawrence Hardy shows how SCS has embraced artificial intelligence as critical subject matter and has begun offering an array of courses and other learning experiences that challenge SCS students to grapple deeply with the moral and ethical implications of these new technologies. 

In “Caring for our Common Home: Advancing Sustainability and Faith-Based Community Development,” I share a few concrete ways that SCS is helping put into practice a distinctly Ignatian urban vision modeled on the ideas of Pope Francis. Through particular efforts by the Master’s in Urban & Regional Planning and Master’s in Real Estate, as well as a volunteer program coordinated by SCS staff, the School is supporting environmentally sustainable approaches to meeting global challenges, like the affordable housing crisis. These novel efforts, which include an academic partnership with area churches to support the development of affordable housing on underutilized land as well as mapping the environmental performance of faith-based organizations’ global real estate, bring to life the value of Care for Our Common Home. SCS is innovatively engaging these pressing issues with programs that are flexibly designed to meet the world’s greatest needs. 

There are many more mission-aligned accomplishments in this year’s Dean’s Report to share, but I think you should read them for yourself! I hope this annual publication helps readers better appreciate the intentional care with which the SCS community preserves and animates Georgetown’s Jesuit mission and values.

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Welcome to the Spring Semester!

Preparing for Inclement Weather | Office of Emergency Management | Georgetown University
This week’s post invites a reflective pause at the beginning of a chilly and snowy spring semester. As you enter this new period, what are your desires for this semester? How are you taking time to pause and reflect?  

The spring semester is upon us! It is a funny time to enter a “spring” season when the weather in Washington, D.C. feels pretty far away from the delightful summer temperatures of May. As is customary in the life of an academic institution, however, the changing of the semester is an opportunity to reflectively transition from what came before to what comes next. The life of a university seems to stop between semesters but the world obviously does not. We enter a 2025, both filled with hope and possibility and mired in despair and suffering, evidenced by the devastating wildfires this week in California. Such an event reminds us of the mission of Georgetown for which we are all responsible and calls us to transform our education into a generous force for justice and the common good.

SCS is a dynamic and diverse learning community whose students operate within a range of program formats, meeting times, and modalities. However, every semester at SCS welcomes new members to our community. So whether you’re a new SCS student beginning your first semester, a continuing student, or a member of our faculty or staff, this opportunity to slow down, catch your breath, and prepare your mind, body, and spirit for the coming semester might be a welcome invitation. Here are three ideas for how to meaningfully enter into quiet before a new semester begins. 

Renew. As you prepare for a new Georgetown semester, take some time to get in touch with your motivation for being here. What drew you to Georgetown? What inspired you to take on your particular program? What are your desires for your experience at this University? As you begin to reflect on these questions of your “why,” it might help for you to familiarize yourself with the deeper purpose of Georgetown as an educational community. You can spend this time with this Mission in Motion post: New to SCS? An Introduction to Georgetown’s Mission and Values in Four Points. 

Review. Spending time renewing your commitment to your Georgetown education might lead you to consider your future and where you are heading. But it is also important to take stock of where you have been and how you arrived at this current moment. Reviewing your past for the sake of reflecting on how your prior lived experience might inform your present and future is at the heart of the Jesuit spirituality that animates the mission of Georgetown. New members of our community might benefit from better understanding how Georgetown lives out its Catholic and Jesuit mission by reading through the most recent Mission Priority Examen self-study report. One of the core practices arising from the Jesuit tradition that helps in this review process is the examen of consciousness. You might consider signing up for the SCS Daily Digital Meditation sessions, which include a weekly examen that occurs every Friday. In whatever ways you construct a practice of review, I invite you to explore how your present self reflects the authentic fullness of your entire journey of life. 

Recharge. Taking up “rest” as a meaningful practice of spiritual wellness is a challenge in a culture that values constant activity and valuing one’s life choices on the basis of utility or value maximation. Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Advisor for Pastoral Care, reminds us that the Jewish tradition of “Shabbat” requires that we “leave behind the regular flow of time and the productivity we imbed in it. We do this not in order to escape life, but in order to enter into it more deeply.” My hope is that you can find some intentional ways to truly rest in the time as this busy semester gets underway. Take lots of walks and try to transform your walks into spiritual experiences (you can even try out a Walking Examen!). Take time for silence. Truly enjoy the company of others. Give yourself some space to unplug from the daily distractions. Your soul will thank you! 

