These words from Father Kolvenbach’s historic 2000 address at Santa Clara University to leaders of US Jesuit higher education, ‘‘The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education,’’ headed the invitation for contributions to this part of the book. The committee invited proposals describing the ‘‘kinds of learning’’ that would ‘‘create a ‘well-educated solidarity’ ’’ and ‘‘sustain that formation.’’ The passage and the invitation pointed to central challenges arising from three decades of efforts to implement the call of the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. At that time colleges and universities were...

The title of this book,Transforming Ourselves,Transforming the World, implies a costly and sometimes terrible grace that we may not readily wish upon ourselves or our students—the grace of solidarity and sacrifice, even the grace of martyrdom. As the lives of St. Ignatius and his companions, the Jesuit martyrs, and a host of saints (Christian and non-Christian) teach us, to be transformed by the world is to let our hearts be broken by the sufferings of others; it is tosuffer withothers, with strangers beyond our usual horizon, and not, at the end of the day, to...

During the final moments of Suzan Lori-Parks’s Pulitzer Prize–winning playTopdog/Underdog, the audience is holding its breath. As the stage lights come down and the house lights go up, there is no immediate burst of applause—there is silence, a confused, disturbed, and stunning silence. Even after the formal response to the play has been offered through enthusiastic—though palpably serious—applause, the audience remains dazed; they wander off into the night reeling from the experience. As one student put it, ‘‘It felt like I just saw my brother die.’’

Technically, Lori-Parks has produced this effect in her audience...

In March 2007 fifteen students from Encuentro Dominicano, Creighton University’s study abroad program in the Dominican Republic, had been immersed in a small rural and very poor community called Ocho de los Caballeros (Eight of the Gentleman). It is a small fishing community squatting illegally on the shore of a very large inland lake called Lake Hatillo in the Dominican Republic. Comprised of about thirty-five families, the population suffered from a variety of water-born diseases including skin fungus, parasites, and eye problems.

Our educational goal was to try to understand the poverty and structural difficulties of the rural Dominican poor...

The above comments reflect the transformative impact that a unique academic immersion experience in post–Hurricane Katrina New Orleans had on twenty-three college students. Although it has been over seven years since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina transformed the environmental, social, and cultural landscapes of the US Gulf Coast, the recovery effort is still ongoing. The recovery of the US Gulf Coast requires that we move beyond a framework of charity and develop a spirit of service that is rooted in social justice. On June 21, 2008, we took this directive to heart and led a group of twenty-three undergraduate...

As members of a political science department at a Jesuit college, we have asked ourselves many times: What is our mission and what does it mean for us?

The answers, for indeed there are several, have not come easily.

The five full-time faculty have been constantly pulled in different directions by such practical considerations as marketing concerns, teaching philosophies, our standing as a noncore department, and the practices and content of our very discipline. However, committed to the belief that Jesuit education must infuse our departmental mission to the extent that we be distinctive from other political science departments, we...

The most obvious, traditional, and defining mission of institutions of higher education is the cultivation and dissemination of knowledge, captured in the phrase ‘‘research and teaching.’’ The virtues of the university are the virtues of speculative reason that lead to contemplation of the truth: wisdom, science, and understanding. The intellectual accomplishments of faculty, manifest in their publications and scholarly reputations, are the main attraction to prospective students and the primary factor establishing the standing of each institution nationally and internationally. Research and teaching are the two primary criteria for tenure and promotion of faculty, and for enlisting new faculty in...

In recent years, many institutions, including Jesuit ones, have incorporated a service learning component within their foreign language courses. The pedagogical benefits of providing students with an opportunity to interact with native speakers through community service projects have received some attention in the literature (e.g., Beebe and DeCosta 1993; Hellebrandt and Varona 1999). To date, however, we are unaware of any significant discussion among Jesuit foreign language programs regarding the role that such activities play in the promotion of social justice and the development of a ‘‘well-educated solidarity,’’ as urged by Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach in his address at Santa Clara...

Pedro Pablo Ortiz and his wife Marta and their five children live on a coffee farm in Matagalpa, Nicaragua situated on a mountain-top at an altitude of 1,250 meters (4,100 feet). The farm has a little over three acres of lush coffee plants grown under ideal conditions. Pedro belongs to the cooperativeLa Fe de las Nubes(Faith of the Clouds), which itself is a member of a second order cooperative, CECOSEMAC (‘‘Aroma of Coffee’’ Union of Multiple-Service Cooperatives) and has just received word that the cooperative has received Fair Trade certification. Through the cooperative, he receives support to help...

