A professor at Loyola Marymount University is using art to promote social justice throughout her classes. Saeri Cho Dobson, associate professor of graphic design, teaches her students that graphic design is a medium that has the opportunity to persuade its viewers. When Cho came to LMU she was inspired by their Jesuit mission of promoting social justice so she began to partner with the Center for Service and Action which connected her with nonprofits in Los Angeles.
Cho centered her design entrepreneurship class on a final student project that incorporated social justice work. She explained how a group of her students “worked with the Lamp Community in downtown Los Angeles, which has art and music programs for homeless people. The students developed a project to design a portable, solar-paneled cell-phone charger for homeless people, who aren’t always welcome in cafes or restaurants as a place to charge their phone.” Cho hopes that her students learn they can foster community and a commitment to social justice through their designs.
At Manhattan College, a record number of students are involved in community-based learning. Faculty and students are partnering with local organizations to connect material learned in the classroom with service to the community. One such partnership with nearby Fordham-Bedford Housing Corporation (FBHC). Education students work in the after-school program, engineering students are in the field learning about structural stability of buildings, and business students preparing free tax returns for local residents, among other projects. Students are challenged to apply their learning to the local community.
Rani Roy, Ph. D., assistant vice president for student and faculty development, describes the force behind this focus on community-based learning (CBL) is the mission of the university, by saying “The more places we have CBL embedded in the curriculum, the more students will view this as part of the mission.” Roy reports that 40 percent of 2016 graduates had at least one CBL experience during their time at Manhattan College.
Read more on the community-based learning at Manhattan College here.
ACCU recently released the summer edition of Update, our quarterly newsletter. Read Update in full here. Peace and Justice highlights include:
ACCU President’s Letter: Celebrating 50 years of Populorum Progressio
Rivier Students Participate in Day of Service: In April, Rivier University held its fifth annual First-Year Student Day of Service, contributing hundreds of service hours to Greater Nashua, New Hampshire non-profit organizations.
Mount Marty Students Volunteer at Rosebud Indian Reservation: Eighteen students from Mount Marty College recently participated in an annual service opportunity that sends nursing students and non-nursing majors to the Rosebud Indian Reservation to work with Tree of Life Ministry in Mission, South Dakota.
Newman Students Focus Art on Syrian Conflict: The atrium in Newman University’s Dugan Library was home to a student-created art exhibit in April, with art designed to depict the conflict in Syria.
Emmanuel Students Raise Funds for Children’s Hospital: The sixth annual Emmanuel College Dance Marathon for Boston Children’s Hospital set a new fundraising record this year.
Benedictine Holds Social Justice Teach-In: This spring Benedictine University held an all-day “Teach-In on Social Justice and Race” to promote greater understanding of people and issues affecting local communities.
Aquinas Awarded Early Childhood Ed. Grant: Aquinas College in Michigan has been awarded a $900,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to address the shortage of qualified teachers of color available to lead local early childhood education classrooms.
Inspired by their mission, Catholic colleges and universities serve their local communities in many ways, including building partnerships to work for the common good. Since 2010, ACCU member institutions have partnered with community organizations funded by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) to collaborate on initiatives that help people in their local communities who are living in poverty. These organizations are dedicated to empowering people to create change in their local community through solidarity and education. Saint Joseph’s University, the University of Dallas, and Marquette University are just a few of the institutions addressing local issues of poverty through these partnerships, providing a concrete way for students to live out the principles of Catholic Social Teaching.
At Saint Joseph’s University, students have the opportunity to work with Urban Tree Connection, a non-profit organization funded by CCHD that works with people living in Philadelphia’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods to develop community-based greening and gardening projects. Urban Tree Connection (UTC) empowers members of the local community by training people in farming and other agricultural skills and making fresh produce more widely available. Their projects are created on vacant land to create safe and functional spaces that promote positive human interactions. Saint Joseph’s University’s Sustainability Committee and Institute for Environmental Stewardship work with UTC to provide access to the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program at UTC to faculty, staff, administrators, and students at the university. Subscribers to the CSA receive vegetables from UTC’s urban farms, supporting their efforts to transform abandoned lots into community gardens.
