Tag: Reflection

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SCS Daily Digital Meditation Enters Its 5th Year – Join Today!

This week’s post celebrates the fifth year of SCS Daily Digital Mediation, which takes place on Zoom Monday through Friday from 12:00 to 12:17 p.m. ET. Sign up online to receive a link to the virtual meeting. 

Four years ago, in the week that global lockdowns began in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, SCS started offering a 15-minute daily digital mediation over Zoom. The virtual practice, which you can sign up online , was never intended to be a permanent event, but a temporary resource to help ease some of the disquiet and anxiety that surrounded the early days of the pandemic. 

Since March 2020, more than 350 people from across Georgetown have signed up to receive the link to participate. Throughout the four years, a remarkable community has formed through this contemplative convening. What is beautiful about the daily event is that there is no pressure to attend and who shows up on a daily basis is almost always a surprise. And even in silence a community has formed, with unspoken bonds of affection and solidarity created by the fact of simple presence in a virtual meeting room.

While each attendee brings their own invisible needs to the space, there is a shared understanding that all are seeking quiet, centering, stillness, self-awareness, and pause (among other things). 

This week, I want to highlight the value of this resource that is “here to stay” and no longer considered a temporary event. Past posts from Mission in Motion have explored the meditations from different angles, include participant testimonials about their value:

In recent weeks, Mission in Motion has touched upon the value of mindfulness and its relationship to professional practices and concern for the common good. For instance, Becoming Spiritually Grounded Strategic Thinkers and Discerning Leaders examined the relationship between effectively mediating conflicts and achieving organizational objectives. Good leaders need to be able to tap into their own inner life and sensory awareness in order to manage high-stakes disagreements occurring in a group. 

In another post, SCS Retreat Invites Students Into Reflection on the Meaning and Practices of the Good Life, I emphasized the importance of taking “retreat” from one’s daily habits and obligations, even if for a single day (as is the case for the annual SCS student retreat). What so often emerges in these experiences is a recognition of how easy it is to forgo regular reflective practices in busy daily life, yet how important it is to reclaim this simple habit of an examen reflection or a “mental pit stop” as a way of staying true to one’s ultimate purpose and identity. 

Most recently, An Ongoing Journey Toward More Belonging: Some Recent Efforts took a closer look at some Georgetown efforts to create a more inclusive community . Central to the task of building inclusive spaces is the cultivation of individual habits of growing in greater awareness of how one’s own blind spots get in the way of recognizing barriers to flourishing for all members of an organization. The positive contribution of mindfulness to this work of inclusion is affirmed by Rhonda Magee (the subject of this Mission in Motion post in 2020) in her piece, “How Mindfulness Can Defeat Racial Bias.”

What better time than now to treat yourself to the treasure of quiet mindful contemplation? Sign up today! 

If you have any questions about the SCS Daily Digital Meditation, please reach out to me: Jamie Kralovec, SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration, at pjk34@georgetown.edu. 

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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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SCS Convenes Interdisciplinary, Intersectoral Series on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

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This week’s post considers the deeper ethical questions at the root of artificial intelligence and highlights a series of events at SCS on this topic. 

A day does not go by without artificial intelligence, or AI, making headline news. The advent of new AI applications, like ChatGPT, has been much discussed in higher education. Georgetown is no exception to this phenomenon, with the University devising new protocols around the use of AI in classroom settings in an effort to preserve academic integrity. The growth of AI tools, and their deployment through commercial and military entities, has sparked much discussion in the academy. There is growing recognition that AI brings both possibilities and perils as this set of techniques and technologies becomes more broadly adopted. 

Pope Francis, for example, in his New Year 2024 World Day of Peace message, comments on both the enormous potential for human flourishing presented by AI as well as the ethical pitfalls. On the one hand, Pope Francis notes that advances in science and technology remedy “countless ills that formerly plagued human life and caused great suffering.” These gains for human flourishing are notable and reflect the awe-inspiring power of scientific discovery and new applications of research. On the other hand, Pope Francis comments about the significant ethical and moral challenges posed by this burgeoning technological movement: 

“The inherent dignity of each human being and the fraternity that binds us together as members of the one human family must undergird the development of new technologies that serve as indisputable criteria for evaluating them before they are employed, so that digital progress can occur with due respect for justice and contribute to the cause of peace. … We need to be aware of the rapid transformations now taking place and to manage them in ways that safeguard fundamental human rights and respect the institutions and laws that promote integral human development.”

