In these past months, Mission in Motion has explored the emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual benefits of meditative practice. We have invited the SCS community to join our ongoing Digital Daily Meditations hosted each day of the work week at 12 p.m. EST (see post here), presented on the relationship between mindfulness meditation and the work of racial justice (see post here), and surveyed SCS meditators about their experience in the daily gatherings (see post here). As we head into the mid-point of this virtual semester, and the associated challenges posed by many projects and exams, we are excited to share that SCS will host a daily 2-minute meditation on Instagram Live at 11:50 a.m. EST from Tuesday, October 13 through Friday, October 16. You can join us and experience meditation first-hand by visiting the SCS Instagram page @georgetownscs.
There are many kinds of meditative practice, which arise out of various traditions. Our focus next week will be on mindfulness meditation, which invites deeper awareness of one’s consciousness through conscious breathing and body scanning that calm one’s body and one’s mind. The hope of mindfulness meditation is that stilling the body and the mind enables us to enter more deeply into loving presence of our truest selves and into generous connections with others. Mindfulness meditation is an opportunity to pause, settle the mind and body, and proceed in our days with greater awareness of our interior movements. This practice is particularly helpful in these times, as we continue to navigate some difficult and challenging feelings surfacing within us. If you are looking for some calming pause in your day, join us next week on Instagram Live!
Georgetown University’s mission statement makes clear that our education is to form “reflective lifelong learners, to be responsible and active participants in civic life and to live generously in service to others.” The university’s location in the nation’s capital and the multitude of programs at Georgetown dedicated to political engagement confirm this mission commitment. Georgetown celebrates civic participation in so many ways, and recently made voting easier for university students by integrating a voter registration portal into MyAccess, Georgetown’s course registration system, and partnering with The Andrew Goodman Foundation on a digital voter engagement website. These efforts have encouraged a culture of civic participation among students, alumni, staff, and faculty.
Political and civic engagement, especially in an election year, can be dispiriting and discouraging, however. Many people turn away from civic life and politics because of the negativity of election campaigns, incessant commercials and advertisements, and the potential that one’s political views can become a source of conflict among families, friends, co-workers, classmates, etc. Despite the messiness of civic participation, which includes voting, advocating for issues and candidates, and encouraging community participation in public policies, this participation is a great good to be pursued. Pope Francis, for instance, describes how “meddling in politics” is virtuous because it is a form of service to the common good. By not voting or engaging in civic life, we run the risk of abdicating our shared responsibilities.
This fall, as we enter more deeply into election season, I share a resource crafted by the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United State. The document, “Contemplation and Political Action: An Ignatian Guide to Civic Engagement,” offers a framework rooted in the discernment tools of the Jesuits and their founder St. Ignatius of Loyola. There are good suggestions in this guide for how to approach the “messy, urgent work of politics” while remaining grounded in one’s personal values and convictions. Different examples of civic engagement from across the Jesuit network–including efforts to confront systemic racism, care for those most marginalized by the COVID-19 pandemic, and protecting the planet against environmental harm–illustrate the diverse ways that we can enter more fully into civic life. An Ignatian Guide to Civic Engagement is intended to be used either in personal reflection or in dialogue with others.
One of the most insightful takeaways of the guide comes from its encouragement to use two kinds of listening in discerning one’s political priorities. Based on the work of Ignatian-inspired author Margaret Silf, dual listening includes the listening of both the “mystic” and the “prophet.” To listen as a mystic is to get in touch “with the invisible currents under the immediate surface of society, and discerning, at this level, what is leading us towards a fuller humanity, and what is diminishing our human-ness.” The prophet, on the other hand, listens by addressing “what the mystic sees, challenging all that is threatening to undermine humanity’s journey towards life-in-all-its-fullness, and encouraging all that is nourishing and empowering that journey.”
These two types of listening about civic participation invite all of us in the Georgetown SCS community to reflect and act on important questions:
As you live in the world, what social forces do you think are most damaging to human dignity today?
How are you being called to address these challenges to human dignity, both in your own life and in your collaboration with others in your community?
Do you take time in your day to notice beauty in the world around you? How does this noticing shape your choices to keep the good of humanity and of the planet in mind?
This week we highlight two important resources for students that directly address the upheaval and distance of this semester. Together, these opportunities reflect Georgetown’s commitment to a whole person education that attends to the many dimensions of student lives.
Contemplation in Daily Life is a week-long program that offers students opportunities to engage in contemplative practices from a variety of religious traditions with the accompaniment of a spiritual adviser. These spiritual advisers come from the multifaith team of Campus Ministry. Over the course of a single week (October 4 through October 9), participants will be guided through 30 minutes of daily practices and will meet one-on-one with a spiritual advisor for 30 minutes to reflect on their experiences. At the beginning of the week, participants will gather as a community of diverse identities to share their journeys. The retreat begins with a virtual gathering from 8 to 9:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, October 4 and ends with a virtual closing from 3 to 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday, October 9. Students need to apply by September 27 at midnight EST to be considered for the retreat.