Kolvenbach (2004, 59) describes the service of faith and the promotion of justice in American Jesuit Higher Education stating: ‘‘The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in whom our students become.’’ He feels strongly that it is only through contact with the poor and marginalized that ‘‘whole persons’’ of tomorrow can truly be educated in solidarity (60). This chapter outlines the journey of faculty and staff at a School of Nursing through a yearlong faculty and professional learning community (FPLC) and share examples of curricular revisions, pedagogical strategies, and service learning opportunities that promote transformation in both the approach...

Before delving into the use of reflective practices—such as the Spiritual Exercises developed by Ignatius of Loyola—by law schools and their students, it is helpful to examine the goal of their use. Simply put, the goal is justice. Seeking justice is a good fit for law schools and law students. Perhaps no other field of academic endeavor is as closely intertwined with justice as legal education. Legal education, at a minimum, instructs students in legal and ethical duties to their clients, the judicial system, and the public. It is a rare law school that does not profess to...

The mission statement and strategic plan of our university contain strongly worded declarations that valuing human differences and increasing diversity are part and parcel of our Jesuit mission. Our declarations about diversity are an affirmation of our faith-inspired commitment to an inclusive community where human differences thrive in a working and learning environment characterized by mutual respect and the pursuit of social justice. Our differences enrich us individually as human beings and collectively as a community striving to more completely actualize our university mission. As stated by Fr. Paul Locatelli, SJ (2009), former president of Santa Clara University, in reflecting...

The five articles in this section share a common concern: the Jesuit university’s responsibility to educate for justice. They propose opportunities, underscore challenges and hint at the risks involved in educating for a faith that does justice. The authors assume the ‘‘higher standard’’ that Dean Brackley, SJ, first proposed for Jesuit colleges and universities in a 2005 address at Loyola Marymount University, ‘‘The Jesuit University in a Broken World,’’ and to which I believe Jesuit higher education should hold itself accountable when assessing overall educational quality. The authors remind us—in their own way—that ‘‘academic excellence’’ by itself falls...

Twenty-five years ago, the Society of Jesus committed itself to the promotion of the justice that is an imperative of Christian Faith. Faith and justice were to inform its entire apostolic works. In response to this call, leaders of the Jesuit universities in the United States planned and implemented three regional conferences in 1999 and convened a national justice conference at Santa Clara University in October 2000. The conference process had three objectives: to assess critically how the commitment to justice has been made on Jesuit campuses and determine what difference it has made; to develop a better theoretical rationale...

The focus on justice in Jesuit higher education frequently inspires faculty and staff at Jesuit colleges and universities to want to contribute their expertise in the wider community. Their enthusiasm presents an opportunity for engagement, but several challenges exist. Frequently, because of their busy schedules faculty and staff rush into providing a ‘‘service’’ that is only in one direction and does not respect and take into consideration the overall context of the situation. In addition, because of their significant academic training, faculty and staff often approach community engagement with the perspective of the ‘‘expert’’ coming to serve those in ‘‘need.’’...

In September 1965, Saint Peter’s University¹ awarded Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws and Letters. Saint Peter’s is the only Jesuit university or college to have awarded him such a degree. In my eighteen years of teaching at the university, I have been inspired and challenged by King’s teachings, writings, and actions, particularly those that point to the good works of community service, the prophetic voice of social justice, the deadly scourge of militarism, and the creative power of nonviolence. If Dr. King were to speak in the university’s Roy Irving Theater today, as...

We live in a time in history when the global crisis of climate change cannot be ignored. The rising of the oceans, the drying of lands, and the reduction in the biodiversity in our ecological system are realities that face our current generation and that must be at the forefront of the policy plans for future generations to come. Many of the problems facing humankind today—climate change, poverty, species extinction, peak oil—have arisen from a worldview that understands humans, the economy, and the environment as disconnected issues. The solutions to global problems require a shift in perceptions and...

The ideal of shaping students for solidarity in a world in need thankfully motivates many within the systems of Jesuit education. Yet while the twenty-eight colleges and universities in our network have centers for service and justice as well as programs of service learning, authentic development of students in a well-educated solidarity requires continual sacrifice and ever-deepening engagement. The promotion of service is not enough. While the recognition of disparity and the ‘‘gritty reality’’ of socio-economic injustices which may come from students’ work with communities in need is essential, the placement of students in service is but one component of...