Christopher Brooks, a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at peer Jesuit institution the University of San Francisco, echoes these points in an article in Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education: “Artificial Intelligence: The Brave New World of Moral Issues.” Brooks makes four fundamental claims related to potential misunderstanding that the operation of AI is automatically a net positive for humanity. He advises that ethical caution is necessary as this set of practices and tools become more commonplace because 1) Data is not information; 2) Information is not knowledge; 3) Knowledge is not understanding; and 4) Understanding is not wisdom. He goes on to affirm the contributions that Jesuit education can make to growing a base of wisdom about the ethical applications of AI. Given that “idea of reasoning about reasoning, asking those deeper, more fundamental questions, is a hallmark of Jesuit education,” Brooks argues that Jesuit education can advance the ethical considerations of this conversation through ideas of discernment, invitations to choose the “Magis” or better choice, and solidarity, which “reminds us to know and connect with the people affected by this technology.” The imperative to deeply interrogate the ethical and moral repercussions of AI has a special place, therefore, in the teaching, research, and service that occurs at a Jesuit institution like Georgetown.

Georgetown SCS is taking a leading role in this ongoing public discourse by launching a semester-long series, entitled “Responsible AI: Intersectoral Seminar Series.” This timely series investigates how diverse sectors, many of them represented among the degree programs offered at SCS, are navigating the challenges of AI deployment. The series is an excellent representation of how SCS uniquely advances the larger Georgetown mission to encourage “reflective lifelong learners” who might become “responsible and active participants in civic life.” 

Rooted in the SCS scholar practitioner model, the series showcases on speaking panels a diverse professional array of leaders working in fields like urban planning, project management, marketing and communications, and journalism. The mission commitment of Georgetown to advance knowledge that supports human flourishing and the common good is manifested in how the series presents an interdisciplinary approach to these vexing ethical questions that touch upon overlapping and interdependent facets of human life. The fact that every degree program has something important to say about this ongoing discernment is a testament to the enduring ethical importance of the SCS programs. 

Emerging technologies should be rigorously assessed from the vantage point of various ethical frameworks. Georgetown SCS is bringing interdisciplinary attention, rooted in the ethical principles that animate the mission of the University, to these important questions. I hope you check out the remaining events in the spring semester series! 

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A Seasonal Invitation into Wonder

This week’s post is a seasonal invitation into wonder based on the annual SCS faculty and student party. 

Tis the season for festive gatherings of all kinds. Convenings across Georgetown in December have brought the university community together to celebrate the beginning of Hanukkah and the coming of Christmas and usher in a time of holiday rest and enjoyment after a long semester.

A few weeks ago, Mission in Motion reflected on the spiritual meaning of gratitude, noting that such a disposition is hard to come by especially when gratitude seems to be in short supply. The same caution about gratitude can be applied to the sense of celebration that these many holiday gatherings are meant to cultivate. In light of the ongoing reality of war and suffering around the world and in our homes and communities, it would be wise to put any holiday celebration into a proper context. We can still come together and celebrate, however, in spite of significant challenges and adversity in ourselves, our communities, and the world, and seek out and receive the gifts of being in community. 

This week, SCS came together for the annual student and faculty holiday party. I had on my mind the wisdom of Cole Arthur Riley, a spiritual writer and liturgist, as I experienced the glow of the SCS atrium on a dark and cold December evening. Riley writes movingly about wonder and how wonder relates to growing one’s capacity for greater love of self, others, and world: 

“Wonder includes the capacity to be in awe of humanity, even your own. It allows us to jettison the dangerous belief that things worthy of wonder can only be located on nature hikes and scenic overlooks. This can distract us from the beauty flowing through us daily. For every second that our organs and bones sustain us is a miracle. When those bones heal, when our wounds scab over, this is our call to marvel at our bodies – their regeneration, their stability or frailty. This grows our sense of dignity. To be able to marvel at the face of our neighbor with the same awe we have for the mountaintop, the sunlight refracting – this manner of vision is what will keep us from destroying each other. … Wonder requires a person not to forget themselves but to feel themselves so acutely that their connectedness to every created thing comes into focus. In sacred awe, we are part of the story.” 

