One of the best things about running Wandering Educators is finding out about extraordinary projects, travel, and life work. I've found one such organization at the University of Notre Dame - the Center for Social Concerns. It's an incredible center that works with people from all over the world -both locally and globally - and encourages deep thinking and action about issues that concern us all. I can't say enough good things about the Center for Social Concerns - I am extremely impressed with their mission and work.

We were lucky enough to sit down and chat with Cynthia Toms Smedley, Director of Educational Immersions at the Center, about their work. Here's what she had to say... 

WE: Please tell us about the The Center for Social Concerns...

CTS: The Center for Social Concerns provides educational experiences in social concerns and invites students, faculty, staff and alumni to think critically about today’s complex social realities. Students are challenged to answer a vocational call and about their responsibilities "to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice" (from Notre Dame’s Mission Statement). In our local, national and international seminars, students work alongside missioners from the Congregation of Holy Cross, Maryknoll, Glenmary, the Dominicans, Jesuits, Franciscans, Sisters of Charity and more. We collaborate with L’Arche, the Catholic Worker movement, the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, the National Catholic Conference of Bishops, numerous dioceses and parishes and many other groups inspired by and committed to social justice work.

WE: What was the genesis of the Center for Social Concerns?

CTS: The Center for Social Concerns is the inheritor of a strong tradition of service and learning by the Notre Dame Office of Volunteer Services and the Center for Experiential Learning. Notre Dame students, faculty, staff, alumni and alumnae established the Center for Social Concerns (CSC) at Notre Dame in 1983 as the heirs of the commitment and contribution to social service and social justice, since the founding of the university by the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1842. An increasing number of students participate in the variety of Center programs each year. This growth in student participation and service involvement in programs sponsored or co-sponsored through the Center is significant, and is enriched by the educational outcomes of agencies, their clients and the students. The faculty has increased their contributions to the educational and reflective components at the core of the Center’s courses and programs. Work with many partners of the Center also enhances the faith-based learning of all who serve, and helps lay a strong foundation for future service and action.

WE:  How is the university faculty involved at the Center for Social Concerns?

CTS: The Center also encourages faculty to participate in various experiential learning opportunities it has designed for students, such as the Appalachia Seminar, and in others created especially for them, for example, the May 2004 faculty trip to El Salvador.  Faculty at the university contribute a great deal to the academic offerings and other programs run through the Center for Social Concerns. The Center encourages faculty to participate in immersion opportunities. They can participate with students in Center Seminars and a number of immersion opportunities in Latin America and East Africa. In late spring 1999 and again in summer 2002, the Center helped coordinate a two-week trip to Uganda and Kenya. Co-sponsored by the Center, the Provost’s Office, and the Congregation of Holy Cross, the trips offered a number of faculty members and administrators the opportunity to experience the Roman Catholic Church, Catholic higher education, and the work of the Holy Cross brothers, priests and sisters in those two countries.

WE: What makes the Center for Social Concerns truly unique?

CTS: The Center for Social Concerns is the largest Center of its type in the United States and is deeply rooted in the Catholic Social Tradition of service toward the common good. The Center for Social Concerns works with a network of over 300 community partners worldwide. Locally, the Center partners with 60 social service agencies.   In the past year over 3,000 students and 39 faculty worked with local community partners on over 108,000 hours of research, teaching, and service initiatives.  The CSC maintains relationships with approximately 50 local organizations, and has formalized relationships with eight to ten community organizations. The Center for Social Concerns is now housed in the first LEED certified building on Notre Dame’s campus. Furthermore, 49% of Notre Dame’s student body will choose to take a Center for Social Concerns course, and 10% of graduating seniors will spend a year or more in voluntary service.

WE: Why would international educators care about the Center for Social Concerns?

CTS: The Center for Social Concerns provides an opportunity to examine causes of poverty and to create links of solidarity across borders through the International Summer Service Learning Program (ISSLP). Despite dramatic changes throughout the world, we continue to see a widening economic disparity between the rich and the poor. The lack of basic resources, access to health, education, and employment remains the challenge for developing and non-industrialized nations. In nations marred by political conflict and violence, efforts of peace, reconciliation, and democratization are slow and its affects are seen most clearly in the lives of the poor. As we continue to face these and other global concerns, the need to educate students about their responsibility in our global community becomes ever apparent.

WE: What else should we know about the Center for Social Concerns?

CTS: The Center for Social Concerns has made intentional efforts to minimize the carbon imprint of our educational immersions and reduce our university communities’ carbon footprint through education and a carbon offset program in conjunction with the local community. This year, as 300 students set forth to spend their fall break to address some of the nation’s most pressing social concerns – and many made less of an impact than ever before by traveling smart. The 36 students traveling to Washington D.C. for the Center for Social Concerns’ Washington D.C. Seminar, Gospel of Life Seminar, and Energy Policy and Social Change Seminar reduced their environmental impact by taking the train, shrinking their carbon footprint by 43%.  This carbon footprint was further reduced on Arbor Day when the Center partnered with the Mishawaka Department of Parks and Recreation, and the local bus service to offset carbon dioxide emissions by planting 40 maple trees. If the trees live for 25 years they will offset the emissions produced by the 2008 seminar participants who traveled to Washington, D.C. local to global The trees will be registered with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree campaign, a program where every tree registered is matched by the planting of another tree in the developing world. Tree planting is not a perfect way to offset carbon production, but it’s a start. 

WE: Thanks so very much, Cynthia. Ideas and action like this CAN help change the world. We are extremely impressed with the Center for Social Concerns.

For more information, please see:
http://socialconcerns.nd.edu/

All photos courtesy and copyright Center for Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame