Tag: Jesuit Education

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The Spirit of Georgetown Animated in New University Campaign 

The University recently launched an exciting new campaign to shine a light on how the Spirit of Georgetown, 10 foundational values that take their inspiration from Jesuit education and spirituality, binds our diverse community together and encourages meaning, belonging, and purpose. In the last few years, in the context of the ongoing pandemic, Mission in Motion has amplified how SCS students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners live out Georgetown’s Jesuit mission and values in work and study. This larger campaign at the University is exciting because it provides a valuable opportunity to appreciate how the Spirit of Georgetown, animated in unique ways within the contexts of particular Georgetown schools and departments, is an invaluable resource for addressing the pressing challenges of our time. 

The Spirit of Georgetown campaign launched with this inspiring video. You can find all of the campaign’s content at this website. 

The campaign kicked off with the release of a Spirit of Georgetown video (watch here!). In two short minutes, viewers are introduced to a panorama of images, sounds, and words that inspire. Whether a long-time member of the Georgetown community or completely new to the place, one finds in the video clear indications of how the University presents its mission as a university grounded in a Catholic and Jesuit heritage. Narrated from the perspective of students walking the historic Hilltop and traversing the streets of the monumental city of Washington, D.C., the video presents religious diversity as a central pillar of Georgetown’s approach to mission. 

While so much of the University’s iconography and visible presence reflect Jesuit tradition, it is also obvious to someone watching the video that Georgetown creates spaces where diversity of expression and belief find a home. I feel this most especially in the video’s concluding scenes featuring Georgetown’s team of multi-faith chaplains leading worship for their respective communities. There is unity on display in this diversity as Georgetown lives out its mission principle that “serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding.” 

These themes are amplified in the first published story of the series, “What It’s Like To Attend Georgetown as a Non-Catholic: Takeaways From Current and Former Students.” The testimonies of the students interviewed for the story reflect how a common set of shared religious values enriches the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional experiences of particular religious communities. 

Perhaps surprising to some, the presence of vibrant religious chaplaincy for particular traditions fosters more, not less, interreligious dialogue and community. By directly experiencing the practices, beliefs, and imaginations of different traditions, one better appreciates their own. Doha Maaty (NHS’23) captures this well by the way she has connected the principles of her Muslim faith to Jesuit values: “While she was expecting more of a focus on medicine than Jesuit identity in the program, she was surprised by how much the Jesuit values intersected with many in her own faith.” 

 The first article in the Spirit of Georgetown series is about the diverse religious traditions represented at the University. 

This inspiring content has put me in touch with some examples from SCS that illustrate our living out the Spirit of Georgetown. Retreats for SCS students and faculty and staff invite deeper exploration of what a shared mission means for developing our interior lives. Examples of service and justice point to the need for action in a world that desperately needs it. And an abiding commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion demonstrates how the Spirit of Georgetown is indispensably important to meeting social justice challenges arising in our communities. These are just a few examples of the distinctive SCS approach to animating Georgetown’s mission and values. 


Spend some time following the new Spirit of Georgetown campaign. And reflect on how you find yourself moved to explore in more depth what these principles mean for your time at Georgetown.

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SCS 2021 Dean’s Report Highlights Integration of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Jesuit Values

The annual SCS Dean’s Report is an opportunity to share a snapshot in the life of the SCS community and communicate a vision for how the School continues to animate the University’s mission and values. The recently released 2021 report, “Bringing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to Life,” testifies to the many ways that SCS – its students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community partners – has committed to the work of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as a constitutive element of realizing Georgetown’s Jesuit-inspired mission to educate “women and men to be reflective lifelong learners, to be responsible and active participants in civic life and to live generously in service to others.” 

The 2021 SCS Dean’s Report spotlights the School’s DEI work and the ways that Georgetown’s mission and values inspire that work.

What especially stands out about this year’s report is the way that the values of the Spirit of Georgetown and the Jesuit principles that ground the University are explicitly and intentionally named in the School’s DEI work. A simple search of the document will reveal that the terms “Jesuit,” “spirit,” and “values” are employed more than 20 times throughout the report, used by multiple voices reflecting on different aspects of the School’s life. This incorporation of the University values is not an accident but a byproduct of a commitment by SCS leadership to infuse the organization’s management and culture with the guiding principles of a Catholic and Jesuit ethos of education. 

