Tag: Jesuit Values

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Career Counseling in an Ignatian Key

In her book, “Coaching with Careers and AI in Mind: Grounding a Hopeful and Resourceful Fit for a Digital World,” Adina Terry offers much needed insights about how to prepare job seekers for success in the turbulent digital age. Some, like the World Economic Forum, refer to our current epoch as the Fourth Industrial Revolution characterized by the advance of cyber-physical systems and artificial intelligence. In so many ways, the world of work has dramatically changed and preparation for these economic realities require a reimagining about how to provide career counseling. 

footprints and directional arrows - photo by imelenchon via Morguefile

This week’s post offers insights about career counseling in this digital age from the tradition of Ignatian discernment. Image from “Four Strategies for Discernment” by Vinita Hampton Wright at IgnatianSpirituality.com. 

The career counseling literature stresses the need for flexibility, adaptability, and lifelong learning in navigating the demands of work at a time of digital innovation and disruption. Much of what job seekers need is related to the development of technical skills and expertise necessary to fulfill the ever-changing demands of jobs that meet current economic and social needs. But more than technical practices, interior dispositions and capacities to tap into one’s deeper sense of meaning and purpose are necessary to align one’s skills to available work opportunities. In this way, career support needs to be about the “Whole Person,” a values-based commitment made explicit in the Spirit of Georgetown. 

Thankfully, SCS offers a set of resources to support students on their professional journeys, including career coaching from a certified career counselor. These curated resources are in addition to program-specific professional preparation and advising that take place within classes and in applied networking opportunities that occur outside of the curriculum. I believe that spiritual accompaniment resources should also be considered part of the overall well of support for career development. Students should consider their pastoral engagements with the suite of Georgetown’s multi-faith chaplains and staff, which occur in individual consultations and group settings like workshops, fellowship, and retreats, an important part of their career preparation. 

Engagements with spiritual guides can help students discern their “calling,” which scholars in an article in the journal The Counseling Psychologist entitled, “Purpose and Meaning in Career Development Applications,” describe as “linking what clients do at work to a broader impact” that “can enhance a sense that they are living out a calling and promotes purpose and meaning in their careers.” The key to this understanding of “calling” is that individual flourishing does not take place in isolation but depends on connecting one’s own well-being to the well-being of the entire community. Calling is truly a shared project. Calling is not discovered in a single “aha moment,” but discerned over the longer term. How, you might be asking, can one’s calling in work be discerned over the longer term of a career that needs to withstand the dynamic forces of an economic system in flux? 

Discernment is one of the essential practices at the root of the Jesuit tradition of spirituality and leadership. This approach necessitates that the seeker regularly grows in sensory awareness of their inner movements. These habits of self-awareness, cultivated through the Ignatian examen of consciousness, lead the individual to notice their emotions, feelings, affections, desires, attractions, and repulsions. The reflective stage of the examen invites the seeker to make meaning of these inner experiences. Am I being inclined by my inner movements to experience more connection and alignment with my true self and my authentic identity before my ultimate source of meaning (e.g., God, Ultimate Mystery, etc.)? Or am I noticing a troublesome disconnect between what I deeply desire for myself and how I actually feel? This journey of discernment requires regular attention to these subtle interior changes and this process should be supported by a trained spiritual guide. 

William Spohn, in his article “The Chosen Path” in America Magazine, presents the transformative possibilities of utilizing an Ignatian framework in making career decisions. Spohn names this potential for transformation through Ignatian spirituality as the opportunity to “discover our personal calling by aligning our gifts and aspirations with what we see as the deepest needs of our world.” We must remember that discerning one’s vocation is a continuous exercise and it is not generic, but a unique journey experienced as a “call to individuals tailored both to their talents and the community’s needs.” By bringing one’s deeper desires into the career discernment process, the individual taps into possibilities for self-growth and community service that extend beyond their technical skills and training. I hope that all involved in the career support ecosystem consider the multidimensional and holistic dimensions of assisting students on the journey to meaningful work. 