One of the great joys of working at Georgetown is welcoming new members into our community multiple times in the year. There is so much anticipation as a new semester begins. The anticipation at SCS is even greater in this new year as we plan for a move to 111 Massachusetts Avenue this summer and the creation of an ever more cohesive Capitol Campus. My hope is that you can savor these chilly days and arrive most fully in the early weeks of this new semester. 

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SCS Open House Creates Opportunity for Hospitality and Reflection on Georgetown’s Mission

This week’s Mission in Motion reflects on mission-oriented new degree programs at SCS tackling pressing economic, social, and environmental challenges. 

As the nation’s attention turned this week to the devastating impact of another high-powered weather disaster (if you’d like to support disaster relief efforts, the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service has identified organizations serving the affected regions), I was reflective about recent curricular news at SCS. The School has launched a new “Executive Master’s in Humanitarian Crisis & Emergency Management” program as part of its portfolio of market-focused and social impact-oriented degrees. You can read more about this new opportunity, “SCS Launches Exec. Master’s in Humanitarian Crisis & Emergency Management.” This new program follows another recent curricular addition by SCS in the creation of a Master of Professional Studies in Artificial Intelligence Management. You can read more about this new program, “Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies Launches Master’s in Artificial Intelligence Management.” 

I had both of these new offerings on my mind as the School opened its doors this week for one of its regular prospective student open houses. Regular readers of Mission in Motion will know that this blog pays some attention to the open house event. These open houses are more than occasions for the transaction of information and specific details about the admission process. I believe that the open house format, complete with nourishing and appetizing food as well as a full presence of spirited and committed faculty and staff on hand, is a reflection of the University’s commitment to a long-standing tradition of hospitality. I relish in observing the spontaneous conversations that arise during this event, watching at a slight distance as inquiring adults learn more about the many SCS offerings available. I also notice what happens when staff and faculty from across different programs convene in a shared space and pause for a moment of reflection in between providing resources to inquirers.

The addition of new programs that are tackling pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges from the perspective of skilled and ethical professional practitioners reminds us that a Georgetown education at SCS is about more than career advancement. The spirit in the space at open house also suggests, however implicitly, that everyone engaged in conversation is aware of this deeper purpose. New visitors to the building find visible indicators of the Spirit of Georgetown and the University’s Jesuit heritage and mission. They also experience this mission presence in the way that programs market degree outcomes in how alumni engage in service to the common good and the ways that staff and faculty speak with pride about how SCS prepares students to lead professional lives in service of others. 

There is much discourse about the changing nature of the higher education landscape. So many factors have affected what content, skills, and values are being offered to prospective students around the world. Technological innovations have greatly impacted how programs are delivered and in what formats. Global challenges, like the advent of artificial intelligence and the persisting reality of natural disasters requiring coordinated emergency response, make such professionally oriented, practice-centric programs so important. But what makes the Georgetown value proposition distinctive is the University’s mission. I hope that everyone partaking in the student lifecycle, from prospective students all the way through alumni, can take some time to appreciate this dimension of the Georgetown experience. 

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Capitol Campus Mass of the Holy Spirit Encourages Openness to the New (and Old)

This week’s post reflects on the Capitol Campus Mass of the Holy Spirit. Seen here are students leaving the Mass at Holy Rosary Church and proceeding to the Law Center for a reception. 

Mission in Motion recently reflected on the Mass of the Holy Spirit that took place on the Hilltop Campus and now, thanks to dedicated efforts to build Georgetown’s Mission and Ministry presence in the downtown, can reflect on last weekend’s Mass of the Holy Spirit on the Capitol Campus. 

In recent years, the Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) Mission and Ministry team has worked hard to build a neighborhood partnership with Holy Rosary Church on Third Street NW where the Catholic community celebrates weekly Mass. Today, the opportunity for the Catholic community to worship together has expanded beyond GULC to include students, faculty, and staff from SCS and the other units that make up the Capitol Campus. 

A sign of this effective partnership was the robust attendance by over 75 students, faculty, and staff at the Capitol Campus Mass of the Holy Spirit, which was presided over by Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., Ph.D., Vice President for Mission and Ministry, and co-celebrated by several Jesuits from the nearby Gonzaga Jesuit community. On a beautiful Sunday evening, this religious gathering convened a diverse group of participants seeking spiritual consolation and greater community connection. All of it took place on the developing Capitol Campus (for more, read “Reflecting on Georgetown’s Composition of Place in the Downtown”) with the service occurring at Holy Rosary and a post-Mass reception taking place outside the GULC Campus Ministry suite in McDonough Hall. The short walk from the church to the campus contextualized the reality that Georgetown’s downtown presence is accelerating, marked by the opening this fall of the McCourt School of Public Policy at 125 E Street (pictured above as the building on the far right) and continuing construction of the 111 Massachusetts Avenue building (pictured below) that will house SCS and other schools and units starting next fall. 

111 Massachusetts Avenue, which is under construction and will be home to SCS and other units in 2025, is another sign of Georgetown’s accelerating presence in the downtown. 

Fr. Bosco’s homily pointed to themes of openness to both continuity and change by deeply exploring the meaning from Mark’s Gospel of being “opened.” The Aramaic line from Chapter 7 in Mark, “Ephphatha,” which means “Be opened!” is in the context of Jesus healing a deaf person. For Fr. Mark, this presented a point of departure for more consideration of what this openness might mean for us at Georgetown in 2024. In particular, Fr. Bosco called for us to pay more attention to the small details of our everyday lives. So many of us, obligated by the press of constant tasks and activities, forget to find beauty and goodness in the details of life. 

The need for prolonged attentiveness for the potential of deeper mystery and insight to emerge from reflecting on the objects of our sensory experience can be especially realized, Fr. Bosco noted, in the pondering one does of great art and literature. A patient and unhurried stroll through a museum presents an obvious opportunity for this delighted gazing. But so does the intentional commitment to opening ourselves up to new ideas, new people, and new perspectives as part of our learning at Georgetown. Openness as a spiritual and moral theme can then move from the personal or individual to the communal. 

As our learning at Georgetown does not take place in individualized silos, we are invited to consider what it means to learn together. Common experience suggests that life in community, however motivated we are by an aspirational shared mission, can be difficult. And these challenges become harder when division and conflict surround every part of our lives and spill over into the context of our education. We live in such a moment today. The temptation is to close off from ideas and views different from our own. Fr. Bosco’s homily encouraged the opposite: Part of the task before us this year is to expand the horizons of our perspectives by meeting old and new ideas with openness. No matter the discipline of our formal study at Georgetown, everyone engaged in this common project can grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually.

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Reflecting on Georgetown’s Composition of Place in the Downtown

graphic of the buildings around the capitol campus
This week’s post is an invitation to consider the geospatial reality of Georgetown’s downtown location. What meaning can we gain by entering more fully into the physical context of our campus and its surroundings?

St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and patron of Jesuit schools around the world like Georgetown, possessed an impressive awareness of spatial dynamics. What do I mean by this? The Jesuit founder thought carefully about how the physical location of things influences our spiritual lives and how we go about realizing the mission of our work. In this way, the 16th Century saint was ahead of his time in his geospatial consciousness. The Jesuits were unique among religious orders of the period, for example, because of Ignatius’ insistence that locating Jesuit institutions in urban cores would bring about more mission advancement. Serving the needs of the human (people) and physical (places and spaces) city has been a hallmark of Jesuits for the last five centuries. This is one of the many reasons that most Jesuit schools around the globe are located within cities. 

But Ignatian emphasis on the mission opportunities in the city is about more than administration. In the Spiritual Exercises, the guided, developmental retreat that the Jesuit founder created, Ignatius insists that prayer experiences need to be rooted in a “composition of place.” Here is the original text from the Exercises: “It should be noted here that for contemplation of meditation about visible things … the ‘composition’ will consist in seeing through the gaze of the imagination the material place where the object I want to contemplate is situated…” (Spiritual Exercises, 47). Here we see that Ignatius is inviting the one engaged in prayer and meditation to get concrete and material about the details of their imagination. This prioritization of real description of actual objects of contemplation suggests that fruitful prayer and meditation is not a flight into fantasy but a deep engagement with the reality of one’s experiences. A very basic way of putting this is that context matters. 