One of the most dynamic and innovative manifestations of the integration of Jesuit values and DEI is an ongoing project led by Dr. Shenita Ray, Vice Dean for Education and Faculty Affairs. The project, “SCS Jesuit Values and Cultural Climate Framework,” seeks to update “the mechanisms (legacy networks, relationships, processes, policies, practices, and tools) that drive the School’s daily work to align with who we say we aim to be as an organization.” By explicitly bringing together indicators of the Cultural Climate Survey, like institutional diversity and culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy, with Spirit of Georgetown values, like Community in Diversity and Cura Personalis, this model’s aim is to create “sustainable systemic structures to facilitate fairness, regardless of who is in any position in the organization.” Unlike a top-down coercive approach, this project invites a change of heart and mind at the individual, group, and local level so as to achieve sustainable systemic structures that better reflect Georgetown’s values. The innovation of marrying Jesuit values and curricular strategy is not new for SCS and Dr. Ray (see this previous Mission and Motion for active examples of Jesuit pedagogy at work in SCS online and on-campus courses). This framework will continue to be refined and utilized across the School, offering important lessons for how to realize the integration of DEI principles and Jesuit values across curricular, co-curricular, and administrative processes at Georgetown and beyond. 

And there are other examples of Jesuit principles serving as a resource for DEI commitments that are named in the Dean’s Report. Regan Carver of the English Language Center (ELC) reflects on how the Center has worked to advance access to English language resources while bridging cultural and geographic divides in a way that is reflective of “inclusive, Jesuit-rooted education.” An alumnus of the Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies program, Chris White, talks about using his gifts and talents in service of the most vulnerable persons through the work of community development finance in Washington, D.C.  And Valerie Brown, a lawyer and lobbyist turned leadership coach, discusses how the University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership (ITL) did not turn away from the racial reckoning following George Floyd’s murder but engaged it out of the University’s Jesuit values. 

The commitment to DEI is firmly rooted in the University’s Jesuit mission and values and reflected in the diverse religious traditions that have a home at Georgetown. An example of the moral urgency of anti-racism work espoused by religious leaders is evident in recent statements by Pope Francis, who has compared racism to “a virus that quickly mutates and, instead of disappearing, goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting.” Pope Francis has also expressed solidarity with the movements for racial justice in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and others, saying: “Do you know what comes to mind now when … I think of the Good Samaritan? … The protests over George Floyd … This movement did not pass by on the other side of the road when it saw the injury to human dignity caused by an abuse of power.” 

SCS Dean Kelly Otter invites us to read the report and “learn, reflect, and join the conversation” so that we can together “continue the good work of fostering a more just, inclusive community.” I hope this invitation gives life to an even deeper individual and collective effort to advance DEI at SCS in the years ahead.  


Check out the 2021 SCS Dean’s Report

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Telling Your Story, Making a Social Impact

One of the goals of Mission in Motion is to highlight some of the ways that SCS uniquely manifests the mission and values of Georgetown by delivering a world-class, values-based education to a diverse array of communities and individuals throughout their academic and professional careers. In this Ignatian Year, we are each invited to engage with the origin story of the Jesuit founder, St. Ignatius, and then relate something from that story to the diversity of our own individual stories. 

Storytelling has become a cornerstone of the Ignatian Year, outlined as a practice on Georgetown’s Ignatian Year bookmark and highlighted during a recent signature event that modeled how to share our own stories and listen to the stories of others. An important implication of this kind of storytelling is that transformation is possible through stories, not only for individuals but also for communities. SCS is helping realize the personal and social change possibilities of telling stories. 

John Trybus, executive director and faculty of Georgetown’s Center for Social Impact Communication at SCS, interviews Dr. Tyron McKinley Freeman, author of “Madam C.J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy During Jim Crow.” The event explored the story of Madam C.J. Walker and provided powerful examples of how stories can create social change. 

The Center for Social Impact Communication (CSIC), and specifically its Certificate in Social Impact Storytelling, demonstrates the potential for social change when professionals effectively tell their stories as part of social impact work. Anchored in CSIC’s mission, the Certificate in Social Impact Storytelling seeks to teach “changemakers of all types, especially current and aspiring marketers, communicators, fundraisers, and journalists, how to harness the power of effective storytelling for the strategic benefit of an organization and society as a whole.” This commitment to social change aligns with the Spirit of Georgetown and the University’s commitments to social justice and the common good. 