My own sense of sacred wonder wandered from various details and scenes at the festive gathering. I noticed students chatting with faculty members and faculty members meeting other faculty from different programs. I saw the line of guests waiting on a delicious spread of food and drink expressing their gladness with looks of excitement and contentment. I wondered at the meticulous details of festive lights and colors and sounds. I experienced wonder in the way that the shared experience of being at Georgetown could bring so many people together for this occasion. I marveled at the joys of spontaneous sparks of laughter and conversation and merriment. There was a lot to wonder about in the particular details of the party. To Riley’s invitation, I was filled with the beauty flowing through this brief occasion and hoped that others felt this way, too. 

As you look around in these days and weeks of holiday rest, how can you cultivate a sense of awe and wonder about humanity? 

As the semester wraps up and we prepare ourselves for the coming weeks, I invite you to practice a sense of wonder about the world around you. A stance of wonder does not need “scenic overlooks” but the details of the everyday. Habits of awe and wonder, especially in times of stress and challenge, can help us all feel the sacred connections that make us a community.  

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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. 

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URP Celebrates 10 Years: A Reflection on Mission Commitment in Urban Planning Education @ Georgetown

This week’s post celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the Master’s in Urban & Regional Planning program at SCS and emphasizes how the program forms students to pursue the work of mission and values in their careers. 

Former Jesuit Superior General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., provided one of the most universally employed metrics to define what “success” looks like in Jesuit education when he said in 2000 that: 

“The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become. For 450 years, Jesuit education has sought to educate ‘the whole person’ intellectually and professionally, psychologically, morally, and spiritually. But in the emerging global reality, with its great possibilities and deep contradictions, the whole person … cannot be whole without an educated awareness of society and culture with which to contribute socially, generously, in the real world. Tomorrow’s whole person must have, in brief, a well-educated solidarity.” 

These words of Kolvenbach reverberated in my mind as I participated in last week’s 10-year anniversary of the Master’s in Urban & Regional Planning (URP) program.  

Over the span of four hours, a series of students, alumni, faculty, and special guests reflected on the most pressing issues facing the professional practice of urban planning today and how Georgetown prepares them to meet these challenges. The vibrant and spirited reflections in the auditorium kept attendees, which included program supporters from the University and the broader community, engaged and curious about what the Georgetown master’s program has to offer cities and their residents around the world. The formal convening later transitioned into a celebration in the SCS atrium where Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Advisor for Spiritual Care, and Dr. Kelly Otter, Dean of SCS, toasted the URP program and its visionary faculty director, Uwe Brandes. 

The 10-year anniversary celebration featured a reception with toasts by Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Dean Kelly Otter, and URP Faculty Director Uwe Brandes. 

As a faculty member in the URP program and the mission integrator for SCS, I reflected on how the entire event manifested the profound ways that this program at SCS is organized to advance the University’s mission and values. If the measure of our Jesuit universities, according to Kolvenbach, is who our students become, then it is quite evident that URP is meeting this standard. I observed both current students and alumni of the program articulating one after another how their time at Georgetown shaped deeper personal and professional commitments to mission. Students and alumni are advancing social equity, community building, cultural preservation, environmental sustainability, and other core values-based practice areas in a wide variety of ways. They are working at every scale of government and across the private and nonprofit sectors. But more important than a particular work area or site of work, I noticed that all of these program representatives manifested a passion for making cities and the world more just and more whole. 