Context is intentionally the first stage of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (described here by Mission in Motion) because of this Ignatian composition of place. The idea is that any meaningful learning activity must first be situated within the material place of learning and the persons and things that comprise that place. In this way and inspired by St. Ignatius, I invite us to journey into this semester of learning at SCS by coming to better understand the composition of place for our campus. What does it mean that our study and work are based in the physical place of downtown Washington, D.C.? How can the urban context and environment of our learning inspire the ways that we engage with the tasks of education this semester? 

All of these questions about context are especially appropriate for us at Georgetown as the movement toward a unified Capitol Campus continues. In a year’s time, the SCS campus at 640 Massachusetts Avenue will migrate to 111 Massachusetts Avenue and become co-located with other schools and units that comprise a comprehensive Georgetown anchor of graduate and professional education in the downtown. The meaning and implications of our geo-location will take on more importance as SCS shifts locations in the neighborhood and additional consideration is given to the School’s urban surroundings. 

For the time being, I invite the SCS community to continue to take seriously the place-based reality of the current campus situation at 640. One way to engage deeply with this embeddedness is by understanding the place. You might consider learning about this neighborhood through reported data about the composition of place via the U.S. Census. You might also consider spending time getting to know the people and places that comprise our neighborhood. Are there opportunities this semester to better understand the challenges and opportunities facing the persons, places, and spaces of this particular neighborhood? How can our learning pursuits serve these needs? 

In all things at Georgetown, we are encouraged to seek out the resources of our Jesuit heritage and traditions in ways that inspire our present endeavors. As we continue our SCS operations in the downtown and contemplate our future operations in a more coherent Capitol Campus, I invite all of us to more deeply reflect on the significance of our spatial reality.

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July 31 Feast Day of St. Ignatius Offers Annual Opportunity to Reflect on Meaning of Adult Learning

This week’s post is a promotion of the upcoming feast day of St. Ignatius, which is being celebrated by Georgetown at a 12:10 p.m. ET mass in Dahlgren Quad followed by a reception. Event details are here. 

The Catholic ritual of feast days helps to remember, honor, and celebrate persons who have been important in building up the community of faith. The diversity of holy people honored by feast days is a sign of the Catholic Church’s global reality and invites deeper gratitude about how a long historical tradition has endured and evolved in ways that nurture and encourage people of faith. It is with this appreciation that we approach a sacred milestone for every Jesuit institution in the world: the July 31 feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola. At Georgetown, community members can participate in the feast day by attending a 12:10 p.m. ET mass in Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart followed by a light reception in Dahlgren Quad. It is important to note that this celebration is open to all at the University. 

Mission in Motion regularly reflects not only on the significance of the Ignatian feast day but also on many personae of Ignatius and the various ways that anyone in the Georgetown community, regardless of their religious tradition or relationship to spirituality, can find something inspiring and relevant in the life of this Sixteenth Century figure. At SCS, there are obvious ways that St. Ignatius relates to the unique dynamics of our learning community and our particular mission and values as Georgetown’s vibrant home of professional and continuing education. I would like to highlight one feature of the Ignatian biography, the Jesuit patron as an adult learner, and offer some relevant connections with the learners who comprise the SCS student population today. 

According to the most recent SCS Dean’s Report, SCS students range from 19 to 79 with an average age of 32. This means that most of the more than 9,000 registered degree and non-degree students that call SCS home are adults. Such a demographic reality makes sense given the School’s emphases on employability, workforce development, and the diversity of lifelong learners. Teaching adults requires a specific kind of pedagogical attention that differs in important ways from younger students. The adjustment that SCS faculty make to effectively guide their adult learners can be supported by certain resources in the Ignatian traditions of spirituality and education. Adult learning is one of the less appreciated subjects in Jesuit higher education and I believe that SCS contributes to the national and global Jesuit discussion in important ways. 