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An Ongoing Journey Toward More Belonging: Some Recent Efforts

The Mission in Motion platform is intended to deeply explore each of the values of the Spirit of Georgetown by telling the stories about how these Jesuit principles come to life at SCS. Embodying a Community in Diversity is one of these core values and has received renewed attention in recent years, especially as the COVID pandemic laid bare the underlying realities of racial and economic inequity in our society and around the globe. Taking up a commitment to supporting and sustaining an inclusive, diverse, and welcoming community that honors difference is a moral and religious imperative with roots across traditions and cultures. Georgetown’s embrace of this has uniquely Ignatian dimensions, which was examined in this recent post “Toward a Meaningful Diversity: Ignatian Resources for Realizing an Inclusive Community.” 

Georgetown’s Office of Student Equity & Inclusion recently opened a new hub on the Hilltop. You can learn more about it in this video

Three recent initiatives and events at Georgetown demonstrate the University’s ongoing journey toward realizing a more and more inclusive community. I would like to highlight each of these in the context of Georgetown’s mission commitment and values. First, the Office of Student Equity & Inclusion (OSEI) opened a new location on the Hilltop that serves as a hub for diversity, equity, and inclusion work. The space, which will be home to the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access, the Community Scholars Program, the Disability Cultural Center, the LGBTQ Resource Center, and the Women’s Center, is designed in ways that invite greater inclusivity, collaboration, and intersectional connection. Dr. Adanna J. Johnson, associate vice president for student equity and inclusion who leads OSEI, grounded this milestone in mission values: “We need to ensure that Georgetown’s approach is truly integrated across the campus because it is central to the success of all students and is clear in our Jesuit mission and values; this new space is in alignment with that mission!” 

Second, this week marked the inaugural cohort of the SCS Certificate in Strategic Thinking & Leadership. This leadership academy stands out for many reasons, but one distinctive element is the thread woven throughout the five modules about the critical importance of leading inclusive organizations. One of the modules, “Succeeding with an Inclusive and Aligned Culture,” taught by Sharon Newport and Jessica Srikantia Field, explicitly takes up the topic of transformational leadership from the standpoint of DEI principles. In my module, “Becoming a Discerning Leader,” I invited students to consider the contribution of Ignatian spirituality to the ideas and practices of inclusive leadership with a particular emphasis on how emotional awareness can help inclusive leaders become more aware of their blind spots. While each of the faculty members offered a unique perspective on the professional development and methodology necessary to realize this more inclusive community, all of the presentators offered insights from their lived career experiences that added up to some valuable shared understandings. This certificate is a promising effort to cultivate leadership skills and habits that are needed in the world. 

3.21 HEA DEBIC event graphic, including headshot photos of the panelists.
SCS Diversity, Equity, Belonging, and Inclusion Council along with the Master of Professional Studies in Higher Education Administration recently hosted a panel about challenges to DEI in higher education. 

Third, the SCS Diversity, Equity, Belonging, and Inclusion Council (DEBIC) along with the Master of Professional Studies in Higher Education Administration (HEA) program hosted an event, “Journeying Toward More Belonging in Higher Education: Assessing and Responding to DEI Challenges in Culture and Policy.” The influential and insightful panel of experts included two HEA faculty members, Dr. Judith Perez-Caro and Dr. Kimberly Underwood, as well as Rosemary Kilkenny, Georgetown’s Vice President for Institutional Diversity & Equity and Chief Diversity Officer. The hour-long discussion focused on the current challenges to DEI integration in higher education and strategies for addressing these challenges on campuses. One emphasis that stood out from the discussion is that colleges and universities should anchor their DEI commitments in mission. 

The journey toward inclusion requires ongoing commitment. It is helpful now and again to pause and grow in awareness about promising efforts that are helping the Georgetown community more fully realize its mission to become a Community in Diversity.

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Becoming Spiritually Grounded Strategic Thinkers and Discerning Leaders

 This week’s post considers how strategic thinking and leadership can be enhanced by bringing in the ideas and practices of spirituality. The inaugural SCS “Strategic Thinking & Leadership Academy” will emphasize these connections. 

What comes to mind when you hear the term, spiritual leadership? For many, I suspect, this brings up associations with institutionalized religion and following the codes and creeds of a particular tradition’s dogmas and rules. There is a particular association for many people with spirituality as something that is private and potentially not appropriate for discussion in public situations, including the workplace. 