In addition to promoting the CSA program, students at SJU are also encouraged to work with UTC in their community gardens through the Philadelphia Service Immersion Program and the Magis Program. The Philadelphia Service Immersion Program is an optional early move-in experience for first-year students. This four-day program introduces incoming freshmen to the Jesuit values of social justice, service to those on the margin, moral discernment, and intellectual inquiry through community service learning. This past fall, six students volunteered with UTC through the program. Each evening, the students reflected on what they learned and experienced that day in a small group discussion led by incoming sophomores. Another opportunity available to connect students to UTC is the Magis Program, a semester-long service and social justice program for first-year students. Students meet weekly in small groups for community service, social justice education, and reflection. UTC is one of the sites where students can serve for the semester as part of the Magis Program.
Like St. Joseph’s, other Catholic campuses are finding that partnerships with CCHD-funded groups provide mutual benefits for all the partners. For example, the University of Dallas partnered with the local diocesan CCHD staff to educate students about the reality of poverty in the United States. Working with students and staff, together they created the Journey to Justice Retreat (J2J) to teach students about the issue of poverty in the local area and throughout the country. Using resources from CCHD such as Poverty USA, participants learned about the effects of poverty on people all over the country.
The J2J Retreat featured a focus on the CCHD-funded group Texas Tenant Union (TTU). TTU is a community organizing group dedicated to securing more and higher quality low-income housing by advocating for legislation, providing free legal counsel for low-income tenants, and offering rights education and counseling for tenants. Former diocesan CCHD intern Colleen McInerney, an alumna of the University of Dallas, says the retreat showed students the importance of CCHD in that TTU “wouldn’t have been able to do nearly as much without the CCHD resources” available to it, which inspired many students to get involved with anti-poverty organizations. The retreat was well-received and students hope that the university will be able to host the retreat again in the future.
In addition to hosting service opportunities and working together on educational programming, Catholic colleges and universities can partner with CCHD-funded organizations to learn more about advocacy within the nation’s political system. Marquette University offers students a way to become involved in advocacy through courses that incorporate service learning and through an internship. Project Return assists men and women who have experienced incarceration in making a positive reentry to the community. Each academic year, students work at Project Return for ten hours a week , helping clients find jobs and housing, work through personal issues, and celebrate accomplishments. They learn about the process of reentry by visiting a prison, meeting parole officers, and witnessing a reentry court run by a federal judge. In addition to learning more about the issue, students most recently advocated with community leaders, canvassed neighborhoods on issues surrounding criminal justice reform, and organized a community mental health day.
Students rehabbing a house for Project Return to use for transitional housing.
The project also enables Marquette student interns to work with a mentor on a variety of tasks and to incorporate their own academic interests into the internship. One student intern during the past year worked to launch a mental health initiative to accommodate clients in need of psychological services. Ed de St. Aubin, Ph.D., the director of the internship program, commented, “The social justice mission of our Jesuit university is completely aligned with the mission of Project Return.” De St. Aubin noticed how the experience opened students up to more growth than a classroom could have afforded, exposing them to numerous human factors connected to criminal justice reform, such as race relations, ethnic disparities, and faith development. Recently, de St. Aubin, as well as interns Max Hughes-Zahner and Alex Krouth, were guests on RiverWest Radio Milwaukee’s show, Expo: Ex-Prisoners Organizing. Hughes-Zahner, a junior at Marquette, noted on the show that this internship “was very important for me to experience it from that side because previous to that I had really only experienced classroom learning about incarceration and prison.”
Saint Joseph’s University, the University of Dallas, and Marquette University are working with local organizations to create community-based solutions to issues of poverty and inequality. Their partnerships with CCHD-funded groups enable them to live the values of Catholic Social Teaching and have a visible effect on the surrounding neighborhoods. Students are able to work alongside those living the issues they are working to resolve, giving them an experience of solidarity. Through a partnership with an organization funded by CCHD, Catholic universities make a difference in their communities and give students experience in what it means to have a faith that does justice.
Camilla MacKenzie is an undergraduate student at The Catholic University of America and the Peace and Justice Intern at the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.
The Ignatian Solidarity Network honored Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, with the Robert M. Holstein Faith Doing Justice Award. The Holstein Award honors one individual each year “who has demonstrated a significant commitment to leadership for social justice grounded in the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).”
