Tag: Racial Justice

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Juneteenth Holiday Presents Opportunities for Spiritual Growth and Communal Reflection

This week’s post is a reflection on the Juneteenth holiday and the spiritual resources necessary to sustain the long struggle for freedom and equality. Explore Georgetown’s Juneteenth resources. 

Earlier this year, Mission in Motion shared a particularly Ignatian approach to the spiritual work of anti-racism through the 6-week retreat co-facilitated by Georgetown and Holy Trinity Catholic Church entitled “Setting Captives Free: Racism and God’s Liberating Grace.” With next week’s Juneteenth celebrations on the horizon, I would like to offer encouragement to consider how the ongoing struggle for true freedom and justice for all includes a spiritual component. Highlighting this dimension of the work of racial justice is rooted in Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit identity and mission and the Spirit of Georgetown, particularly our expressed values commitment to being a “Community in Diversity.” 

In reflecting on the personal meaning of Juneteenth, Georgetown undergraduate Bilquisu Abdullah emphasizes how this occasion helps her connect with the pride of her identity: “For me, this year Juneteenth is about nurturing the joy I find in my Black identity. That means doing the things I enjoy most with my BIPOC peers and recentering the conversation of Black liberation in a positive way.” 

Ella Washington, Professor of the Practice in the McDonough School of Business, echoes this affirmation of joy when she says:

“Whether by attending a Juneteenth celebration or supporting a Black-owned business, I look for opportunities to define what the holiday represents to me and Black people across the U.S. I also consider joy to be the greatest form of resistance, especially as a Black woman. Finding opportunities of joy and jubilance with my family and friends is a way to live into the dream of my ancestors and into the spirit of honoring Juneteenth.” 

Together, these testimonies reinforce how Juneteenth is a critically important annual milestone to celebrate the joy and jubilation of freedom. But the holiday also presents a spiritual opportunity to reflect on how individuals and social structures continue to challenge this journey to greater freedom.

In a recent article in the Jesuit Higher Education Journal, Marquette University Director of the Faber Center for Ignatian Spirituality Michael Dante reflects on a “A Spiritual Direction Approach Aimed at Creating Belonging.” Dante maintains that meaningful confrontation with racism and white privilege means understanding these dynamics at the “spiritual level.” In order to realize this dimension, Jesuit campuses need to develop spiritual programs that help community members “see and live out of the understanding that all people are created in the image and likeness of God.” Members of the majority community whose perspectives and identities dominate need to get in touch, Dante argues, with how their vision often excludes the experiences of others who are “marginalized, excluded, and invisible.” 

Thankfully Ignatian spiritual direction and retreats, like the Setting Captives Free program, offer participants the opportunity to undergo their own “inner journey around blindness” to become more aware and more conscious of why many BIPOC members of the university community do not always feel like they belong. Pope Francis has described these dynamics, referring to racism as a “virus that quickly mutates and, instead of disappearing, goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting.” 

While Juneteenth is certainly a time for celebration of the struggle for freedom and equality, it is also an important time at Georgetown to re-commit to this long-haul work of racial justice. Spiritual resources can accompany that journey. 

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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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2024 Dr. King “Teach the Speech” Emphasizes the Ongoing Struggle for Freedom and Human Dignity

Lionell Daggs III, Associate Director for Racial Justice Initiatives at the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service, and Tony Mazurkiewicz, chaplain for the Athletics Department, led an anti-racism examen meditation at the 2024 Dr. MLK, Jr. Teach the Speech event. 

Every year, Mission in Motion reflects on Georgetown’s chosen speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and offers some suggestions for how its content and themes might be incorporated into courses and other activities at SCS. The 2024 Teach the Speech selection, “Eulogy for the Four Little Girls,” is Dr. King’s memorialization of the four young girls killed in the 1963 terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. 