Contemplation in Daily Life is a unique virtual retreat opportunity for students to experience the contemplative practices of different religious traditions. The retreat is from October 4 to 9. Learn more and apply here by Sept 27.
The beauty of this retreat, which especially affirms the university’s value of Interreligious Understanding and Contemplation in Action, is that students can choose from among a diversity of programs. From “Deepening Friendship with God: A Prayer in Daily Life Retreat” to “Muraqabah and Mindfulness in the Islamic Tradition” to “Poetic Prayer in Daily Life: Protestant Christian Edition,” many possible paths are established for students on their contemplative journeys. The depth of this offering, represented by many spiritual advisors from across diverse traditions, illustrates the strength of Georgetown’s Campus Ministry.
The Wellbeing Workshop Series this fall presents opportunities for students to support their wellness. Students can sign up at this site.
Another opportunity for students to consider is the Wellbeing Workshop Series, a collaborative cross-campus effort between the Engelhard Project, Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS), and Health Education Services (HES). The intention behind the series of workshops is to present skills-building resources for students to promote wellness and mental health. The workshops address a wide range of issues that impact wellbeing, including “Managing Stress and Anxiety During COVID,” “Bringing Your Authentic Self to a Virtual World,” and “Navigating Cultural Forces and COVID: Exploring Your Values.” Students can sign up for any of the workshops at this link.
In a profound way, these opportunities for students make clear that physical distancing need not mean social isolation. These resources, which flow out from commitments to the university’s mission and values, offer important support for students in these times of challenge.
This week marked an important milestone in efforts at the School of Continuing Studies to address issues of systemic racial injustice in our institution and in our communities.
A newly formed leadership committee of six full-time SCS faculty and staff announced the first public meeting of the Diversity, Equity, Belonging & Inclusion Council (DEBIC). All SCS students, faculty, alumni, and staff, are invited to participate in DEBIC, which will have its first public meeting on September 30 from 2 to 3 p.m. EST (sign up here to RSVP for the meeting). The purpose of DEBIC is to provide direction and leadership for initiatives at SCS that work to fully integrate diversity and inclusion values into all aspects of our academic setting.
Photo of Archbishop John Carroll in front of Healy Hall on Georgetown’s Hilltop Campus. We ask this week: what does our university mission have to do with racial justice?
The formation of DEBIC follows a summer of active listening sessions in which, through circles for faculty and staff, student and alumni forums, and open feedback forms, members of the SCS community expressed their experiences, feelings, and perspectives about racism and social exclusion. While DEBIC will focus on projects and activities that affirm and welcome all members of the SCS community in the diversity of their identities, they will place a particular emphasis on combating racism and racial injustice.
As we prepare for meaningful actions to ensure that SCS addresses the persisting manifestations of structural injustice and racial inequity, I think it would be helpful to reflect on why the shared work of combating racism and racial injustice is inherently a commitment rooted in our university mission. In other words, what does mission have to do with this work of racial justice?
The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) offers a helpful starting place to explore the connections between mission integration and diversity and inclusion:
“In these days, when the coronavirus pandemic and police violence clearly impact people of color to a disproportionate degree, we implore our campus communities not just to decry injustice and bemoan the lack of opportunity. Rather, we must all pray, listen, learn and act. We are compelled to do all that we can, to make a difference for the better, for justice and equality.
For more than 200 years, our nation’s Jesuit colleges, universities, high schools, and middle schools have taken the slow and deliberate path of educating students for thoughtful, moral citizenship. Our efforts have been well-intended, yet imperfect. The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others challenge us to act against the covert and unrecognized racism that lurks in the American community and in the recesses of our own hearts. As our Jesuit mission calls us to do, let us use our collective voices as a lever for justice and the common good. We call upon our students, alumni, faculty, and staff to take concrete steps to make a difference in our institutions and in our nation.” (from AJCU Resources on Racial Justice)
This commitment by the AJCU has been joined by statements issued across the Jesuit network, from Jesuits and the colleagues that work alongside them. Fr. Brian Paulson, for example, the Provincial for the Midwest Province of the Jesuits offered this connection with mission:
“Because of our many privileges, we have a voice as individuals, as citizens, as a religious community and as a church, affiliated with often powerful institutions. Let us strive to be part of the solution and not part of the problem when it comes to dismantling systemic racism and promoting racial healing in our country. In the midst of these struggles, may we who have a voice, find a way, wherever we are, to give voice to the voiceless when basic human dignity and decency are violated.” (fromLetter from Provincial Brian Paulson, SJ on the Tragic Events in Minneapolis and Across the U.S.)
