By Marcela Berrios, Hannah Storm Journalism Intern
As the Center for Social Concerns prepares to mark its 25th anniversary, ND Today celebrates the Center’s dedication to spearheading the University’s commitment to community-based learning, service and research.
This fall the Center recruited 357 students for week-long service seminars in the Appalachia region. But encouraging students to participate in service-learning courses during breaks from school is not the only function of the Center.
The Center for Social Concerns has initiated community-based research. It has sponsored campaigns to educate and mobilize students and South Bend residents on behalf of justice and peace. It has provided young people with ways to integrate those beliefs to their lives through service and academic opportunities. And the list goes on.
History
The Center for Social Concerns was established in January 1983 with the help of founding director Rev. Don McNeil, C.S.C., Sr. Judith Ann Beattie, C.S.C., and several ND students.
After WNDU vacated its building at the northwest corner of the library, Fr. McNeil, Sr. Beattie and the students made a proposal to then-President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., and the Board of Trustees, recommending the site be used for this new Center, which would combine the programs of the Office of Volunteer Services and Center for Experiential Learning.
The Center was one of many groups on campus who submitted proposals, and ultimately was chosen because the work of the Center was seen as an essential dimension of a Notre Dame education.
Service-Learning
From the start, the Center offered three credit courses in theology, such as “Theology and Community Service” and “Theology and Social Ministry,” which were based on a service-learning pedagogy. The fall, spring and winter break seminars and the summer service-learning programs also became one- to three-credit courses in theology and other disciplines.
One of the primary learnings for students in Center courses is the call to social responsibility, which is rooted in Catholic social thought. Since 1997, the program in Catholic Social Teaching, an interdisciplinary minor in the College of Arts and Letters, has helped students to acquire a deeper understanding of the social implications of the Catholic faith in a more formal way.
The Center faculty continues to teach courses in a variety of disciplines each semester, all of which include Catholic social thought and community-based learning.
This fall for example, “Addressing U.S. Poverty on the Local Level: Homelessness, Education, Health Care, Jobs,” taught by Mary Beckman, PhD, associate director for academic affairs at the Center, was offered in the economics department, while “Leadership and Social Responsibility,” taught by Jay Brandenberger, PhD, was offered in psychology. “Discipleship: Loving Action for Justice” was treated as a theology course. The wide array of departments that come into contact with the CSC is further proof that the Center’s mission and its impact extend beyond volunteer work.
Service Clubs
Service remains one of the Center’s most effective draws among students. Every residence hall on campus has a social concerns commissioner who facilitates communication between the Center and students.
Students can participate in any of the CSC’s 35 service or social action groups – or they can start their own task forces or movements if there isn’t one in place already to address a certain need.
That’s what junior Joella Bitter did after her freshman year. She realized there wasn’t a group on campus dedicated to the advancement of the United Nations’ eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG). So she and a handful of classmates founded a task force called ND-8. In its first year, the group collected money to buy bed nets to prevent the spread of malaria in African countries.
And like Bitter and her task force, hundreds of ND students are trying to improve the lives of others through their work with the Center’s service and social action groups, which include Habitat for Humanity, World Hunger Coalition, ND for Animals, Students for Environmental Action, College Mentors for Kids, ND Votes ’08, Feminist Voice and many others.
To honor the CSC’s significant milestone, all are invited for a weekend celebration on campus April 18-19, 2008. In addition to a reunion of alumni of the Center, the CSC invites community and University partners and University friends to a reception and a Mass by Father Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland. If you would like to attend the celebration, click here to RSVP.
Whether or not you plan to attend the festivities, the best way to celebrate the Center’s accomplishments and its ongoing work – as the CSC Web site encourages – is to practice the virtue of solidarity every day. For more information about the CSC and its dedication to service, visit its website at http://centerforsocialconcerns.nd.edu/.
