Georgetown University: Racial And Environmental Justice, Immigration Rights, Women In Leadership

Press release from Georgetown University:

June 29, 2021

The Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education conference, hosted by Georgetown and sponsored by the Association of Jesuit Colleges, virtually gathered Jesuit university faculty, staff, administrators and board members this month.

As this year’s conference host, Georgetown convened six plenary sessions and corresponding response sessions – as well as more than 80 poster presentations – examining Universal Apostolic Preferences, Ignatian spirituality, racial justice, immigration, women in leadership and environmental justice.

“We share a commitment to justice – to the work of encouraging this commitment in our students, urging them to have their hearts on fire responding to the needs of the world with passion, with courage and with urgency,” said Georgetown President John J. DeGioia at the conference opening. “This conference provides an important opportunity to reflect upon how we might draw upon our Catholic and Jesuit tradition in new ways as we respond to the challenges of our moment and the ongoing and urgent call for justice in our world.”

Ignatian Year

Originally scheduled for 2020 but delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the conference convened at the beginning of the Ignatian Year (2021-2022), which celebrates the 500th anniversary of Society of Jesus founder St. Ignatius of Loyola’s spiritual conversion.

“We need to continue to deepen the processes of change that the processes of conversion that began long ago and continue today in our university communities and in our countries,” said Fr. Arturo Sosa, S.J., superior general of the Society of Jesus.

This was the sixth Justice in Jesuit Higher Education Conference, which first convened at Santa Clara University in 2000.

Racial and Environmental Justice

Conference participants considered justice – and the role Jesuit institutions, colleges and universities play in achieving it – across disciplinary and societal dimensions.

Kaye Whitehead, associate professor of communication and African and African American Studies at Loyola University Maryland and founding director of the Karson Institute for Race, Peace, and Social Justice, moderated a plenary on how race and racism are embedded in society, the reality of privilege and power and why white supremacy is harmful to all of humanity.

“The policies have changed, the laws have changed, but that final frontier – which is the hearts and minds of white folks in this country – that has not changed in the places that would bring about fundamental differences in the lives of Black and brown people,” said Whitehead.

Universities are uniquely placed to take on issues of injustice – through institutional practices, but also through research and the education of young people.

Recent Georgetown alumnus Nareg Kuyumjian (SFS’21) introduced a plenary presentation by Nancy Tuchman, founding dean of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago, on the place of environmental justice in the commitments of Jesuit institutions of higher education.

“It is incumbent on every university in the country to provide the problem solving tools and consciousness nurturing contexts with which students can be empowered by and give power to a harmonized human-environment relationship that replaces today’s exploitation and abuse of nature with systems based on regeneration, circularity, resilience and sustainability,” said Kuyumjian.

Leading Change

At General Congregation 34 in 1995, the Jesuits and the Situation of Women in Church and Civil Society decree acknowledged discrimination against and expressed solidarity with women.

Patricia Grant, senior associate dean at the McDonough School of Business, introduced a panel on women in leadership, which celebrated the 25th anniversary of the decree.

“Working and serving Jesuit higher education is not simply about empty actions, but about reflective practice that collectivizes our conscience for critical transformational action,” said Grant. “This is deeply rooted in our personal commitment to give, serve and engage toward the goal of change for those people in communities that need our intervention and engaged allied support. It’s serious and it’s about faith that does justice.”

José Cabrera, director of education and advocacy for migration at Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN), described the efforts of the ISN’s Undocu Jesuit Network – a national support group that aims to inform and empower the leadership of undocumented young people.

“This space allows for students to come and to learn about both those quick kind of policy updates and also to understand how are those policies affecting our community,” said Cabrera. “We’re able to then allow those students to be the leaders for the network and how we respond to policies, how we create what a world – what a community – that welcomes immigrants looks like.”

‘Permanent, Accessible Resources’

Originally scheduled to be in-person on Georgetown’s Main Campus last summer, the gathering pivoted to a virtual format over three weeks this June to prevent Zoom fatigue and allow for broad access across time zones and academic calendars.

Each plenary session was followed by Live Zoom “question and response” sessions, each ending with an Ignatian Examen. Andria Wisler, executive director of the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service and Georgetown’s “local host” of the virtual gathering, co-hosted virtual reflection sessions for Georgetown faculty and staff following each plenary.

The plenary sessions are posted to YouTube, and the poster presentations are posted to YouTube and will be moved to the digital scholarship repository of Lauinger Library.

“The committee’s goal was to create permanent, accessible resources for staff and faculty to use throughout this year of the 500th anniversary of the conversion of St. Ignatius,” said Wisler. “We hope that the YouTube plenaries, the Zoom sessions and the poster presentations will be useful for colleagues across Jesuit higher education in their courses, meetings, retreats, board gatherings, co-curricular activities, immersions and more.”

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This press release was produced by Georgetown University.The views expressed here are the author’s own.