And at Georgetown, our Campus Ministry has explicitly put into dialogue the university’s Jesuit values with its commitment to responding to racial injustice:
“As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, we uphold the words of the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, that ‘the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement’ of the ‘service of faith.’ As people of diverse religious and non-religious backgrounds, we affirm that these words speak to a deeper, universal call – the call to care for the wounded among us, to seek understanding, and to dismantle the causes of all forms of violence. We commend all those who have responded to this call.” (from Georgetown University Campus Ministry “Our Response to Racism and Racial Injustice”)
All of these words make clear that Jesuit mission and values are integrally related to the ongoing struggle for racial justice. But this connection is about more than words or principles. Orienting our work for racial justice in the resources of our mission reminds us that the full measure of our efforts is action. Just action must flow out of a discerned awareness about how each one of us is called to respond to the barriers to justice.
Our mission at Georgetown inspires all of us into a “commitment to justice and the common good.” And today, as we rely upon individual and communal discernment to reflect and act upon the greatest threats to justice and the common good, we are moved to sustained action to dismantle racist structures in our communities and in our institution. Mission is not an after-thought of this shared commitment at Georgetown, it is central to this work.
The Mass of the Holy Spirit is a tradition as old as the first schools begun by Jesuits almost five centuries ago. Every year, Jesuit educational institutions around the world like Georgetown usher in a new academic year with this celebratory religious service. Typically, university students, staff, faculty, multi-faith chaplains, and Jesuits at Georgetown mark the occasion by joyously gathering on the lawn in front of Healey or in Gaston Hall. This year, due to the ongoing global pandemic, the celebration was broadcast virtually from Dahlgren Chapel (you can watch a recording of the entire mass on Georgetown’s Facebook page here).
There are many important reasons why Jesuit schools begin the academic year in this way. In past years, I have received much consolation from this annual ritual because it provided a needed pause for reflection and gratitude as I prepared to enter more fully into a busy year at Georgetown. Taking some time for reflection, in the company of the entire university community, helped remind me of my “why” for being at Georgetown.
Fr. Peter Folan, Georgetown Jesuit and faculty member in Theology, offered a homily at this year’s Mass of the Holy Spirit. You can watch it on Georgetown’s Facebook page linked here.
The symbolic significance of this opening year mass cannot be overstated. At Georgetown, we share in a conviction that our work of education transcends the knowledge and skills that we learn in books and in classroom. The vision at the heart of Georgetown’s mission is that an education in the Jesuit tradition calls all of us, regardless of our profession of a faith tradition or none at all, to the deeper, more transformative purpose of schooling. We are each called to find meaning, purpose, and belonging in our work and study and to share this transformative learning generously with and for others. We are each invited to #SeekSomethingGreater (as we like to say at SCS).
Calling upon the help of the Holy Spirit to aid us on our individual and collective journeys felt different this year, but even more important. Fr. Peter Folan, a Jesuit at Georgetown and member of the Theology faculty, noted the extraordinary challenges facing our world and our university. The temptation for despair is ever-present, remarked Fr. Folan in his homily: “Hope is in short supply these days. That is why it bears repeating. The Spirit’s fire burns brightest when it looks like the flame of hope is about to be extinguished.” Fr. Folan issued a challenging invitation to the community to listen attentively to how the Spirit may be moving in us this year: “What is the fire burning in this collective community’s heart that must be spoken aloud?” He concluded with a reminder, especially in challenging times like these with the realities of global pandemic and persisting racial injustices, that we are all summoned to service: “Will the fire of the Spirit bring hope back into our world by reminding each of us that our lives are to be lived for others. Our educations are to be given away, so to speak, in service of others.”
President DeGioia concluded the service with reflections about how to proceed in the work of racial justice in the coming year.
As custom, President DeGioia concluded the mass with reflections about the year to come. He called attention this year to two critical ideas. First, President DeGioia affirmed the Jesuit character of Georgetown and celebrated the uniquely manifested gift of Jesuit hospitality that shows up in various ways at the university. He remarked:
“All of the members of the Jesuit community embody a characteristic virtue in practice. Hospitality. It’s another Jesuit, James Keenan, who describes Jesuit hospitality this way: ‘Our hospitality is a mobile one. Mobile because those who we serve are found throughout the whole earth.’
Tonight our Georgetown community is certainly found throughout the whole earth. You have, you will experience this welcoming, this hospitality when you are next here in this place. The distinctive aspect of Jesuit hospitality is that you can experience it wherever you are. I know you have experienced this in our special celebration tonight, in the celebration of this mass and in Fr. Folan’s beautiful homily. We are all witnesses to Jesuit hospitality.”