Scholars of spirituality tend to make a distinction between “religion” on the one hand and “spirituality” on the other. The former tends to be related to the institutionalized manifestations of a particular tradition’s efforts to be organized formally. The latter tends to be considered the more experiential and interiorized personal phenomena of being in an intentional relationship with God, or the Transcendent Other, through a set of practices. Spirituality scholar Sandra Schneiders, for example, describes spirituality as “the experience of conscious involvement in the project of life integration through self-transcendence toward the ultimate value one perceives.” 

In recent years, the contribution of spirituality to leadership development has received more and more attention. The interest in this combination is arising not only from spiritually minded practitioners and ministry leaders but directly from the world of secular professional practice. Without going into too much detail, the basis of this interest has to do with what individual spiritual practices, cultivated by employees and members of groups on their own, have to positively offer to the health and vitality of organizations. Spirituality then becomes a well of resources for cultivating strong ethical leadership skills that can help organized groups of all kinds better realize their missions and their bottom lines. 

In this spirit, Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies is running an inaugural  “Strategic Thinking & Leadership Academy” this March. This comprehensive, intensive 3-day program is designed to “empower aspiring leaders in government, industry, education, and nonprofits with the skills and knowledge needed to make informed decisions, implement strategies, and lead effectively in today’s environment.” What is especially exciting about this academy is that it brings together faculty whose own professional experience and perspectives on strategic thinking and leadership add up to a truly interdisciplinary academic experience, with a particular emphasis on the need to build truly inclusive organizational cultures. I am delighted to offer one of the modules, “Becoming a Discerning Leader,” which will introduce program participants to the critical importance of developing interior practices that help leaders notice their emotions with clarity and acknowledge their blind spots. Discerning Leadership is a purposeful reference to the wealth of resources for professional practitioners that are made available by Jesuit values and the traditions of Ignatian Spirituality. 

One such ongoing example of work at SCS that brings together the richness of the ideas and practices of Ignatian Spirituality and the critical work of personal group leadership development is the facilitated use of the book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. Now on its third edition, the book presents a series of practical suggestions for how to skillfully and gracefully navigate conversations that involve opposing opinions, strong emotions, and high stakes. In short, the book argues that such Crucial Conversations, which often end up in seemingly intractable workplace conflicts, can be better managed with more effective dialogue skills, greater emotional awareness, and a willingness to pause during heated situations and calmly assess both the surface-level and underlying interpersonal dynamics. Administrative units at SCS are encouraged to use the book and explore how these practices might shape healthier, more productive, and more mission-driven accomplishment of organizational goals. 

There is a false choice in leadership development praxis between purely scientific or purely spiritual strategies. Using the lens of Ignatian Spirituality to more richly explore the potential connections within Crucial Conversations for the work of SCS faculty and staff leaders brings together these worldviews. The book need not be experienced as an entirely secular framework, even if the authors are not explicit about the contributions of spirituality to the discussion. Chapter 5, “Master My Stories: How to Stay in Dialogue When You’re Angry, Scared, or Hurt,” for example, presents some compelling opportunities for integration with the Ignatian tradition. 

At one point, the authors emphasize the importance of emotional literacy and awareness: “When you take the time to precisely articulate what you’re feeling, you begin to put a little bit of daylight between you and the emotion. This distance lets you move from being hostage to the emotion to being an observer of it” (87). This idea relates well to the Ignatian Examen, a daily practice that encourages self-awareness and discovery by reverentially reviewing one’s emotional experiences, both those that are consoling and those that are desolating, for signs of how one is being called to more loving and generous leadership and service. Noticing and naming the emotions we experience is one step toward healthy indifference and detachment from harmful emotions that get in the way of better discerned action. 

Another Ignatian connection in the book is the emphasis on practicality in terms of how actions of leaders cannot depend on excessive self-reflection: “Why would you stop and retrace your Path to Action in the first place? Certainly, if you’re constantly stopping what you’re doing and looking for your underlying motive and thoughts, you won’t even be able to put on your shoes without thinking about it for who knows how long. You’ll die of analysis paralysis” (85). This point relates directly to the Jesuit value of Contemplation in Action, which stresses the pragmatics of daily life and seeks to cultivate habits of discernment that can be exercised in moments that call for decisive action. A retreat removed from daily life is simply not possible on a daily basis so discerning leaders need to practice the habits of healthy discernment in order to make decisions within reasonable time frames. 