In this way, I could more easily understand how urban planning can help realize the vision for the environmentally sustainable and socially just world envisioned in Pope Francis’ 2013 global encyclical, Laudato Si. In that document, Pope Francis names a special responsibility that urban planning has to realize an “integral ecology” that honors the gifts of God’s creation: 

“More precious still is the service we offer to another kind of beauty: people’s quality of life, their adaptation to the environment, encounter and mutual assistance. Here too, we see how important it is that urban planning always take into consideration the views of those who will live in these areas. There is also a need to protect those common areas, visual landmarks and urban landscapes which increase our sense of belonging, of rootedness, of ‘feeling at home’ within a city which includes us and brings us together.” 

This is not easy work and there is little delusion that urban planners alone can solve the great challenges facing the planet. But it helps now and again to step back, celebrate a milestone like a 10-year anniversary, and then step back into the urgent and necessary work a little more refreshed and perhaps more grateful about the role that programs at SCS, like URP, play in advancing the common good. Cheers, URP! 

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You’re Invited! Renew Your Mindfulness Habits at SCS Daily Digital Meditations

It is hard to believe that we have been continuously offering the SCS Daily Digital Meditation for over three years! What began as an immediate spiritual care response to the stress and anxiety experienced at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic has persisted and become a stable and durable virtual community of meditators from across the SCS community. In this post, I would like to remind all members of SCS about this daily resource (sign up here!) and offer some encouragement about the benefits of participating. 

This week’s post is a promotion of the SCS Daily Digital Meditation, which is a virtual sit offered on Zoom every day of the workweek at 12 pm ET (sign up here). Established at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the mindfulness meditations feature a Zac Theo piano track. 

As a reminder, the SCS Daily Digital Meditation takes place each day of the workweek at 12 pm 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. I lead these daily sessions and am typically joined by a handful of SCS students, staff, and faculty members. Some participants are regular, daily attendees while others come more sporadically. How often you come is entirely up to you! 

Over the last few years, Mission in Motion has reflected on the importance of such a mindfulness habit by making connections with the Spirit of Georgetown value Contemplation in Action. Here are some helpful posts that might give you more insight about the considerable benefits of joining this meditative practice: 

Just this week, a member of the SCS meditation community reached out and expressed gratitude for the offering, saying this ongoing experience “has made a big difference in my life.” I have heard similar input over the years from a range of participants and the Georgetown Faculty & Staff Assistance Program has recommended the SCS meditations to their clients. Others have noted how the meditations provide “deeper inner strength,” “help center and relieve frustrations,” and give the sense that “none of us are alone.” There are many other spiritual, physical, and emotional supports I could name about developing a regular habit of mindfulness meditation and reflection. But I hope you will come check it out for yourself! 

If you have any questions about the SCS Digital Daily Meditation, please reach out to me, Jamie Kralovec, SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration, at pjk34@georgetown.edu. 

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The Feast Day of St. Ignatius: An Opportunity on July 31 to Reflect on the Saint’s Enduring Meaning for Professional Education

This week’s Mission in Motion is a reflection on what St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, whose feast day is July 31, means for professional and continuing education.

On Monday, July 31, Georgetown will honor the feast day of its patron saint, St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, with a mass and a reception to follow in Dahlgren Quad on the Hilltop. You can find more event details at this University site.

Over the years, Mission in Motion has narrated the significance of the story of St. Ignatius in many ways, including coverage of the Ignatian Year, a more than year-long celebration of the 500th anniversary of the saint’s transformative conversion after suffering from cannonball-induced wounds. The unique events and testimonials to the meaning of Ignatius’ life presented a welcome point of departure for greater reflection across Georgetown about the relevance of the Jesuit founder in our present age. 

At SCS, the life and example of St. Ignatius uniquely address the life experience, hopes, and dreams of our student population. There are four elements of Ignatius’ biography that I would like to call attention to in light of the characteristics of adult learners engaged in professional and continuing education. 