President DeGioia went on to offer that we as a university community can come together this year despite the physical distances that seem to separate us. He noted that the Spirit is always present, always available to meet us in our weakness and need for strength. According to President DeGioia, calling upon the Spirit for guidance is essential if we are to meet the major challenges facing the world: “What we believe, what our presence here together is witness to, is our conviction that the Spirit helps us in our weakness, that very Spirit intercedes for us. We can trust in the presence of the Spirit to guide us, in responding to these challenges.” He then named some of these pressing issues: a global pandemic, a financial crisis, an eroding civic culture, and an enduring legacy of slavery and segregation in our country.
President DeGioia concluded by making an explicit connection between the support provided by the Holy Spirit and the shared task of realizing racial justice at Georgetown:
“We have seen again this past week how urgent it is that we accept our responsibilities to address the original sin of this nation. So let me close by sharing these words by Austin Channing Brown from her book I’m Still Here. And I quote: ‘Our only chance at dismantling racial injustice is being more curious about its origins than we are worried about our comfort. It is not a comfortable conversation for any of us. It is risky and messy. It is haunting work to recall the sins of the past. But is this not the work we have been called to anyway? Is this not the work of the Holy Spirit? To illuminate truth and inspire transformation. When we talk about race today and all the pain packed into that conversation the Holy Spirit remains in the room.’
The Spirit is here with us. The Spirit that will illuminate truth and inspire transformation. The Spirit that remains in the room. As we continue our journeys. As we engage in the challenging work ahead. This is what we celebrate tonight.”
Our journeys at SCS have already begun this fall. I invite all of us in this community to reflect on these themes of hospitality and hope. How are you finding hope these days? How are you growing more hospitable, more generous in your service of others? What and who do you call upon in times of need?
May the Holy Spirit, however you understand it in your own life, experience, and vision of a transcendent reality, bless you this year.
The pilgrimage is a popular image in the spirituality of the Jesuits. It comes from the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, who thought of himself as a pilgrim always on the road. There is an innate freedom in being a pilgrim and the thing about journeys is that they begin someplace but never really end. This is one way we might think about the shared project, as students, staff, faculty, alumni, of a Georgetown education.
As we enter into the fall semester, Mission in Motion pauses this week to recognize the beginning of something new. This week we asked Michael Canter, SCS Senior Associate Dean for Students and Academic Operations and long-time member of the Georgetown community, for his advice to new and continuing students beginning their own educational journeys this fall.
One potentially helpful way of fully entering into a new semester is by imagining oneself on a continuous journey or pilgrimage. Where are you headed in your educational goals and how do you want to get there?
1. You’ve spent a considerable part of your life in the Georgetown community, both as a student and as a staff member. What can you say about Georgetown to a new student experiencing the university for the first time?
Oftentimes, I hear from students that they feel intimidated to be here or can’t believe that they are attending Georgetown. Some wonder whether they can handle the experience. They are always surprised when I share that as both a student and a staff member there have been times when I’ve felt the same way. Why am I here? What do I bring?
I’m a first generation college student. Education wasn’t a major push in my family. Most barely graduated middle or high school. Many spent time incarcerated. A few suffered from substance abuse issues. I share these facts not in any judgment of my family but to provide that my upbringing was challenging in parts. And all of these parts made me who I am today. I brought all of this with me when I entered the gates at 37th & O Streets N.W. many years ago and I bring this with me every day to my current position. I’m better for it. And Georgetown is too.
We don’t arrive at Georgetown with clean slates. We bring a life that has been lived. Experiences. Perspectives. Students bring all of that power with them. They have the ability to shape and define what it means to be a member of this community. The landscape should be evolving. Ever changing. We need their voices. We need their stories. But most of all we need their honesty. All of this is what makes Georgetown a fantastic place to grow and explore. I invite all students to bring their full selves to this experience and to our community. They’ll be better for it. And so will we.
In this week’s Mission in Motion, Michael Canter, SCS Senior Associate Dean for Students and Academic Operations, offers some wisdom for new and continuing students as the fall semester at Georgetown gets underway.
2. Can you share more about your role at SCS and how you and your team support student experience at the school?
Currently, I’m the Senior Associate Dean of Students and Academic Operations where I oversee the department that manages the student experience and administrative functions for all the degree seeking programs at SCS. Our team covers new student onboarding, advising, course scheduling, faculty contracting, student events, student communications, and many other fun administrative projects that help the degree programs function. Our team works side-by-side with our awesome Faculty Directors who oversee the curriculum for our academic programs and manage their specific faculty communities.
From a team perspective, I count myself pretty lucky. The team is filled with diverse, talented and driven individuals who bring a tremendous amount of passion and creativity to their work. They truly enjoy the connection with students and the ability to work with cross functional teams across the school to create new opportunities for our community. We are a team that constantly wants to improve and so thrives upon feedback from our students. Feedback can be a loaded term but I truly mean it.