There are many more instances in the book in which a spiritual lens might deepen the conversation about how to become a strategic thinker and discerning leader who is capable and skilled during a Crucial Conversation. This exercise in connecting these seemingly secular ideas with the roots and heritage of our Jesuit values is another manifestation of the unique ways that Georgetown SCS inspirits the University’s mission in how it delivers applied professional education to a continuum of learners at various places in their careers.

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An Invitation to Ride the Georgetown Circulator Bus!

This week’s post encourages SCS community members to ride the new Capitol Campus Loop provided by the Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle. 

The French Jesuit and social theorist Michel de Certeau was particularly interested in reclaiming the poetics of urban life by embracing the everyday practices of the city that help shape a community of people in a physical place. His concern was that top-down planning efforts and the highly abstract architectural forms of the city would work against the textures of spontaneous human interactions that make up the organic city.  In his essay “Walking in the City,” Certeau encourages the everyday practices of urban life like walking: “The ordinary practitioners of the city live ‘down below,’ below the thresholds at which visibility begins. They walk – an elementary form of this experience of the city; they are walkers, Wandersmanner, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an urban ‘text’ they write without being able to read it. These practitioners make use of spaces that cannot be seen.” 

This somewhat mystical and very poetic understanding of the city and its practices can inspire our own encounter with the city. As an urban planner, I highly value the way that I can get to know places and people in the city by walking the city and making time and space for unplanned interactions and observations. Too often, our lives are driven by the demands of rushing to our next meeting. But it is necessary, once in a while, to simply relish in the humanity that makes up an urban community. It is with this theoretical understanding in mind that I encourage everyone at SCS to ride the bus! 

Georgetown’s growing physical presence in Washington, D.C., principally at the developing Capitol Campus, is connected via a set of highly dependable Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle (GUTS) bus routes. These routes were already critically important to helping members of the University community access campus locations efficiently and safely. And now that the Capitol Campus is becoming more and more of a reality, the GUTS network of routes will become even more important. Georgetown recently announced a special dedicated Capitol Campus Loop, which connects rides with local neighborhoods and major points of interest, including Union Station and Trader Joe’s. 

This expanding University-wide network of access and connection to the various geographic homes of Georgetown in the city is about more than transportation logistics. As a regular GUTS commuter during my time at SCS, I can share that this experience of riding the bus over the years has led to actual sustained friendships and new insights about the city and the University. Every time I ride the GUTS bus between the Hilltop Campus and the SCS Campus, I learn something new about either the city or the University. In my rides across town, I’ve learned about centers and offices at Georgetown I’m not aware of where bus riders are commuting to. I’ve also observed the physical and human city during these voyages, enjoying the beautiful vistas and views of the skyline and the Potomac River but also growing in greater awareness of the reality of urban challenges, like the current crisis of homelessness and a considerable population of unhoused people present along these routes. Each trip is a new learning experience, and I look forward to what I might encounter and experience such that it might inform my own actions in the city. 

History: Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (R), now Pope Francis, is pictured travelling by subway in Buenos Aires
Pope Francis, shown here when he was an archbishop riding public transportation in Argentina, describes the environmental and social benefits of riding the bus. 

In his landmark environmental sustainability teaching encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis describes the “ecology of daily life,” which very much resonates with Certeau’s understanding of the everyday practices of the city. Pope Francis describes the need for quality public transportation that makes integration easier between the different parts of the city. Riding the bus is an environmentally sustainable practice that reduces car trips and even contributes to greater kinship and solidarity among people. Having ridden the buses of Buenos Aires as an archbishop, Pope Francis knows from direct experience that encountering humanity in rich ways is possible on the bus. 

I hope that members of the SCS community will consider riding the GUTS network during their time at the University. This is more than a transport system as I believe it is a vital way to grow deeper connections between the various places and people of our campus communities.

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Lent Offers Opportunity to Confront Personal and Social Realities, Commit to Healing

An image of a concrete cross sculpture installed in an outdoor garden. The words
This week’s post invites deeper reflection on the Christian season of Lent. Sign up to receive daily Lenten reflections from Georgetown students, staff, and faculty

One of the greatest strengths of Georgetown is the way it honors the holidays of the different religious traditions represented across campus. As a Jesuit and Catholic university grounded in a centered pluralism, Georgetown seeks greater mutual understanding and dialogue about the broader significance of special events on each tradition’s religious calendar. In this way, those outside of a particular tradition, or no longer practicing within one or not affiliated with one at all, can still find personal and collective meaning because of the invitation to learn more, follow along, and potentially commit to some actions related to journeying alongside particular religious communities. 