First, St. Ignatius was himself an adult learner. After his conversion to a deeply purpose-driven life anchored in prayer and love of God and others, Ignatius decided that realizing his earthly mission and that of the Jesuit order required educational credentials. This insight speaks to the motivations that bring so many early-, mid-, and late-career students into programs at SCS. Acquiring the skills and knowledge recognized by professional bodies and academic communities makes it possible to accomplish great deeds in the world. Ignatius was humble in this recognition of the need for formal study, electing in his adult years to return to school with much younger students. The Jesuits themselves inherited this commitment to adult education, innovating the Church’s style of preaching and teaching by hosting sacred lectures (like the ones that Georgetown still sponsors) intended for adults with busy lives. 

Second, St. Ignatius was a military-connected student. To put an even finer point on this, Ignatius was actually a wounded warrior, having suffered the physical and emotional wounds of combat. SCS is ever proud to be a welcoming community for veterans and counts many military-connected students amongst its students, faculty, and staff. According to the 2021-2022 SCS Dean’s Report, 250 degree-seeking students are military students. More than coursework, these students have access to a comprehensive set of resources provided by Georgetown’s Military and Veterans’ Resource Center. It is fair to say that Ignatius understood the challenges of military life and many of the insights that he brought into his leadership and administration of the Jesuits reflect these lessons. 

Third, St. Ignatius used technological innovation as part of his leadership strategy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, SCS utilized a motif from early Jesuit history, “A Community in Dispersion,” to describe the possibility of using technology to maintain the unity of a globally dispersed community. There is analogy in the use of online education to foster common bonds despite the physical distance of students and the way that St. Ignatius pioneered the hand-written letter, a technology of his time period, as a way of keeping Jesuits unified throughout the world. SCS has made great strides in recent years in the development of high-quality online education programs. With the help of creative instructional designers, subject matter experts, and a coordinated strategy to incorporate the Spirit of Georgetown into online courses, SCS online programs are renewing a 500-year-old tradition in ways that address contemporary education needs. 

And finally, St. Ignatius proved that busy adults can still lead contemplative lives. In this way, Ignatius was an exemplar for Contemplation in Action, a cherished value at SCS because of the reality that so many of our students are juggling competing personal and professional obligations in pursuit of their Georgetown educations. The style of spirituality that St. Ignatius encouraged has made it possible to simultaneously reflect on the meaning of daily experience (through tools like the examen of consciousness) and generously and vigorously act in the world in the service of the common good. In so many ways, I recognize the spirit of the Ignatian biography when I observe committed, ambitious, and dedicated students descending on SCS classrooms at the end of a long workday. These same students also find time to contemplate, attending retreats and committing to other spiritual practices. 

St. Ignatius is a universally beloved figure in Jesuit education. And while all parts of this global enterprise can make claim to St. Ignatius and his unique contributions, there is a special way that this man resonates with the adult learners who comprise Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies. Happy feast day! 

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Vocation, Discernment, and Decision-Making with the Summer College Immersion Program

This week’s post is about the Summer College Immersion Program. During their three weeks on Georgetown’s Hilltop, students experience a range of courses and experiential learning opportunities, including a four-session program entitled “Reflection in the Jesuit Tradition.” 

“I want to help people be proud of their smile, especially people who are embarrassed by their teeth.” 

I heard this during a mock college admissions interview with one of the students in the Summer College Immersion Program (SCIP), an intensive three-week residential experience on campus for rising high school seniors from the Cristo Rey Network and KIPP Foundation school systems around the country. Mission in Motion has previously covered this highly mission-aligned SCS program (“Summer College Immersion Students Enter Into Silence,” “Students in Summer college Immersion Program Experience Reflection in the Jesuit Tradition,” “Summer College Immersion Program Expands Access to Transformative Georgetown Education,” and “Making an Impact Along the Way: An Interview with Caitlin Cochran, SCS Associate Dean, Summer and Special Programs”), which comprehensively introduces high-achieving students to an experience of college life through academic coursework, community building, and experiential learning. The mock college interview is one of the final steps in the three weeks, presenting a practice opportunity for the real college application experience that these promising students will undergo in their senior years. 