I say this to share with students that we welcome all feedback. We genuinely enjoy meeting with students to hear their ideas, good experiences, or possibly areas where we didn’t quite meet their expectations. All of the above are the reasons why we do the work that we do. We want your time with us to be transformative and fulfilling so don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
3. Of all of the values in the Spirit of Georgetown, which one resonates the most with you and why? How have you brought this value into your work at Georgetown?
I always want to say, “Cura Personalis.” I feel like that is more a fan favorite. But I prefer to give some love to another key value “Educating the Whole Person.” I find a substantial amount of fulfillment in creating opportunities for individuals to grow both personally and professionally. It is what first drew me to returning to Georgetown in the first place. As a student, I felt the power of the staff and faculty. It was almost overwhelming at first because I didn’t know or understand how to accept that kind of commitment to my success. Yet, these teams pushed me towards new heights and helped me to uncover areas of my life that I hadn’t yet fully realized. They created and offered opportunities to me that I could not have produced on my own.
Dr. O’Connor, Dr. Glavin, Dr. Hirsch, Dr. Ortiz, and Dean Chiarolanzio were major influences on my collegial journey. I was never the best student but they treated me as such. The lessons that they shared with me are lessons that have inspired some of the most creative endeavors of my life. I joined the US Marine Corps. Completed further degrees. And even started writing music.
I show up to work each day hoping to have that kind of influence on my team, colleagues, but most especially our students. I’m no saint. My execution is sometimes flawed. I can have an “off” day or two or ten. But my greatest joy in life is seeing others succeed. For me, that is part of the magic of what we do here. If I can help one person, I’m a success.
4. What advice do you have for students as they proceed into the fall semester?
Work each day to block out the negativity that abounds when you are attempting to succeed at something new. People love to hate on things that they might not be able to understand. Cancel out the noise. Forget what that member of your circle said about who you are and what they believe you should do. Forget them. Leave it at the door. You deserve to be here. You deserve to have this experience. And you deserve to have the opportunity to evolve. Do it!
Communicate with your team at SCS. I’m talking about your program support, your faculty directors, your faculty members, your classmates, your resource center representatives, your amazing operations and security team (when we are back in the building)…
Did you notice what I did there? Your team is pretty large and all here to help YOU. Use them!
5. Anything else to share?
Of course! You’ve made it this far so the least I can do is leave you with few recommendations for non-school activities:
Books on my desk this week:
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott
New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton (A book Mr. Kralovec recommended to me.)
The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison (I keep referring back to many essays in this book. I share her Sarah Lawrence Commencement Address and The Individual Artists as highlights.)
In his historically significant 2000 address at Santa Clara University, then Superior General of the Jesuits, Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., provocatively reflected on the service of faith and the promotion of justice in Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States. Part affirmation, part challenge to Jesuit higher education, Kolvenbach’s remarks are famous for his articulation of how Jesuit colleges and universities should be measured in terms of their effectiveness in meeting the mission of the Society of Jesus. According to Kolvenbach, Jesuit schools strive to form students not just for world success but for a deeper personal and social commitment: “The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become. For 450 years, Jesuit education has sought to educate ‘the whole person’ intellectually and professionally, psychologically, morally, and spiritually…Tomorrow’s ‘whole person’ cannot be whole without an educated awareness of society and culture with which to contribute socially, generally, in the real world. Tomorrow’s whole person must have, in brief, a well-educated solidarity.”
In this week’s Mission in Motion, we take a closer look at how Georgetown SCS has been forming students for such a “well-educated solidarity,” an especially needed disposition in these times to address the multiple, intersecting challenges of social injustice facing our communities. We asked Karim Trueblood, an alumna of the Master of Professional Studies in Emergency & Disaster Management (EDM), about her time at Georgetown and how her Jesuit education has informed her personal and professional life since graduation. I have been blessed to know Karim both as a student in the SCS Jesuit Values in Professional Practice course described here and as an advisee for her Capstone project, “Integration of Ignatian Principles in Emergency and Disaster Management Education,” which contributed to Karim being named EDM’s Outstanding Student of the Year at the 2019 Tropaia Ceremony.
Karim Trueblood, 2019 Georgetown SCS Alumna of the Master of Professional Studies in Emergency and Disaster Management, reflects on her Jesuit education in this week’s Mission in Motion.
What are you up to since graduating from Georgetown? How has the global pandemic affected you personally and professionally?
Since graduating from Georgetown in Spring 2019, I took some time off for reflection and family time. My son graduated high school and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and is now living in California. I am very proud of his service to our country. I also completed a graduate certificate in education at the University of Central Florida. I am currently furthering my education at Creighton University, where I am pursuing a Doctor of Education in Interdisciplinary Leadership. In addition, I launched my own consulting company, guided by Jesuit values. I am very passionate about this project because I am able to incorporate my dedication to Ignatian spirituality, emergency and disaster management, and education.