What is especially noteworthy is the congruence between the purpose of storytelling in the Ignatian Year and the mission of the storytelling certificate. The latter is grounded in the idea that telling stories effectively builds emotional connections that “bring to life the work of the issues we care so much about in ways that other forms of communication cannot.” The notion of connecting to others through emotions has a powerful linkage with the style of spirituality at the root of the Ignatian Year. Building relationships of trust  grounded in the honest sharing of stories aligns with a spirituality that is centered around shared human experiences. 

The starting place for a transformational spirituality is not by understanding abstract ideas, but by making meaning of our daily experiences and then relating that meaning to our ultimate purpose in life. St. Ignatius believed that through our emotions, the data of our everyday human experience, we are able to discern how we are called to lives of generous service. Our authentic callings and our deeper union with God flow out of the discernment we do of our interior, emotional experience. That interior work requires that we share our stories with others like trusted spiritual guides, friends, family, and others in our communities with whom we build trust. The philosophy of the CSIC storytelling certificate that “stories are inextricably linked to what it means to be human” similarly connects the sharing of stories with both individual and communal transformation.

Connecting stories to social change was evident this week in a special event organized by CSIC about the book “Madam C.J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy During Jim Crow” by Dr. Tyrone McKinley Freeman.  In conversation with John Trybus, CSIC executive director and faculty, Dr. Freeman explored how Madam C.J. Walker used her own story and her own voice for greater justice and inclusion in a society that marginalized African Americans. The story is one about the powerful bonds of community. Walker’s story of philanthropy challenges the notion that individuals are successful in private enterprise because they are “self-made.” Rather, like Madam C.J. Walker, individuals are “mutually made” in tight-knit communities and have the potential to generously share the power and dignity of their own stories with others. This story carries powerful lessons about the evolution of Black women’s philanthropy and the events that eventually gave rise to the civil rights movement in the United States. 

The call to action at the end of the book event was: Do what you can with what you have. That same call resonates with the potential of this Ignatian Year. How might we share our stories and our gifts and talents with others in the hope of making the world a more generous and welcoming place? 

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Jesuit Heritage Month at Georgetown Invites Remembrance, Reflection, and Connection

Jesuit Heritage Month at Georgetown takes place throughout November. Check out our events!

Jesuit Heritage Month at Georgetown, taking place throughout November, is an annual tradition that encourages members of the University community to more deeply engage with Jesuit heritage and its lasting resources. This year’s celebration is especially significant given that we continue to proceed through the Ignatian Year. The events of Jesuit Heritage Month can enrich exploration of the Ignatian Year by inspiring more reflection on the significance of our “cannonball moments” and the stories we share about them within our unique contexts at Georgetown.  

The signature events of Jesuit Heritage Month focus our attention not only on the past but also on the present and the future of Jesuit education. The central question giving life to these programs seems to be: How is the Jesuit heritage helping all of us at Georgetown live out our mission and values in a way that meets the world’s contemporary needs? 

Patrick Saint-Jean, S.J., will present a talk on “A New Way To Imagine Racial Justice with Ignatius of Loyola” (RSVP here) on Monday, November 8 at 4 p.m. ET in the ICC Auditorium. Mission in Motion has previously reflected on Saint-Jean’s book, which offers up Ignatian spirituality as a resource for the individual and collective work of racial justice demanded in our society. 

The next event in the series discusses the incredible life of Fr. John O’Malley, S.J., a renowned historian and long-time member of Georgetown’s faculty. The program, “The Education of a Historian: Discussing the Life, Work, & Education of John W. O’Malley, S.J.,” takes place on Friday, November 12 at 4 p.m. ET and features a panel that will converse with Fr. O’Malley and his life and lessons for life learned from a deep study of history. 

Participate in these events and celebrate the history, mission, and identity of the Jesuits at Georgetown, and beyond!