This week, Christian communities at Georgetown and around the world entered into the holy season of Lent. These 40 days, which lead to Holy Week and Easter, focus on the journey to greater spiritual freedom by embracing the paths of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, which Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., Vice President for Mission and Ministry, described as the “the touchstones of this spiritual journey each year” in the introduction to this year’s Lent Devotional series (sign up for these daily Lenten reflections from students, staff, and faculty across the campuses, including SCS). In Christian terms, the season is an opportunity to follow Jesus along the path of suffering that ultimately leads to redemption and new life in the Resurrection of Easter. 

Such a seemingly solemn season, so often associated with “giving up” one’s favorite treats or enjoyments for a month and a half, is about recognizing the ultimacy of our lives. What are we living for? And what is getting in the way of realizing our deeper purpose and calling? In his practical theology book, I Was and I Am Dust: Penitente Practices as a Way of Knowing, David Mellott presents a “dust theology” based on the Scriptural passage, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Lent, which begins with the marking of ashes on Ash Wednesday, invites participants to consider how they form a part of the Cosmos and each of these parts, however finite, has much to contribute to the ultimate purpose of the whole. In Mellott’s telling, these Lenten practices are about “coming to terms with reality, and in particular, with oneself.” This notion of growing in clearer awareness of reality is critically important to becoming the kinds of agents of consolation and love that we are called to be. 

The broken reality of the world and the need for great repair, healing, peace, and justice should animate all of our activities at Georgetown. The commitment to using our gifts and talents, resources and knowledge in service to the common good is shared across spiritual and religious traditions. Lent presents the Christian community with a particular opportunity in the religious calendar to more deeply commit to this work. 

One excellent opportunity to deepen a personal and communal commitment to non-violence is a training being offered by Georgetown’s Center on Faith and Justice, MLK Initiative, and endorsed by the Justice and Peace Studies Program. On February 16, the DC Peace Team will offer a session on Active Bystander Intervention and De-Escalation. The purpose of the session, in the context of situations of potentially escalating violence, is to equip participants with the “tools to recognize when you’re a bystander, understand the potential outcomes for all involved, and take nonviolent action.” You can RSVP and learn more here.

Sign up to receive Georgetown’s Lent Daily Devotionals! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Thanksgiving Reflection on the Spirituality of Gratitude

A view from Georgetown’s Calcagnini Contemplative Center during last month’s Graduate, Professional, and Law Student Retreat. This week’s post invites pre-Thanksgiving reflection on the meaning of gratitude. 

The last month has been a time of profound challenge for so many. The war in Israel and Palestine, along with so many other conflict situations throughout the world, has surfaced deep divisions within our spaces and the visible and invisible suffering that many are carrying with them. For years, Mission in Motion has attempted to communicate the myriad ways that Georgetown, through an abiding commitment to its mission and values, seeks to accompany everyone on their journeys of life, especially during times of adversity and challenge. This offer of “care for the whole person” was especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic and in response to the increasing awareness of the need for greater racial justice and urgent social change that leads to greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

In many ways, then, next week’s celebration of Thanksgiving might not have its usual glow. It is incredibly difficult to force a spirit of thanks and gratitude at a time when such dispositions seem so far away and unnatural to our lived experience. In this post, I would like to affirm that it is ok to feel less than enthusiastic about the coming holiday. I would also like to offer a reflection about how a spirituality of gratitude, which is at the root of Ignatian spirituality, has to be appreciated in a larger context. Gratitude alone is not sufficient to making our way through difficult times. We have to find ways, individually and collectively, to become more aware of the challenges that divide us as human beings and then work together, aided by the knowledge, skills, and values cultivated during our time at Georgetown, to repair harms and restore healing in the world. 