As we are faced with a global pandemic, it has been a struggle, personally and professionally. I had to move on from previous projects and readjust my goals and expectations for the near future. The isolation restrictions, like for many other people around the country and the world, had a negative impact on my mental and physical health. But the pandemic has also forced me to develop new skills and learn to express gratitude for what I used to take for granted.
I also have reconnected long distance with old friends, and I was able to attend a five-day silent retreat at Ignatius House in Atlanta. This was very meaningful and beneficial because it allowed time for contemplation, reflection, and healing. Silence urged me to be still and develop a deeper, more meaningful relationship with God. It also gave me a different perspective for those affected by the pandemic and discern who I am and where I belong.
Since graduating from Georgetown, Karim has pursued additional education and started an EDM consultancy guided by the Jesuit values she encountered at Georgetown SCS.
What are the knowledge, skills, and values that you find yourself using most from your Georgetown education? How did your time at Georgetown form who you have become?
The academic skills that I learned from Georgetown are fundamental. Academic excellence and seeking meaning from my educational journey to better serve the community and for the greater good are why I continue to further my education. The better prepared I am, the better I will be able to serve the community.
The comprehensive approach of Georgetown’s educational programs and the concept of educating the whole person served me well because I try to continue to apply that approach to everything I do in my life. I am on a journey to become a better person, seeking internal peace and detachment. I am more aware of God’s presence, as my time at Georgetown helped me become more reflective and present. It also gave me the tools and skills to use my voice and advocate for those living in the margins.
One of the most important lessons I learned at Georgetown is that God meets you where you are. God loves me as I am, imperfect, and a constant work in progress. The concept of community in diversity in Georgetown, an inclusive community where everyone belongs and everyone is accepted, taught me to be more mindful of every individual’s unique journey. And as I reflect on my journey, I learned that God calls us to serve in different roles, and all calls for service are all as essential, and we must be alert enough to discover what our call is.
Self-knowledge and self-acceptance are only possible once we learn to be our true selves. I am still seeking more, but my Georgetown experience helped me develop skills to recognize God’s presence where there is a need for service and education.
What do Georgetown’s Jesuit Values mean to you? How have you grown in your understanding of them and their application to your personal and professional life since graduating?
Georgetown’s Jesuit Values mean that the university’s foundational moral compass was built on a tradition of working for the greater Glory of God and for the greater good. The Jesuit tradition of tolerance and understanding people of diverse religions and cultures embedded since inception in a tradition of service and promotion of justice sets a standard that I must follow to try to be better. As a flawed individual, I believe Jesuit values guide us to be the best version of ourselves.
Overall, Georgetown Jesuit Values are vital because they align with my core values. It is critical to go to a school or be part of an organization that models ethical values that will be part of your internal moral compass regardless of religious background.
Georgetown’s commitment to social justice and to work for the community impacted me immensely since it paved the way for me to develop into further research and application of Ignatian spirituality into the education of emergency and disaster management and public service.
Georgetown’s promotion of justice led me into my current project working on the application of Ignatian spirituality to guide better decision-making for the greater good in emergency and disaster management. Also, to focus on fostering better relationships between vulnerable populations and stakeholders, to bridge gaps respectfully and sensitively, and by promoting reflection.
The inequalities our country is living regarding social, racial, and law enforcement controversies motivated me to seek implementation of Ignatian spirituality to serve the communities and serve public service by practicing discernment and reflection as tools for self-care. Embracing our emotions and feelings to act more compassionately towards others and ourselves generates a more positive work environment and, consequently, a stronger community.
If you could share one message with SCS students during this challenging period?
Embrace the trying times as an opportunity for service. Write in a journal and allow time for reflection. Be open-minded and compassionate with others and with yourself.
This week’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Student and Visitor Program (SEVP) unsettles our learning community and contributes to feelings of uncertainty for our international students at Georgetown. Both President DeGioia and Dean Otter issued statements this week decrying the SEVP guidance and expressing solidarity with our international community. This news compounds other distressing news–in addition to intersecting pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racial injustice, we find ourselves confronting another profound challenge. Feelings of confusion, disappointment, and concern are pervasive, which might give rise to hopelessness.
The newly designed SCS home page reflects Georgetown’s commitment to meeting students, faculty, and staff where they are in these challenging days by providing care, comfort, and fellowship.
We are again in a position to ask how our university mission, values, and heritage might provide resources for hope in this time. Last week, I reflected upon the legacy of Jesuit higher education in the United States and invited you to more deeply consider what being a student, staff, or faculty member at a Jesuit institution means to you. This week, I’d like to share a framework for helping engage constructively with your emotions. Here is my invitation: How best to move from feelings of disappointment to discerned action about how to proceed in these times of challenge? Whether the difficult feelings rising up for you are about the SEVP guidance, racial injustice, fall operating plans, COVID-19, and/or other inter-related challenges facing our Georgetown community and the broader world, this framework for meaning-making may be helpful to you.