In his eulogy, Dr. King mournfully prays for the souls of Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Diane Wesley, and Carole Robertson. The speech is more than a remembrance of these lives, however. Dr. King draws attention to the larger moral and spiritual questions presented by such an act of racialized violence. How can we exercise non-violence and a spirit of non-retaliation in the face of such hate and destruction? Dr. King maintains that we “must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.” Speaking to bereaved families in the aftermath of such tragedy, Dr. King, who would ultimately be killed in an act of racialized violence, inspires a call to redemption. This road is not easy, however, and requires resistance to “evil systems” and overcoming a tendency to remain silent and complicit in the face of such injustices. 

This year’s event includes a helpful set of teaching resources that can accompany the 1963 speech. This resource document traces several approaches that faculty in any discipline might consider in making the content of the speech align with particular course learning objectives. The resource guide suggests some critical questions for individual and group discussion, including: 

  • King addresses the families of the victims and talks about death as the ‘irreducible common denominator of man.’ He speaks on the importance of faith in these moments. How do we deal with grief and the sense of loss after death? What are the practices in your culture, in your personal lives? 
  • Have I consciously or unconsciously acted to advance racism through my own inactions or silence? Am I culpable? Have I turned a blind eye to racial injustice? How? Why? 
  • How will we hold ourselves accountable to one another on the moral imperative of anti-racism? 

I was particularly interested in the suggestion that Dr. King’s “Eulogy for the Four Little Girls” could become the basis for an anti-racist self-reflection. Readers of this blog will recognize the Jesuit-inspired examen practice and will know that this framework can be flexibly utilized for particular issues, topics, situations, and events. For example, Mission in Motion has previously reflected on an anti-racist examen published by the Association of Jesuit Colleges & Universities. I was so grateful to attend the guided examen led by Lionell Daggs III, Associate Director for Racial Justice Initiatives at the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service, and Tony Mazurkiewicz, chaplain for the Athletics Department. Lionell and Tony modeled the examen practice in a dynamic way, using the audio of Dr. King’s eulogy, historical images, a recorded conversation with a survivor of the Birmingham bombing, and other media to stimulate deeper reflection. Between these visuals, groups at tables in Copley Hall were invited to individually reflect on guided questions in silence and then turn to their table partners for brief conversation. 

I was moved greatly by the sacred atmosphere of this examen and how table partners, many of whom entered the event as Georgetown strangers, developed a trusting bond formed over intimate reflection and active listening. True to Ignatian pedagogy, the examen experience focused not only on reflection but also consideration of discerned actions that can be taken individually and collectively about the ongoing struggle for racial justice in our university, our communities, our country, and the world. My impression is that participants left the morning session more grounded in Dr. King’s moral and spiritual invitation to human dignity and freedom. This struggle and the journey continue. 

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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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Dr. King’s 2023 “Teach the Speech” Focuses on “The Drum Major Instinct,” Emphasizes Leadership in the Service of Others

This week’s post features the 2023 Dr. King Teach the Speech at Georgetown. Check out the January events and curriculum support guide to make this year’s selected speech, The Drum Major Instinct, come to life in your teaching at work at the University. 

Georgetown’s annual Teach the Speech is a welcomed learning opportunity for all parts of the University, including the School of Continuing Studies. Mission in Motion has engaged with this yearly event and written about it in 2022 and in 2021 (the blog has also covered SCS Faculty Director Dr. Erinn Tucker-Oluwole’s participation in the 2021 MLK Initiative event on food equity in Washington, D.C.). 

This year’s speech, The Drum Major Instinct, was delivered by Dr. King two months before his assassination and is filled with timely themes that can challenge and inspire our ongoing efforts to realize a beloved SCS community that honors the diversity of our members by striving for justice and the common good. The speech was then and remains today a provocative perspective on the two sides of greatness, significance, and the importance in each person. 

The intention of Teach the Speech is to encourage faculty and staff to meaningfully incorporate the speech’s content into classes and work at the University. The best way to dig into the curricular and professional applications of this year’s chosen speech is to first read it or listen to it. If you were not able to attend Teach-In 2023, I encourage you to check out the portions of the event that were livestreamed and recorded. You can watch a lecture by Dr. Vicki Crawford, Director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. collection, and a sermon and closing by Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. After all of this, I recommend that you engage with the comprehensive teaching guide that offers an array of suggestions about how to make The Drum Major Instinct come to life in your teaching or working context. 