The Ignatian practice of the Examen, featured many times on the blog and practiced each Friday during the SCS digital meditations, revolves around gratitude. The cornerstone of the practice is becoming aware of our gratitude. We might ask ourselves during a regular practice of Examen: For what am I grateful as I look back at the last day/week/month? When I let myself be washed over with gratitude looking back at a period of time, what comes to the surface? The idea here is that locating a gratitude becomes an opportunity to self-reflect on my own giftedness and how I might be invited to share that thanksgiving through generous actions in the world. Gratitude is the soul of generosity and loving kindness in the world. It is difficult to express gratitude for others when we are not finding it within ourselves and our experience.  

There are so many possibilities to living life in a spirit of gratitude. But there are also some cautionary lessons about this way of proceeding spiritually. In their article, “Ignatian Spirituality and Positive Psychology,” Phyllis Zagano and C. Kevin Gillespie pick up on the work of Jesuit psychologist Charles Shelton, who is concerned about the potential to over-idealize gratitude. For Shelton, the gratitude disposition can lend itself to “optimistic exuberance” that covers up personal challenges that need to be addressed or more realistic engagement with a complex world that needs to be reappraised. Zagano and Gillespie maintain that gratitude has to be balanced, recognizing that the goal of life is not always the “simple pursuit of happiness” and “personal self-development.” Instead, spiritually mature people qualify happiness when situations of injustice and moral complication arise. 

So how does this connection to Ignatian spirituality relate to your Thanksgiving holiday? My hope is that you can take some time to recognize that while you might desire to feel gratitude, this feeling might not arrive. Instead of forcing it, I invite you to consider what you need in this moment of life to address the challenges you’re experiencing personally and professionally. We do not journey alone and this little Thanksgiving respite from work and study might be a good time to reach out for more support on your path ahead. 


Resources at the University are available to help you navigate the path ahead. In addition to professional counseling services (for faculty and staff, please consult the Faculty & Staff Assistance Program; for students, please consult Counseling and Psychiatric Services) and pastoral care resources (please consult Campus Ministry chaplains and staff), we are here to listen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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SCS Campus Ministry Open House with English Language Center Shines Light on Global Diversity

This week, SCS Campus Ministry hosted an open house for students of the English Language Center (ELC). The discussion among the students reflected the global diversity of the ELC and the many ways it serves Georgetown’s mission and values. 

The English Language Center (ELC), an English language and teacher training center that has been at Georgetown for nearly 60 years, animates the University’s mission and values in many ways. Mission in Motion has reflected over the years on some of the unique values-oriented aspects of the ELC: 

Most recently, the blog highlighted the ongoing collaboration between ELC and the Jesuit Refugee Service in Amman, Jordan, to provide excellent English language training programs for the refugee population.  One of the through lines of the ELC is the Center’s commitment to global engagement. The world comes to the ELC and the ELC goes out to the world. This bi-directional orientation tracks with the five centuries of Jesuit history and the way that the religious order of the Jesuits has always been international in its composition and vision. The late Fr. John O’Malley, pre-eminent Jesuit historian and long-time Georgetown faculty member who passed away last year, described how novel it was for the first Jesuit companions to be from different countries, including nations at war with one another. 

I was reminded of the powerful testament of this early Jesuit history during an open house this week that I hosted on behalf of Campus Ministry with students in the ELC. The inspiring global diversity of the students was evident within the first 10 minutes of introductions and I began to map the countries of origin represented in the space (Turkey, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Senegal, etc.). Students identified as Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, and other. During the course of the presentation and conversations, students surfaced their questions and curiosities about Georgetown and how it maintains its heritage as a religious institution. Diversity was respected as was the particular needs and interests of individual students seeking deeper engagement with Georgetown and its multi-faith resources. 

The discussion turned to how different religious communities, which have homes at Georgetown, can find themselves belonging to an institution with a Catholic and Jesuit identity. Students were heartened to learn of the many opportunities available across the campuses for spiritual support and religious community. I found myself growing more and more aware of the extraordinary honor of being part of a university with such a global reach. The greater understanding and care for one another across lines of difference (whether they be national, religious, etc.) that Georgetown’s mission calls us to is not an abstract exercise. It involves listening to one another for understanding and growing in openness to the perspectives of those around us. 

At the open house, I witnessed firsthand the transformation that is possible when students from around the world feel free to express themselves and grow together through a Georgetown educational experience. My hope is that Georgetown community members seek out the Spirit of Georgetown as an anchoring resource for the hard work of global cooperation, dialogue, peace, and justice.