Anchored in both Jesuit spirituality and experiential learning theory, this approach is intended to help you reflect and learn from your experiences. Utilized in community-based learning courses, including the SCS Jesuit Values in Professional Practice course described here, the framework assumes that all experiences, including the raw data of our feelings, provide an opportunity for deeper learning, self-growth, and social transformation. Even the most difficult emotions can be formative to your growth and development. The model moves through this pattern: Awareness (What?) > Understanding (So What?) > Action (Now What?). Let me briefly explain each stage in this theory of reflection.
Awareness (What?): There is power in naming the feelings of disappointment. Feelings are temporary and go away. Being explicit about naming feelings is the first step toward finding balance because your feelings may be indicating other concerns in your life that need to be addressed. In this first stage of growing in awareness of your feelings, I invite you to breathe, identify, observe, name, and withhold judgment. If possible, write out all of the feelings that you are noticing in yourself. You might consult a feelings vocabulary list to help you explicitly articulate your interior emotions. There is power in naming feelings.
Understanding (So What?): The next stage invites you to make meaning of your feelings and subjective, personal experience. This step in reflection critically considers, analyzes, and understands your feelings. The goal is to obtain a deeper form of knowing about your experience and the implications for your life. In this second stage of reflection, I invite you to connect your feelings in this moment with other experiences you’ve had and learned from in the past. For example, do you have memories of dealing with similar feelings? Are there resources in your education, including books, theories, projects, mentors, or other meaning-making structures like your faith community, family, etc. that might help you make sense of your emotions and reactions? How can you engage these feelings at a deeper level?
Action (Now What?): The final stage is one of transformation, a movement from feelings of frustration into discerned action for the future. This is not possible until you have named and accepted your feelings. Having done that, you can grow in greater interior freedom. Such detachment frees you to practice compassion for others. Herein lies the truly transformative potential of confronting difficult feelings. How do you make difficult feelings a learning experience that deepens your commitment to social transformation, to acting for justice?
Consider signing up for SCS Daily Digital Meditations offered over Zoom each day of the work week at 12 pm EST. Georgetown’s Office of Campus Ministry also offers spiritual and religious programs that you can learn more about here.
Reach out to your peers to inquire about how they are doing. Consider forming a small support group to create open space for sharing and reflecting on your feelings.
Develop your own interior practice of naming your feelings. You might consider practicing the Ignatian examen, a structured form of regular reflection as a way to get in touch with your emotions.
As we make our way through this summer, and continue to address the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racial injustice, I invite all of us in the SCS community to take a reflective pause and ask: what are we about as a Jesuit institution of higher learning? What is distinctive about our mission and values as a Jesuit school and how can this history and perspective inform how we proceed through these difficult times?
Georgetown’s Charlene Brown-McKenzie, Director of the Center for Multicultural Equity & Access, says that Jesuit education is defined by innovation and critical inquiry. What is your experience of Georgetown as a Jesuit institution of higher learning?
Each of us likely has our own viewpoint on what it means to learn and work at a Jesuit institution–some are deeply motivated and inspired by this tradition and it is the reason we choose to be part of Georgetown, while others might not reflect about what the university’s mission and values mean to us. Regardless of how one engages with our Jesuit heritage, however, we each have the opportunity to be inspired or challenged by this heritage in a way that deeply animates our time at Georgetown. Each of us is invited to make our Georgetown experience more meaningful and more impactful by journeying with the tools and resources made available by our Jesuit heritage.
The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) represents the network of 27 Jesuit schools in the United States. Outside of the U.S. there are over 180 Jesuit institutions of higher learning. Jesuit schools provide a deep network of connections.
This week, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU), an umbrella organization that represents the 27 Jesuit institutions of higher education in the U.S., marked its 50-year anniversary as a body. AJCU produced this short video to reflect on its first half-century of work and ponder what the next 50 years will look like in American Jesuit higher education. There is much to say about the characteristics of Jesuit education in terms of pedagogy, structure, inspiration, and application, but I would like to focus on two ideas in the video and invite you to reflect on them.
First, Charlene Brown-McKenzie, Georgetown’s Director of the Center for Multicultural Equity & Access and a student in the Doctor of Liberal Studies program, celebrates Jesuit education’s commitment to critical reflection. Charlene says in the video: “Jesuit history comes out of being innovators, progressive in so many ways, anchored in this critical question of inquiry and discourse.” Later on, Christopher Kerr, Executive Director of the Ignatian Solidarity Network, states: “We [in Jesuit higher education] see everything as inter-connected, a very-holistic model of working for justice. What are the connections to economic justice? What are the connections to racial injustice and inequity in our society?”
Blending together these two themes of critical inquiry and inter-connection, I invite you to consider this question for reflection: in your work and study at Georgetown, in the midst of intersecting pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racial injustice, what topics or issues of concern are leading you into deeper reflection about how to act justly in the world as a professional?