Patricia McGuire was named the president of Trinity Washington University (then Trinity College) in 1989. She helped to rebuild the college by reaching out to black and Hispanic women of Washington, transforming the college into a multifaceted university. Today, Trinity serves as an example of how to widen collegiate access and welcome students who have lived on the margins. Over 2,000 students are enrolled in degree programs and 3,000 are in Trinity’s continuing education programs. School enrollment is 67 percent African American, 21 percent Hispanic, 6 percent white and 6 percent international.
McGuire is an advocate for women and social justice, committed to the transformative power of education. To learn more about McGuire and the award, read the full article from the Ignatian Solidarity Network.
Rockhurst University students have formed a chapter of GoBabyGo!, a non-profit focused on child mobility. Students transform motorized toy cars into mobility vehicles for children, tailoring to their individual needs whether from a visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, or a condition that limits a child’s mobility, like spina bifida.
Child mobility is linked with cognitive development. As children are able to move freely, they are more able to develop decision-making skills and experience new things. These cars are significantly less expensive than many traditional mobility aides.
Rockhurst’s chapter of GoBabyGo! involves students who study physical therapy and engineering. In March 2015, they delivered their first vehicles to the Children Center for the Visually Impaired which was covered by local media, spurring more support for the project.
Cole Galloway, Ph.D., PT, founder of GoBabyGo, visited the Rockhurst chapter last fall, noting that the work is connected to the Jesuit values of social justice: “When you unpack this project, you see both sides–the science and the social justice. They go hand-in-hand. I think social justice is about listening to communities and getting behind them and fighting with them.”
To learn more about GoBabyGo! on Rockhurst’s campus, read the full article.
At Saint Joseph’s University, a research collaborative called Beautiful Social is using social media to affect social change. Beautiful Social offers local and national nonprofits free consulting and content creation to strengthen their online presence. What started as a free elective has grown into an integral organization to the communications studies department involving a dedicated faculty director, four paid undergraduate fellows and 40 student consultants each year.
Beautiful Social has worked with more than sixty clients, including the American Cancer Society and the Ronald McDonald House of Philadelphia. Smaller nonprofits and community organizations benefit from a significant return from the work of Beautiful Social.
Bill Wolff, director of Beautiful Social, reminds his students that “our entire reason for being here” is “to use our skills and our time to build relationships and to make the world a better society”.
Read more about Beautiful Social at Saint Joseph’s University here.
Gonzaga University was also honored as a finalist by the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for their commitment to improving educational outcomes for children and youth. Of the over 776 higher education institutions named to the Honor Roll, only 16 were named finalists. Gonzaga is recognized for their service addressing school readiness, strengthening schools, boost high school graduation rates and preparation for higher education.
Congratulations to Georgetown University and Gonzaga University for their work in community service!
ACCU wishes you and your family a happy Thanksgiving! We would like to share this special Thanksgiving prayer from Catholic Relief Services. You can find this prayer, a printable prayer card, and several other prayers in honor of Thanksgiving in their online prayer resource.
Litany of Thanksgiving
God Most High,
Before your son fed the multitudes, he first gave thanks.
Before he raised his friend Lazarus, he first gave thanks,
That all might know your glory.
And so, as we are blessed to do your works in the world,
That all, indeed, might know your glory
We thank you and praise you, O Lord.
For the grace to feed the poor, we thank you and praise you, O Lord.
For the grace to heal the sick, we thank you and praise you, O Lord.
For the grace to lift up the broken, we thank you and praise you, O Lord.
For the grace to harbor the refugee, we thank you and praise you, O Lord.
For the grace to aid the endangered, we thank you and praise you, O Lord.
For the grace to speak on behalf of the marginalized and vulnerable, we thank you and praise you, O Lord.
For the grace to be for the prisoner, the addict, the lost, the outcast, the dying
What your son has been for us
A comfort, a beacon, a shepherd, a rabbi, a healer, a hope
The salt of the earth, the light of the world, we thank you and praise you, O Lord.
The project seeks to identify, study, and support a growing network of diverse Catholic institutions that are implementing successful programs and ministries with immigrants. The project’s overall goals are to improve and expand the work of Catholic institutions on immigrant integration, empowerment, and well-being. The conference will:
Speak to the theological vision that underlies the Church’s work on immigrant integration;
Lift up important research on the work of Church institutions with immigrants, and link academics/researchers with leaders from diverse Catholic institutions;
Promote effective models of immigrant integration; and
Dialogue on Catholic advocacy opportunities and strategies in light of the Presidential election.
ACCU Peace and Justice 