First, adults tend to prioritize their own experience as a text for learning. With so much life lived, especially professionally, SCS adult students arrive at their classrooms with much to share with their teachers and fellow students. In this way, faculty are especially encouraged to make space in class activities and learning strategies that give adult learners the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of their considerable life experience. And like St. Ignatius, a significant proportion of SCS students have military-connected experience, which adds even more dimensionality to classroom discussion. 

Second, adults tend to need special permission for reflection. Leading busy lives of work and family obligations means that reflection time, including prayer and meditation, often gets pushed to a backburner. But certain resources in the Ignatian spiritual tradition, like the Examen, give adults an opportunity to spend a short amount of time (five to 10 minutes) pausing and slowing down. The intense practicality of Ignatian spirituality, its ability to be implemented in the course of a busy day, appeals to adults in a special way. I think that adults are especially inclined to welcome class activities and teaching approaches that emphasize slowing down and reflecting as part of the course experience. In leading retreats and in teaching courses, I have found that many adult students express gratitude for the opportunity for silence, a gift not easily afforded to them because of many other commitments. 

Third, contrary to assumptions, adults are not fully formed just because they have lots of life experience, including considerable time in a career. In this way, adult learners benefit greatly from Ignatian discernment and ongoing reflection about how to realize one’s meaning and purpose vocationally. Discerning vocation does not only happen before finding one’s first job placement. Rather, vocational discernment, an ongoing reflection about how my gifts and talents are aligned to my professional choices, is a lifelong practice. Ignatian resources are especially helpful for adults seeking to transform the knowledge, skills, and values of a Georgetown SCS program into an even more meaningful professional journey.

As you can tell, adult learning and the Jesuit traditions that St. Ignatius developed have so much relevance for our SCS community. I hope this feast day presents an opportunity to gratefully enjoy our Ignatian heritage and its enduring meaning for our community. 

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AJCU Faith, Justice, and Reconciliation Assembly Brings Together University Colleagues at a Critical Time

The AJCU Assembly brought together delegations of faculty, staff, and administration from across the network, including a group from Georgetown. 

One of the lasting joys of working for Georgetown is the opportunity to connect with colleagues across a national and global network of Jesuit schools. The U.S. network of colleges and universities, organized by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU), comes together in regular intervals to convene, network, reflect, and commit to action steps as a larger community of practice. It is important that individual schools, however unique and distinctive as single units, grow in awareness about the ways that all Jesuit institutions share a common mission. 

This week, Loyola University of Chicago hosted the Faith, Justice, and Reconciliation Assembly and welcomed delegations from the AJCU schools. This conference engages the areas of faith, justice, and reconciliation using the lens of the Jesuits’ Universal Apostolic Preferences, particularly the priority of creating a hope-filled future. A new feature of this year’s assembly, which typically takes place every three years, is that six thematic commissions presented their findings. These commissions, which included “The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm: Responding to Students and their Hungers” on which I served, spent over a year responding to a charge issued by the AJCU. 

Each commission created some tangible outputs from their work, including position papers, online resources, and prompts for continuing reflection. Other commissions included Jesuit Prison Education, environmental sustainability and Pope Francis’ Laudato Si, Citizenship & Democracy, Student Spiritual Growth & Mental Health, and Justice & Reconciliation. Each commission was presented at the assembly along with plenary speakers and workshops and posters. The topics covered all reflect the big challenges facing higher education at a perilous moment in history. Declining faith in democratic institutions, a crisis of mental health, the persisting legacy of injustice as a result of enslavement by Jesuit schools and oppression of Indigenous peoples, a warming planet, and a need for a reimagined way of presenting a Jesuit style of teaching all speak to the urgency of this moment. 

Imam Yahya Hendi, Director for Muslim Life at Georgetown, leads the Assembly in morning prayer. Each day of the Assembly featured a prayer practice from a different religious tradition. 