From the perspective of the professional and continuing education learning community at SCS, I think this year’s selected speech presents several avenues for deeper exploration. For one, adult professional learners are motivated by their desires for greatness and for public recognition. Being motivated to advance one’s career and enhance one’s professional prospects is a healthy reason to seek higher learning at SCS. But even this noble ambition can become distorted if the intention for greatness becomes a desire to be first at all costs. Selfishness can crowd out others in one’s life, leading to neglect of duties to family and community. Dr. King is realistic about the human condition as he says: “Now in adult life, we still have it, and we really never get by it. We like to do something good. And you know, we like to be praised for it.” But Dr. King invites the listener to consider the other side of the pursuit of the ideal of greatness. 

For Dr. King, to be great is to be in service to others. The speech is an incredible expression of Dr. King’s humble embrace of his own mortality by giving the speech’s audience instructions for his own eulogy. In these instructions, we today hear a call to servant leadership. Dr. King does not want his memorialization to include his many awards and accomplishments. Instead, he says: “I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.” In this simple request, Dr. King is helping us appreciate what most matters in a life. A life of professional significance should be assessed on the basis of how one shares their gifts with others and helps realize a more just and inclusive community. We can take this lesson to heart as we pursue our professional ambitions at SCS. A life of professional development and advancement need not come at the expense of serving a higher purpose in life. 

Dr. King’s speech also points us to the social justice dimensions of our educational enterprise. The Spirit of Georgetown invites a commitment to justice that moves from charity to acting for change in social systems and structures that contribute to injustice. Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice, Research, Teaching & Service (CSJ) offers some opportunities to commit to this deeper work of social change. 

Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Adviser for Spiritual Care, embodied such a commitment this month while she spoke on a panel at the 2nd National Multi-Faith Conference on Ending Mass Incarceration.  At this conference hosted at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga., Rabbi Gartner presented this Values-Based Call to Action co-authored for the Jewish Council of Public Affairs. In this work, Rabbi Rachel demonstrates that contemporary movements for social justice, inspired by the example of Dr. King, are rooted in deep spiritual and moral foundations.

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Continuation as a Hope: Georgetown SCS Commencement 2022

Dr. Shaun Harper, national DEI leader and scholar, inspires the Georgetown SCS Class of 2022. You can view a recording of the 2022 Commencement ceremony. 

Last week, Georgetown SCS celebrated the Class of 2022 with multiple ceremonies. The annual Tropaia awards took place in Gaston Hall on May 18 and the traditional Commencement exercises occurred on Healy Lawn on May 20. This was the first time since 2019 that both of these formal proceedings were realized in-person.

The collective joy and relief of returning to one another, a theme first picked in Mission in Motion at the Mass of the Holy Spring that began the 2021–2022 Academic Year, were palpably present during these events. And while the SCS community continues to adapt to the changing conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Commencement sets into motion a renewed way of proceeding at Georgetown.

There were many insights, ideas, experiences, and notable occurrences to highlight during the week of Commencement. Tropaia featured award-winning students and faculty members across the School’s degree programs, including this year’s SCS Spirit of Georgetown award winner Lorena Chinos (see Lorena’s Mission in Motion interview here). Faculty directors noted the adversity and challenge that these community members overcame in realizing their academic goals while serving their communities. The theme of service and commitment to others was also loudly expressed during the Commencement ceremony. 

Shaun Harper, Ph.D., a globally recognized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) thought leader and practitioner, inspired the assembly of those gathered in person and online by noting the collective resilience displayed by the Class of 2022. But more than offering platitudes and empty encouragements, Dr. Harper challenged the graduates and everyone assembled to continue the work of justice, service, and compassion for one another. Dr. Harper offered an insightful take on the double meanings of continuation and discontinuation. (In case you missed it, his remarks begin at the 1:15:25 mark.) On one hand, he encouraged graduates to continue their habits of study and life-long learning and deep service of their families, friends, community, and society. In this way, graduation is not an end but a continuation.