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Ignatian Year 500 at Georgetown Kicks Off With Stories and Some Poems

A profoundly inspiring event, “What’s Your Cannonball Story? Story-Telling in Georgetown’s Ignatian Year,” brought together students, staff, and faculty from across Georgetown on October 28. It marked the start of a year-long journey at the University to deeply explore the enduring legacy of St. Ignatius and the spirituality and style of education that he inspired. Introduced by Ignatian Year Working Group co-chairs Dr. Kelly Otter, Dean of SCS, and Fr. Ron Anton, Superior of Georgetown’s Jesuit Community, the event featured two levels of stories. 

Fr. Greg Schenden, S.J., Director of Campus Ministry, describes the importance of discernment in his own life by making a meaningful distinction between wants and needs. Where are the world’s greatest needs and how are we called to use our gifts and talents in response to them? Photo credit: Kuna Hamad. Watch the recording here. 

The first level of stories were the narratives provided from the stage by three talented story-tellers: Fr. Greg Schenden, S.J., Director of Campus Ministry; Michelle Ohnona, Assistant Director for Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives at the Center for New Designs in Learning at Scholarship (CNDLS); and Dawn Carpenter, DLS, Practitioner Fellow at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. In their unique ways, each storyteller touched upon some common themes as they reflected upon personal transformations that arose from their own Cannonball-like experiences. Each referenced the importance of personal discernment and the need for community support in making significant life decisions. And each described instances where their journeys of life often ended up in unexpected places, but eventually aligned them more closely to their deeper purpose and calling in the world.  

Michelle Ohnona, Assistant Director for Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives at CNDLS, shares how she arrived at a lifelong commitment to teaching and learning. Sometimes our intellectual resources help us discern our vocation choices, other times our bodies communicate important data for discernment that we should pay attention to.  Photo credit: Kuna Hamad

The second level of stories were those occurring in small-group discussions at tables arranged around Copley Formal Lounge. The Ignatian Year Working Group intentionally designed the event to encourage participants to actively engage with the Cannonball theme by listening and then offering their own stories to share. The Ignatian Year 500 bookmark was the foundation for these table conversations and provided a model for how each of us at Georgetown, regardless of our role and responsibility, can learn from our own stories and those of our colleagues. It was encouraging to see students, staff, and faculty from across the campuses listening and learning from each other in this context. With this first event completed, a precedent has been set for how to move through the Ignatian Year and make time for ourselves to meaningfully reflect on our own stories and those of our colleagues. 

Dawn Carpenter, DLS, Practitioner Fellow at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, tells a story about following unknown paths and the importance of faith and perseverance in response to adversity. Photo credit: Kuna Hamad

“Pause” comes first in the progression of practices suggested on the Ignatian Year bookmark. The hope of a “pause” is that it allows us to take some time to slow down our busy minds. But this can be difficult because many of us are accustomed to continuous mental and physical motion. We are processing so much data so often that we become inundated with experiences without making meaning of them. So we have to intentionally pause so that we can look about and re-evaluate our practices and direction. The pause moment in our day, our week, our month, or even our year is really a time to grow in our habits of attention and awareness. 

In his introduction, Fr. Ron Anton, S.J., encouraged this habit of attention and awareness by quoting from the poet Mary Oliver and her poem “The Summer Day.” As you read the poem, consider the ways that you take some pause in the next few days and simply pay attention to the awe and grandeur of the world around you.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

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Welcome to Georgetown’s Ignatian Year! (Wait, What’s an Ignatian Year?)

In her fall welcome message, “Looking Ahead with Hope,” SCS Dean Kelly Otter acknowledged the challenges and stresses many are experiencing in this semester of transition and pointed toward reasons for hope. Building upon the inspiration of Fr. Otto Hentz, S.J. that we can be hope for one another, Dean Otter articulated a special cause for hope at the University in 2021–2022: celebration of the Ignatian Year. 

This week’s Mission in Motion introduces the Ignatian Year, a celebration occurring in 2021–2022 at Jesuit institutions around the world. What is this Ignatian Year? And why should it matter to you? To answer these questions, we need to start at the beginning: the story of St. Ignatius. Check out this short film about his life. 

The purpose of this week’s reflection is to narrate the significance of the Ignatian Year, the 500th anniversary of the conversion of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, a religious order known for building schools all over the world. My own hope is that this brief summary of highlights will help make Georgetown’s Ignatian Year relevant to every member of this community. Regardless of your religious or spiritual tradition, your familiarity with the Spirit of Georgetown, or how long you have been at the University, the themes, principles, and practices at the heart of Ignatian spirituality and the style of education St. Ignatius inspired five centuries ago are relevant to you today. I invite you to consider how your ongoing journey at Georgetown, grounded in your unique lived experience, will be enriched by more deeply engaging with the events and opportunities planned for this special year.