A key message threaded throughout the week was that there is hope in our colleges and universities because of the depth of resources arising from the Ignatian traditions of education and spirituality. Jesuit institutions are challenged to present a hope-filled future as a realistic vision. Realizing this vision requires sharing Ignatian resources that can counter the temptation to despair. In particular, Ignatian discernment, healthy Ignatian detachment, and Ignatian moral, spiritual, and intellectual imagination all offer opportunities for hope and meaningful change.

At a time of growing social exclusion and rising fear of migrants and refugees, for example, Fr. Marcel Uwineza, S.J., President of Hekima University College in Nairobi, Kenya, invited the AJCU to consider hospitality and love as names for God. In another keynote, Anna Bonta Moreland, a theologian at Villanova University, paired the crises among young adult learners of choice paralysis, a lack of leisure, and the epidemic of loneliness with the Ignatian strategies of discernment, Cura Personalis, and detachment. Young adults, counseled Moreland, can resist the tendency toward self-rejection through practices of self-care that build up the whole person. 

There is no doubt that Jesuit higher education is being called upon to meet some of the most pressing challenges of the day. This week’s Assembly proved the strength of this larger network of colleges and universities and indeed offered hope for the future. 

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SCS English Language Center Hosts Event on Japanese Cultural Experience, Advancing Georgetown’s Global Mission

Hiroko “Mai” Sano (far right) is a student in the SCS English Language Center who presented this week at the School about Japanese calligraphy and her experience as an Airbnb experience host. 

Mission in Motion has dedicated several posts in recent years to the work of the English Language Center (ELC) at SCS, a more than 60-year-old English language and teacher training center, which manifests the Jesuit mission of the University in many ways. One way to enter into a deeper appreciation of ELC’s commitment to embodying Georgetown’s values is by spending time with its mission statement: 

“The mission of the English Language Center is to promote global understanding and education through programs and services that enhance English language proficiency, language teaching, and intercultural understanding.”

Inherent in this statement is an orientation to education that serves the common good by creating the conditions, through language exchange and teaching, for greater cooperation and collaboration among people across the world. I read in this mission clear evidence of the Jesuits’ founding vision to be a global religious order, binding a global group together through a constellation of different works and projects. A “community in dispersion,” a motif of early Jesuit history that was amplified during the initial COVID-19 lockdown, is realized through the programs and offerings of the ELC. Many graduates return to their home countries with increased language proficiency that enables greater intercultural understanding. 

Mai’s presentation, framed as an expression of the mission of the ELC, exemplifies how Georgetown strives to realize intercultural understanding through the education that it offers. 

Reading this mission statement is how Andrew Screen, ELC professor, began the ELC Social Hour at SCS this week. The program, “Japanese Calligraphy Writing With Hiroko ‘Mai’ Sano,” was an interactive global immersion in Japanese culture led by ELC student Hiroko ‘Mai’ Sano. In her presentation, Mai shared her work as an Airbnb experience host in Tokyo, Japan, as well as a junior high school English teacher. In the course of sharing, Mai also demonstrated via videos how she helps visitors learn to write Japanese calligraphy and make udon noodles from scratch. There were some especially poignant moments, including a description of a visit to Japan by a Ukrainian woman who felt deeply at peace with Mai in spite of the turmoil and conflict in her own country. A key theme emerged throughout the presentation: kindness and hospitality are reliable means to greater cultural understanding. Also, English language learners can deepen their own English language skills by sharing their cultural realities with others. Mai gifted the audience with her intimate insights about life in Japan. 

The room was full for the social hour and attracted fellow ELC students as well as SCS faculty and staff who wanted to learn more. The event was a powerful reminder of the transformative possibilities of Georgetown’s global education. The Spirit of Georgetown explicitly calls out values like “Community in Diversity,” “Interreligious Understanding,” and “Educating the Whole Person” that get at the core work of the ELC. This week’s brief experience of Japanese culture exemplifies how Georgetown enriches a world in great need of increased cultural understanding and mutual cooperation.

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5 Steps to Facilitate Meaningful Meetings: Insights from Georgetown’s Summer Programs

This week’s post is about the importance of small group discussions and how effective facilitation can help participants, like the students participating in Georgetown’s summer programs, strive for deeper meaning and purpose in their education.  Image is from Georgetown’s “A Different Dialogue Program.” 