The 2022 SCS Tropaia awards took place in Gaston Hall. Lorena Chirinos, a 2022 graduate, received the School’s Spirit of Georgetown Award and is seen pictured with SCS Vice Dean, Shenita Ray, and SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration, Jamie Kralovec.

But on the other hand, Dr. Harper presented a considerable challenge. Moving ahead in one’s profession and life, formed by a Georgetown SCS education, means standing up for principles and values and working individually and collectively to discontinue those practices and policies that separate and divide our communities. He pushed the graduates to realize more completely a just and inclusive society, one that begins in the home but then extends to every sector of the society. And while there continue to be reasons for discouragement and desolation about the world’s state of affairs, Dr. Harper ultimately delivered a hopeful message: There is hope, he maintained, in the continuation. 

Georgetown President John DeGioia also picked up on this theme of hope in his concluding remarks. He referenced the concept of “sentire,” or felt knowledge, which President DeGioia presented during his Sacred Lecture as part of Georgetown’s celebration of the Ignatian Year. Rooting his remarks in the Ignatian and Jesuit spiritual tradition, President DeGioia expressed the hopeful possibilities that result from being educated at Georgetown. Knowledge itself and the continual pursuit of it can spark new discovery, new possibilities, and new solutions to the challenges that we face.

We all have a shared stake at Georgetown, whether as current students, staff, faculty, or alumni, in working together to realize a more just future. My hope is that this week of celebration serves as a continuing reminder of the deeper purpose of our educational tasks at the University and a resource for continuing to navigate the disruptions that challenge us. 

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Georgetown Honors Sr. Thea Bowman, an Inspiration for Ecumenism and Social Justice

This week, Georgetown honored Sr. Thea Bowman during a naming ceremony of the Copley chapel. Mission in Motion reflects on the significance and implications of Sr. Thea’s life for us today. 

As spring semester comes to a conclusion and the joyous celebration of Commencement approaches, Georgetown made time this week for several significant events related to Sr. Thea Bowman. Bowman, a Roman Catholic religious sister considered a “Servant of God” (meaning that she is on the path to canonization by the Church), made important contributions in her lifetime both to her faith community and to the world. University President DeGioia captured some of Sr. Thea’s defining legacies in his announcement: 

“[H]er vibrant Christian faith; her Protestant roots; her joining the Catholic community and the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration; her courage in calling the Catholic Church and our nation to more fully engage with Black Catholics and to reject racism; her own academic background and role in establishing scholarship around the Black Catholic experience; her embrace of music as a form of ministry; and her faith-filled service and witness in living the Gospel.”

The context for honoring Bowman at the University is the naming this week of the chapel in Copley Hall in her honor. The chapel in Copley is both a consecrated Catholic chapel and the spiritual home for Georgetown’s Protestant community. An ecumenical service took place to commemorate the naming of the chapel and included the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, Wilton Gregory, as well as Fr. Mark Bosco, Vice President for Mission and Ministry; Rev. Ebony Grisom, Interim Director of Protestant Ministry; and Rev. TauVaughn Toney, Protestant Christian Chaplain. The event featured lively music provided by Georgetown’s Gospel Choir along with reflections by President DeGioia and testimonials about Bowman’s life from religious women who knew her well. 

The celebration of Sr. Thea continued into the evening as the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life hosted a Dahlgren Dialogue: “Faithful Life, Powerful Legacy, Continuing Lessons.” The panel of distinguished leaders explored key questions about the implications and lessons of Bowman’s life. At the center of the discussion was the recognition of the burdens Sr. Thea bore in battling the intersecting oppressions of racism and patriarchalism. She faced these challenges along with other marginalizations as she sought to lift up the Black Catholic experience in a Church and society that too often excluded and excludes the fullness of Black identity and experience. 