This story begins with the story of St. Ignatius of Loyola (for an entertaining biographical summary, check out this short 10-minute film produced by Jesuits in Britain). The founder of the Jesuits was an unlikely saint, devoting the early part of his life to the pursuit of riches, honors, and conquest in battle. Upholding his knightly honor as a Spanish soldier, Ignatius defended against an invading French force and was struck by a cannonball that severely injured his leg. He had no choice but to recover slowly from his injuries, forced to stay put and entertain himself not with TikTok but with the castle’s only available reading material: religious books. This period of convalescence set into motion the deeper personal transformation that Ignatius would undergo for the rest of his life. 

What matters most for us about this transformation story is that Ignatius eventually decided on his life’s path because he paid attention to his daydreams! During his recovery, Ignatius began to notice how he felt after imagining his life’s alternate possibilities. The authentic option, the one that would lead him to pursue a profession of generosity and the common good, left him feeling joyful in a sustained way. When he imagined returning to his past life, Ignatius experienced fleeting feelings of excitement that ultimately left him feeling dry. The path toward realizing God’s invitation, his deeper purpose, would lead to deep delight and joy. Moving from a life of vainglory to a life of noble purpose required thoughtful discernment of Ignatius’s interior movements. And so it is the same for us today five centuries later. 

We are each called to make meaning of our experience by paying attention to our interior movements. You might consider these basic questions: 

  • What stirs you? 
  • What do you desire? 
  • What repels you? 
  • What distracts you?  
  • Where do you find purpose in your work? In your home? In your community? 
  • How and when do you feel most free to pursue the deeper meaning of your life? 
  • How do you want to share your gifts and talents with others? 
  • How do you want to realize justice, practice charity, and build bonds in your communities? 
  • Is there a shift in perspective that you are being invited to undertake? 

Ignatius would tell you to pay special attention to the movement of these feelings within yourself and where they lead you. Ultimately, it’s the direction of the movements that matters. And while we may not have literal cannonball experiences like Ignatius, we are each invited – especially in light of the ongoing pandemic – to convert our individual and collective suffering and adversity into profound moral and spiritual transformation. 

Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., Vice President for Mission and Ministry at Georgetown, discusses the significance of the Ignatian Year by describing an Ignatian movement from profession to purpose. Watch the video. 

For Ignatius and the Jesuit spirituality that carries on this legacy, implanted in our interior life, rooted in our deepest desires, is our vocation to be realized in the world. All of our lived experience – from the most tedious daily details to the biggest cannonball moments – present opportunities to encounter a loving God. There are many names and paths for this encounter and some may use less theologically oriented language like the true self, transcendent mystery, goodness, truth, etc. According to Fr. Arturo Sosa, S.J., Superior General of the Jesuits, all of us, regardless of our beliefs, share in the “same struggle” of realizing real change in our day-to-day mission of life. 

This Ignatian Year is also an opportunity to shine a light on how all Jesuit institutions are called to realize the Universal Apostolic Preferences. These orientations – Showing the Way to God, Walking with the Excluded, Journeying with Youth, and Caring for Our Common Home – are intended to focus the energy of all Jesuit works for the next 10 years. Georgetown SCS uniquely animates Jesuit mission in a way that honors the context of our learning community. One of the great opportunities of Georgetown’s celebration of the Ignatian Year is a deeper appreciation for the diverse ways that schools and units across the University bring to life an Ignatian spirit in their teaching, learning, and working. 

In the coming weeks and months, Mission in Motion will dedicate attention to the meaning of the Ignatian Year. Stay tuned for opportunities, like events, communications, programs, and practices, that are designed to accompany you on your journey. 

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An Invitation To Consider Some Commotion in Your Life and Work

This week’s Mission in Motion is a cross-post from the blog of Georgetown’s Campus Ministry, “Integrating Jesuit Values in Professional Education.” Campus Ministry invited me to share some reflections, in the context of the Ignatian Year (more to come in the following weeks about the Ignatian Year and how the Georgetown SCS community can engage in it), about how Jesuit values come alive at SCS. The post below presents the various ways in which the curriculum, student experience, and community engagement efforts at the School manifest an Ignatian vision of teaching, learning, and serving. 