Second, the AJCU video presents Ignatian discernment as a critical tool for proceeding in these times to meet our local, national, and global challenges. We’ve highlighted the Jesuit examen of consciousness before, and how this form of structured daily reflection helps us make sense of our feelings and grow in deeper awareness of how we are called to act in the world. Kerr addresses the relationship between justice and discernment when he says: “[Jesuit higher education] is going to be seeking to be on the frontiers of our world, where we find the greatest need, find people who are most vulnerable.” Linking discernment and justice in this way makes clear how important it is to maintain a regular interior practice of meditation, mindfulness, and/or prayer. We might ponder this question:
How are you practicing regular discernment? And how is your discernment and reflection these days informing how you are called to meet the world’s greatest needs and the needs of the most vulnerable in our society?
I invite you to take some time reflecting on these questions and exploring how the university’s Jesuit mission and values may help you deepen your experience at Georgetown. Please reach out to me, Jamie Kralovec, SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration (pjk34@georgetown.edu), if you have questions or suggestions about how our university mission and values can more fully meet the challenges of this moment.
Since 2016, the School of Continuing Studies has annually offered degree-seeking students in the Master of Professional Studies and Liberal Studies programs a unique course opportunity to deeply engage with both their own personal values and the values that animate the mission of Georgetown University. The course, “Jesuit Values in Professional Practice,” has become a popular offering among SCS students and satisfies degree plans as a free elective.
MPS-Human Resources alum Rashada Jenkins speaking in past offering of the “Jesuit Values in Professional Practice” course. The course will be offered for the fifth this fall semester in a remote format.
With the help of Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service, the class is designed as Community-Based Learning (CBL) so that students take on direct work with a community-based organization addressing identified needs of marginalized persons and communities in the DC area. This community service outside of the classroom provides students with data for ongoing individual and group reflections that sustain the 15-week course.
Diverse learning activities in the class include presentations by officials responsible for advancing Jesuit mission and values in their work at Georgetown and beyond, regular individual and group reflection, and learning materials that make the Jesuits’ 500-year old tradition come alive for contemporary professionals. The class is open to and welcomes students of all faith traditions or no faith tradition at all, utilizing a “whole person” approach to education that considers the intellectual, professional, moral, and spiritual aspects of human development.
As “Jesuit Values in Professional Practice” enters its fifth fall semester, the course will be delivered this year in a remote format. The CBL requirement will also become virtual for students, who can serve in community-based organizations with opportunities for such virtual service coordinated by the Center for Social Justice (an example of how the CSJ has already promoted these remote service possibilities for students can be found here and here). We can embrace and adapt to virtual forms of teaching and learning consistent with the spirit of a “community in dispersion,” a concept that arises out of the early Jesuits’ history of “remaining intimately connected through the technology” of the day in spite of their own disruptions and separations.
Fr. Matthew Carnes S.J., associate professor in Georgetown’s Department of Government and Walsh School of Foreign Service and past presenter in the SCS course, describes more fully the uniquely Jesuit contribution to the motif of a “community in dispersion” here.
Photograph of Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso participating in a Black Lives Matter protest. The SCS Jesuit Values course explores pressing issues of social justice and invites students to develop a plan of action to serve justice and the common good in their professional lives.
Given the social challenges facing our communities at the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racial injustice, the course’s objective to help students “identify ways to serve justice and the common good in both a professional and personal context” is particularly relevant today. I have found that students tend to enjoy the class because of the extended opportunity it provides for guided and structured discernment about developing one’s personal mission and values as a professional. I have also found that students at SCS enjoy the interdisciplinary nature of the learning and the occasion for engaging with students outside of their professional disciplines and degree programs.
More than any advertisement, perspectives from course alumni testify to the curricular value. Here is a sampling of what past students have had to say about the class:
“I finally understand what makes Jesuit spirituality unique. It is a spirituality that is externalized, that actively shapes one’s choices and actions, it is contemplation in action, being people for others and aspiring for the Magis (the more).”
“The speakers who moved me the most had journeyed deeply inside their humanity and touched mine.”
“CBL truly opened my eyes to the ways people dedicate their time to fight for justice everyday. I enjoyed serving those in need and getting to know them and their stories. It was an experience that I will carry on into my own work and life.”
“I learned the foundational aspects of Jesuit values and caring for the whole person. In working to develop a right relationship with all, I learned much about Jesuit spirituality in practice and about the process of accompanying, serving, reflecting on data, researching, communicating and raising awareness in order to transform the life of another, one person at a time.”
Degree-seeking students with questions about “LSHV 480: CBL Jesuit Values in Professional Practice” (CRN: 31553, meets Thursdays at 5:20 pm in the fall) should reach out to course instructor and Associate Director for Mission Integration, Jamie Kralovec (pjk34@georgetown.edu).