As part of the celebration of Sr. Thea Bowman’s life, a panel at Georgetown explored the lessons that we can take away from how she lived. You can watch a recording. 

All of the panelists pointed to Bowman’s 1989 address to the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops for insights about how to proceed today with hope in spite of the dispiriting challenges to greater inclusion and justice for marginalized persons and communities. Sr. Thea’s lively and courageous embrace of her own authentic self was a resource for her loving actions in the world and offers inspiration for us today: 

“What does it mean to be Black and Catholic? It means that I come to my Church fully functioning. That doesn’t frighten you, does it? I come to my Church fully functioning. I bring myself; my Black self, all that I am, all that I have, all that I hope to become. I bring my whole history, my traditions, my experience, my culture, my African American song and dance and gesture and movement and teaching and preaching and healing and responsibility – as gifts to the Church.”

The panelists described a necessary caution in interpreting the significance of Sr. Thea’s life. It would be a temptation to reduce her life’s work only to the cause of racial justice and fail to appreciate the many other ways that she worked against social structures of exclusion. To honor Sr. Thea in a genuine way, the panelists agreed, is to live out her message by proactively and continuously standing with people of color, through policies, practices, and ways of being community, in the pursuit of justice and the common good. That would truly be honoring Sr. Thea’s legacy!

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The Role of Public Communications in Restoring Civility, the Common Good 

Linda LeMura, president of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., a peer Jesuit institution with whom SCS has partnered in the past, offered a challenging reflection this week about the crisis of incivility in the public square. Her article in America Magazine, “St. Ignatius has a lesson for politicians: Words and deeds (and nasty tweets) have consequences,” focuses on the prevalence of mean-spirited, truth-less attacks made by public figures on social media that are “inaccurate in its particulars and troubling in its source, an attack that serves no purpose but to heighten the incivility so sadly evident in our public discourse.” Rather than passively accepting this kind of communication in our society, LeMura offers a path forward for Jesuit-inspired education grounded in the wisdom of St. Ignatius of Loyola. 

LeMura points to the guidance that Ignatius offered his fellow Jesuits in the 16th century about how to engage in true and meaningful dialogue within the context of a public setting filled with conflict and disagreement. LeMura summarizes Ignatius’ guidance in this way: 

“St. Ignatius seems to have anticipated the modern era, in which the art of conversation has been replaced by the warfare of the tweet, back in 1546. In a letter to his followers attending the Council of Trent, he instructed them on the art of dialogue. He reminded them to ‘be considerate and kind’ and said that when stakes and emotions are high, they should work to be ‘free of prejudice’ and to understand ‘the meanings, learnings, and wishes of those who speak.’”

The relevance of this Ignatian wisdom for today’s toxic communications culture among public officials, according to LeMura, is the opportunity to cultivate responsible leadership not only in our students but in the faculty and staff that run our Jesuit institutions. We can all participate in this work of fostering a culture of civil communications. A critical first step in this process is a recognition that “every word and deed, be it from the lectern, podium, pulpit, or stage – or cellphone – has weight and consequence. A real leader wields powers with the gravitas it deserves, acutely mindful of the potential to do harm or great good.”  

SCS marketing and communications degree programs have taken up this leadership challenge by educating students to become ethical professional communicators striving to produce content that contributes truth, accountability, and justice to public life. This is evident, for example, in the Master of Professional Studies in Journalism which, “grounded in ethics,” emphasizes the “guiding principles that are inherent to journalism excellence – including accurate and fair reporting, accountability, and sound judgment.” An important way that SCS academic programs, like Journalism, realize this commitment to ethics and the common good is through public conversations intended to spark deeper reflection and action about pressing challenges facing society.

This upcoming event during Black History Month, sponsored by SCS and the Washington Association of Black Journalists, will feature leading Black journalists discussing press coverage of the American presidency. Events like these advance Georgetown’s commitment to fostering understanding and civility in public life, which is being challenged by the spread of misinformation and mean-spiritedness. 