I am inspired by an image from the autobiography of St. Ignatius about causing “commotion at the university” when I reflect on what the Jesuit tradition offers professional and continuing education. The dictionary sense of the word “commotion” conveys “tumultuous motion, agitation, and noisy disturbance.” But is there a more constructive and healthy way of considering “commotion” as a spur to disrupting the unreflective status quo in our lives, in the institutions in which we work, and in the social structures we inhabit? How can the Ignatian spirit inspire us to see our lives anew and transform our habits of heart and mind? 

Jamie Kralovec (left) with Rashada Jenkins, a 2017 graduate of the Master’s in Human Resources Management program. This week’s Mission in Motion is a cross-post from the blog of Georgetown’s Campus Ministry: “Integrating Jesuit Values in Professional Education.” 

In his autobiography, St. Ignatius of Loyola describes a “great commotion at the university” that occurs after he gives the Spiritual Exercises to a few prominent teachers and students. Five centuries later, a similar dynamic can occur whenever a student, staff, or faculty member is transformed by an Ignatian formation program and is invited to exteriorize what they have deeply interiorized. St. Ignatius was willing to disrupt the status quo of universities and other institutions in order to see things new and follow God’s calling in the service of the common good. Jesuit schools, in the spirit of their founder, have evolved over time to meet the educational demands of the changing societies in which they operate. And while the forms of Jesuit education have been updated, including the development of professional and continuing education programs like those at Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies (SCS), the essential core of Ignatian-inspired teaching and learning has never changed. Universities like Georgetown and schools within them like SCS continue to uphold a humanistic tradition with a religious vision that, initiated 500 years ago and celebrated in this Ignatian Year, is constantly seeking how to most effectively respond to the challenges of our time while attending to the unique contexts of our diverse learners. 

At SCS, whose vision is to “transform the lives and careers of diverse lifelong learners by providing access to engaged and personalized liberal and professional education for all,” the intentional incorporation of the Spirit of Georgetown continues to bear fruit across the academic enterprise. Faculty are encouraged to explore the resources of Ignatian Pedagogy in order to integrate Jesuit values across the curriculum. For example, SCS Vice Dean Shenita Ray’s “Strategies To Integrate Georgetown Values into Online and On-Campus Courses,” helps faculty and instructional designers visualize the practical ways that Ignatian Pedagogy can come alive in assignments and other learning activities. 

Students, faculty, and staff are also invited to participate in a variety of Ignatian-inspired retreats and other spirituality programs, including SCS Daily Digital Meditation, a digitally connected community that originated at the beginning of the pandemic that continues to extend the resources of mindfulness meditation, including a weekly Examen. And a weekly blog reflection, Mission in Motion, narrates the many ways that SCS students, faculty, staff, and alumni live out Jesuit values in their study, work, and engagement with the communities beyond Georgetown. 

One of the signature SCS manifestations of Ignatian spirituality and pedagogy is “Jesuit Values in Professional Practice” (recently renamed “The Reflective Professional”), a first-of-its-kind elective open to all degree-seeking students at the School. Offered annually since 2016, this community-based learning course, which is supported by Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice, Research, Teaching & Service, is a reflection-based exploration of the history, education philosophy, spirituality, and social justice applications of Jesuit education. I created the interdisciplinary course in response to my own transformative experience of the Spiritual Exercises. Similar to those early Ignatian-animated citizens of the university, I discerned at the retreat’s conclusion how best to share my transformative experience with others. The outcome of my discernment was a dedicated course that introduces some of the tools of the Ignatian tradition in a way that honors religious pluralism, advances social justice, and meets the needs of busy adult learners at SCS. 

All of these experiences hopefully make clear that the enduring resources of Jesuit education and the vision of its founder animate the life of the School of Continuing Studies. In this Ignatian Year, I invite you to consider: what might it mean for you to cause a little graced commotion at Georgetown and beyond? How might you listen for and respond to deep callings in your life, your study, and your work?  

Jamie Kralovec is the Associate Director for Mission Integration at the School of Continuing Studies.