As the summer gets underway, a dedicated team of SCS staff has been preparing for months to welcome students for a wide-ranging set of summer programs. These summer experiences cater to the needs of diverse student audiences, including high school students from around the country coming to main campus for a dedicated experience of university life. Some programs last the duration of the summer months and others are shorter in length. Mission in Motion reflects each year, for instance, on the mission-driven Summer College Immersion Program (SCIP), a three-week residential experience of Georgetown for talented students in the KIPP Foundation and Cristo Rey Network of schools. What is distinctive about Georgetown’s summer offerings is that they present students with the opportunity to engage with Georgetown’s traditions of academic excellence, community, and globally significant position in the nation’s capital. 

Each summer semester requires an entire year’s worth of planning and preparation. As part of this effort, the summer staff reviews and evaluates how it can improve its delivery of services and support for summer students. As part of this year’s effort, I was invited to deliver a training for the staff working for Georgetown’s High School Summer Academies. The Academies are one, two, or three weeks in length and organized around different thematic areas, like Biotechnology, American Politics, and International Relations. Some of the students venturing to Georgetown’s Hilltop campus have never traveled to Washington, D.C., or had the experience of living independently in a college dorm. The summer staff hoped that I might provide some guidance for how to effectively facilitate small group discussions for students throughout the summer. 

Summer staff serve as resources to the students as they navigate classes and life on campus. The convening of small groups throughout the summer is invaluable for many reasons, including the formation of deeper bonds among smaller groups of students outside of the traditional classroom experience. Small groups also help summer students reflect on the learning occurring within classes. I introduced some suggestions for practices rooted in Ignatian pedagogical principles. My view is that facilitating an effective small group is a key skill that is transferable to many areas of professional life. But more than organizational effectiveness, facilitation as a skill relates to helping others experience the deeper meaning and purpose of a Georgetown education rooted in the Jesuit tradition of education. My five-step framework for facilitating can help convert an ordinary experience of group discussion into something more meaningful.

First, Invite: Make sure your attendees know what to expect during the meeting and what they are being asked to do. Too often, we do not consider how a small group conversation can become a rich opportunity for learning and growth. To ensure this possibility, the facilitator needs to set the expectations in advance about how participants are expected to show up and participate. 

Second, Create the Space: Establishing a space as safe, brave, and sacred means making certain intentional decisions about the meeting setting. This means that the facilitator needs to think about the arrangement of chairs and how participants are able to see each other, communicate with each other, and learn from each other. Creating space also means being clear about the community agreements that will govern discussion. For instance, how will the group handle confidentiality, technology, and conflict in the space? Responsible facilitation means being clear about the ethics that will guide the process. 

Third, Maintain the Space: Facilitation is an active practice because it necessitates being involved throughout the experience. The facilitator needs to get involved when community agreements are violated or the group is getting off track. This means reading the room, so to speak, and making judgments about what the group needs in order to sustain the discussion. Effective facilitators also recognize opportunities to healthily work through conflicts emerging in the space. Some conflicts are too big and difficult for a group so must be managed outside the group structure. Maintaining the space also means monitoring time and keeping the group on time. 

Fourth, Check In: Facilitators learn to interact with a group in ways that respond to the group’s particular needs. Each group has a different life and a different culture. It is helpful for the facilitator, especially in a learning experience at Georgetown, to time and again remind the group of the larger purpose of the activity. Why are we here? How does this discussion help deepen the meaning that you are making of your time in the classroom? The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm puts “reflection” after “experience” because meaning-making of an experience requires intentional interior processing of all that happened during the experience itself. 

Fifth, Transition: How the meeting ends is in the control of the facilitator. The hope is that participants know when the conversation concludes and how this particular meeting relates to the next one. Giving the group good incentives to return to the following conversation is helpful to maintaining the energy and buy-in of the participants. One helpful way to transition is to mark the end of the meeting with some symbolic practice, like a poem or prayer or piece of music. 

Georgetown’s summer staff teams gives students an accelerated experience in a short amount of time. Their work is invaluable and critical to ensuring that the University’s Jesuit mission and values come to life in the student experience.