An upcoming example of this commitment is an event hosted by SCS on February 16: “Covering the President During a Time of Great Societal Change.” A collaboration between the Washington Association of Black Journalists, the SCS Master of Professional Studies in Journalism program and the Diversity, Equity, Belonging, and Inclusion Council (DEBIC), the event features leading Black reporters who cover the White House and increase public understanding about a broad range of issues affecting the presidency and the country as a whole. 

In the context of disinformation and incivility among public officials, the kind that LeMura lamented in her article, the February 16 discussion promises to offer important insights about the critical role that Black journalists play in holding public officials accountable for policies that uphold the common good of all. I hope that the discussion inspires greater awareness about how ethically grounded journalism can advance justice and the common good, helping realize the promise of an education rooted in the Jesuit tradition. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Check out the 2021 SCS Dean’s Report

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Teaching MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech in 2022

An annual activity of the University’s MLK Initiative: “Let Freedom Ring!” is to take one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s signature speeches and use it as a curricular launching pad for deeper reflection about the enduring legacy of Dr. King and what his movement building for economic and racial justice means for living out our Georgetown mission today. Mission in Motion reflected on last year’s efforts that included speeches from both MLK and Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.), timely selections for locating hope amidst the desolations of social injustice, particularly manifested in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. 

For this year’s MLK Initiative: “Let Freedom Ring!” at Georgetown, Dr. King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech will be the focus of Teach the Speech, an annual effort at the University to encourage reflection within curricula about the meaning of MLK’s legacy. Join the Teach-In via Zoom on Tuesday, January 11 at 11:30 a.m. ET (RSVP).

This year’s speech, the famous “I Have a Dream” address in 1963, is a fitting choice for 2022. Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service (CSJ), one of the co-sponsors of  the initiative, commented that this “choice might seem cliché or obvious.” But the inspiration for choosing it arises in part from an article by Dr. Ibram Kendi, who lamented the myriad ways that Dr. King’s dream speech has been distorted by intentional efforts to convert the landmark speech into advocacy for “color-blind civil rights.” Rather, Dr. King’s speech is actually a challenging and demanding call, issued then but still reverberating today, to work for justice in a multiracial democracy by directly addressing the roots and effects of structural racism. 

In his own lifetime, Dr. King would address some of these distorted impressions caused by a single line in the speech that he dreamed “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He remarked in 1965 that “one day all of God’s Black children will be respected like his white children” and in 1967 that the “dream that I had [in 1963] has at many points turned into a nightmare.” 

As the United States continues to experience social, cultural, and political polarization around persisting racial injustices in all facets of society, MLK’s iconic 1963 speech presents a valuable opportunity to renew the discussion in 2022 and re-commit to tangible actions at Georgetown. For SCS students, staff, and faculty, integrating the “I Have a Dream” speech into classes and co-curricular spaces can spur critical reflection and action about racial inequities in the various professional industries that are the subject of SCS academic programs. For faculty and staff interested in Teaching the Speech in their classrooms and educational spaces this year, please fill out this form to learn more about the pedagogical resources to support this work. 

If you want to more deeply explore Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, you should also attend next week’s annual Teach-In event over Zoom on Tuesday, January 11 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. ET (RSVP). The Teach-In will feature:

  • 11:30 a.m.: Community Gathering with Music
  • 12:00 p.m.: Welcome by Ryann Craig, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs followed by a student reflection by Veronica Williams (C’23) and mini-keynotes by Virginia State Senator Jennifer McClellan and Neonu Jewell (L’04) of the African American Policy Forum
  • 1:00 p.m.: Dialogue with our three speakers facilitated by Ijeoma Njaka (G’19), Senior Program Associate for Equity-Centered Design at the Red House
  • 1:40 p.m.: Gratitude by Maya Williams, Office of Student Equity and Inclusion

Faithfully celebrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. means more than taking a day off from work. To witness to Dr. King’s legacy is to make a commitment to carry on his movement efforts for social justice and the common good. I hope you are able to attend the January 11 Teach-In and find ways to reflect and act at Georgetown on the enduring lessons of “I Have a Dream.”