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SCS Doctoral Student Puts Values, Skills into Practice by Contributing to In-Depth Study of Women and the Diaconate

Enshrined in Georgetown University’s mission is a dedication to “creating and communicating knowledge” through education “in the Jesuit tradition for the glory of God and the well-being of humankind.” This aspiration anchors the excellent undergraduate, graduate, and professional education offered across the University. At SCS, learning experiences are designed to maximize impact on the common good by cultivating professional skills that can be brought to bear on the pressing needs facing communities around the world. The Doctor of Liberal Studies (DLS) program demonstrates this commitment by encouraging students to frame issues in ways that cut across traditional disciplines, engaging in interdisciplinary reflection and analysis rooted in Georgetown’s Jesuit values. 

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This week’s Mission in Motion is an interview with Jennifer Sherman, Doctor of Liberal Studies student, who recently contributed to a social science research study about U.S. Catholic women and the diaconate. 

In this week’s Mission in Motion, we sit down with DLS student Jennifer Sherman, who reflects on her learning journey at Georgetown and a research study published this week, “Called to Contribute: Findings from an In-Depth Interview Study of US Catholic Women and the Diaconate,” which she contributed to on a research team with Cella Masso-Rivetti and the study’s primary author, Dr. Tricia C. Bruce. This sociological study relies on in-depth interviews with women in the U.S. Catholic Church whose call or ministry bears similarities to that of ordained male deacons. The motivation for this systematic, social science research arises from the Catholic Church’s growing exploration, evident in the recent appointment of commissions by Pope Francis, about questions surrounding women and the diaconate. In the interview, Jennifer, who is also an alumna of Georgetown’s Bachelor of Liberal Studies program, reflects on her SCS curriculum, what led her to take on this project, and what this experience means for her professional future.

(MiM) Did you ever expect to be involved in a research project like this? Tell us more about the journey that led to your participation in this study. 

(JS) Not at all; it still feels more like a happy surprise or a dream come true than an expectation met. This despite the fact that my coursework and connections at Georgetown not only led me to this work but also helped prepare me for it. 

My involvement in the study began with a directed reading I did with Jamie Kralovec on women’s ordination. One of the readings he suggested that semester was a reflection by Casey Stanton on the Amazon synod. When Jamie and I discussed the article, he encouraged me to reach out to Casey, considering our shared interest in women and the diaconate. When she and I spoke, her Discerning Deacons project was just launching. Casey introduced me to Tricia, who was leading the sociological arm of that project, and the rest is history.

(MiM) In the course of your work on the research team, in what ways did you rely on the skills, knowledge, and values of your Georgetown education? 

(JS) I could provide many examples, but instead I’ll touch briefly on each category. In terms of skills, there were the research philosophy course with James Giordano, the quantitative studies on women’s ordination with Mark Gray, and courses on gender and religion with Lauve Steenhuisen. On the knowledge front, there was the historical study of women’s roles in the Church with JoAnn Moran Cruz. When it comes to values, Jamie Kralovec’s Jesuit Values in Professional Practice course was quite influential in that it allowed me to consider how I might align my values with my professional goals. It may sound cliché, but it’s because of experiences such as these that I was ready when the opportunity arose to work on this study.

(MiM) Can you reflect on how this experience is informing your own ongoing professional discernment?  

(JS) It certainly reinforces my desire to do further sociological work on women’s ordination and other topics in religion. But my interests are broad, and this experience reminds me that what’s important to me is working with others toward goals that support shared values such as those in Georgetown’s mission statement, including cura personalis, justice, and “people for others.” These values come into play in various other projects I’m involved in.

(MiM) Anything else you would like to share? 

(JS) Yes. For anyone who wants to discuss this or another project, or otherwise communicate with me, please contact me at jms354@georgetown.edu. I look forward to hearing from you!

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The Importance of Reflection in Professional and Continuing Education

The style and approach of teaching and learning in Jesuit education is known as Ignatian Pedagogy. Mission in Motion has previously covered Ignatian Pedagogy in the context of the University’s research about student learning habits during the pandemic and a faculty workshop at the School of Continuing Studies about how the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) is interpreted and enacted across the SCS curriculum. 

The dynamic interplay of context-experience-reflection-action-evaluation occurs in a continuous learning cycle which, inspired by the orientation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, invites students to consider how best to apply their holistic knowledge in the service of truth and the common good. 