The quoted student’s deep commitment to the service of others through a hoped-for college education in dentistry epitomizes the transformative potential of these students to use their gifts and talents for good in the world. I had asked in the interview for the student to share more about their hopes for the college search process and how they would like college to inform and shape their passions. This response stopped me in my tracks and I found myself in a profound pause before asking another question. I was relishing in the calm confidence expressed by this rising high school senior. I was amazed by the bold practicality of her vision: to fix smiles because too many people, especially families in the low-income community in which she lives, do not have proper access to affordable dental care. To join together an educational interest in dentistry with a mission commitment to serve others is to realize what animates the heart of the Spirit of Georgetown. 

SCS Dean Kelly Otter welcomes everyone to the final banquet of the Summer College Immersion Program. SCIP is a program that involves the dedication and generosity of many hands, including administrators, faculty, staff, and donors. 

This year I offered a four-session program entitled “Reflection in the Jesuit Tradition.” In the first session we explored the mission of the University and how it relates to the larger mission and purpose of Jesuit education. In the following session, we discussed and then practiced several forms of meditation, including the Ignatian-inspired examen of consciousness. This was a revealing session because it illuminated the various ways that these students experience silence. Like all the sessions, a mindfulness body and breath scan began our time together and a short examen meditation ended it. These bookends were restorative as I could see the students appreciating the opportunity at the end of a busy day to quiet their minds and push aside, however briefly, their daily distractions. In the final two sessions, we discussed discernment and decision-making in the Jesuit tradition, offering a set of resources and practices for how to engage in spiritual discernment related to a significant decision. The presentation became more real as students formed small groups and shared with each other an example of a decision in their own lives that they will contemplate in the coming year. 

I left this year’s program with a profound gratitude for SCIP and the amazing network of staff, faculty, and donors that make it possible. Several students asked me in their interview to reflect on my time at Georgetown and without hesitation I shared that this program is one that makes me especially proud to work at SCS.

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A Reflection on Summer to Carry Through All the Seasons

In this week’s post, Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Advisor for Pastoral Care, remembers the milestone moments of this past year and invites deep reflection on the summer to come. 

Over the course of this academic year, Mission in Motion has aspired to provide insight and inspiration to enhance your experience in the classroom, energize you in your work, and empower and uplift you in your life.

As the year began, we invited you to consider making time — in what we knew would be a very busy year ahead — for contemplation, or what Jesuit Walter Burghardt calls “taking a long loving look at the real,” and to consider what it might mean for you to live in greater alignment with what you see.

As December arrived, we invited a deepening of the joy of the winter holiday season, through poet Joan Stephen’s call to “sing with fun in the winter,” and to reflect on what in your life is worthy of your greater praise.

At that season we also shared insights from the Prisons and Justice Initiative winter retreat where we reflected that the candles at Hanukkah, and lights on a Christmas tree teach: that there is warmth and radiance even when days are at their shortest and nights at their coldest; that it’s important not only to pursue a perfected world but also to affirm all the perfect moments in life along the way; and, that there’s tremendous value in hearing the little harmonies that arise amidst life’s cacophony and seeing the many sparks of light amidst life’s darker times.

In a post on Teach the Speech, we took lessons from Dr. King’s spectacular speech, The Drum Major’s Instinct, in which he told us how he wanted to be remembered: “I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.” We reflected on the fact that in his words are an implicit teaching for us: “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 … and [serve] a higher purpose in life.”

In the spring, we encouraged you to consider, as we did on the student retreat, the “why” of your work, and what it might look like to make a slight change, either internally or in an external action of some kind, that puts one in closer touch with the why of their day-to-day life.

Now, as the summer arrives, and time opens and slows, perhaps you too might slow down and open up. We wonder whether returning to some of these ideas might help you do so. We humbly and prayerfully hope they might. We wonder too how summer might color the lens through which you read these questions. 

  • What are the particular gifts of summer that might be worthy of your greater praise? 
  • What does it mean to live in alignment with the aspects of your life that summer shows you? 
  • How might you bring the light and joys of summer to those in our communities struggling through dark winter nights? 
  • What insights into the “why” of your work and of your life does summer uniquely offer up to you?

May taking a long loving look at the summer days ahead yield you many meaningful insights that carry you through all the seasons, that strengthen the work of your hearts and hands, and that ultimately bring benefit and blessing to all.