The IPP attends to the whole person and counters a narrow assumption that content knowledge and technical skills alone represent the highest value of formal education. Rather, teaching and learning in the Jesuit style is a constant invitation to consider the various and diverse ways that learners, in their unique contexts, bring their lived experiences into the classroom as part of the shared educational endeavor. 

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 This week, Mission in Motion takes a closer look at Ignatian Pedagogy and the practice of reflection, which is a relevant professional skill for SCS students. Learn more about Ignatian Pedagogy at Georgetown. 

In a context like SCS, whose vision is to “transform the lives and careers of diverse lifelong learners by providing access to engaged and personalized liberal and professional education for all,” the lived experience of adult professionals becomes an invaluable basis for deeper learning. In this way, professional practice itself shapes student learning goals and provides a foundation for deeper reflection about academic content. In addition to its critical significance in Ignatian Pedagogy, reflection is an important element of effective professional education. 

Donald Schon’s 1983 book, “The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action,” helped bring attention to the need for greater awareness about the ways that professionals reflect, consciously and unconsciously, about their activities. The book is an important part of the curriculum of “The Reflective Professional,” the community-based learning course I teach at SCS every fall about the relationship between Jesuit mission and values and professional leadership development. 

I would like to make some basic connections between Schon’s ideas and the reflection stage in the IPP. My hope is that articulating the close relationship helps illustrate the congruity between the learning styles of adults involved in professional and continuing education at SCS and the mission of Jesuit education. 

Building off of the learning theories of John Dewey and others, Schon lifts up the importance of life experience in the educational process. By closely examining how professionals solve problems, Schon makes clear that professionals utilize their intuition, common sense, and habits in a range of situations including those of “uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflict.” Technical reason is not enough to address such situations. The “epistemology of practice” comes from daily experience: 

“When we go about the spontaneous, intuitive performance of actions of everyday life, we show ourselves to be knowledgeable in a special way. Often we cannot say what it is that we know. When we try to describe it we find ourselves at a loss, or we produce descriptions that are obviously inappropriate. Our knowing is ordinarily tacit, implicit in our patterns of action and in our feel for the stuff with which we are dealing. It seems right to say that our knowing is in our action.” 

The notion that knowledge is gained in the midst of action resonates clearly with Contemplation in Action, a core value in the Spirit of Georgetown. The founding Jesuits were clear that their approach to spirituality would be broadly inclusive, paying special attention to busy professionals involved in civic affairs who could not afford to take significant time  away from their duties for prayer.

While research-based theories are necessary, Schon goes on to say that the professionals will depend ultimately on “tacit recognitions, judgments, and skillful performances” in the learning process. This theory of professional reflection closely relates to a Jesuit understanding of reflection. In the IPP, reflection is understood in this way: 

“We use the term reflection to mean a thoughtful reconsideration of some subject matter, experience, idea, purpose or spontaneous reaction, in order to grasp its significance more fully. Thus, reflection is the process by which meaning surfaces in human experience.”

The layers of understanding that occur in reflection include the “truth being studied more clearly,” “the sources of the sensations or reactions I experience,” “the implications of what I have grasped for myself and for others,” “personal insights into events, ideas, truth, or the distortion of truth,” and “some understanding of who I am (What moves me, and why?) and who I might be in relation to others.” This act of reflection connects up with Schon’s learning theories about reflective practitioners because of the way that daily human experience, including work, is at the root of the education experience. True to the Ignatian tradition, the act of reflection should always implicate a decision or action that magnifies the learner’s gifts and talents and capacity for generous service with others. 

Professional life continues to adapt during the ongoing pandemic. Continuous reflection is called for as organizations, governments, and other entities adapt to changing trends and uncertain circumstances. At SCS, we are fortunate to be guided by and grounded in the tradition of Ignatian Pedagogy and the resources that it offers for forming civic-minded, well-informed, and globally aware students.  

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Invaluable Opportunity To Live Jesuit Values at Georgetown: Alternative Breaks Program

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

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Apply by September 17, 2021, to one of the 10 critical immersion experiences taking place across the country during Spring Break 2022. The ABP is free for participants and is an excellent way for students, staff, and faculty to more deeply engage with Georgetown’s Jesuit values. Apply here! 

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

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

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

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

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