Institute for Social Concerns

The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the rich tradition of Catholic social teaching in order to develop skills for critical reading and appropriation of this canon of magisterial documents. Students will examine papal, conciliar, and episcopal texts from Rerum novarum (1891) up to the present time, identifying operative principles, tracing central theological, ethical, and ecclesial concerns, and locating each document within its proper historical context. Students will hold recurring themes in conversation with the broader theoretical framework of Catholic social thought and relevant secondary literature. Finally, students will examine some foundational topics in the early weeks of this course, such as the Biblical roots of CST, its natural law underpinnings, and its ecclesiological influences.

In this course we ask: Why are people poor? We take an interdisciplinary look at poverty to better understand the forces that maintain poverty and the forces that resist it. From sustainability to social entrepreneurship, from economics to creative writing, we explore a variety of mindsets and methods for understanding, representing, and assessing poverty. Through academic and experiential learning, we gain a deeper understanding of the public and private programs and institutions that address poverty on the local, national, and global level. We also gain a deeper understanding of what has worked and what hasn't in domestic and international efforts to reduce poverty. Finally, students consider how they are called to address poverty in their personal and professional lives, exploring individual actions and careers that align with their skills and interests related to poverty. This course was formerly titled "Introduction to Poverty Studies." It counts as the gateway course for Justice & Society minors in the Poverty Studies curriculum and as an elective for those in the Justice & Society curriculum.

Dialogue is a way of talking and listening together that cultivates shared understanding. Especially when we face divisive issues, dialogue provides a valuable alternative to debate. In this class, students lead conversations about controversial issues such as abortion, gun control, economic justice, and immigration – and practice withholding judgment, empathetic listening, and questioning assumptions. Reflecting on the theory and practice of dialogue, this course develops interpersonal and small-group communication skills for engaging conflict, building community, representing vulnerable people in conversation, and facilitating discernment.

Put your education to work for justice. The study of justice—discerning how to know what is right, just and fair---is an ancient, multi-disciplinary pursuit. This interdisciplinary course offers students a foundational understanding of this rich theoretical tradition while also providing them with the research tools and skills to both explain and indeed respond to today’s most challenging questions of justice in the areas of environment, labor, incarceration, migration, poverty, and technology. What does it mean to live and act justly, both individually and collectively? Explore the answers in Doing Justice.

This interdisciplinary research lab enlists students in the efforts of the Just Wage Initiative (JWI), a collaborative research and advocacy project of the Higgins Labor Program at the Institute for Social Concerns. Students will help develop, refine, and update the Just Wage Framework, a multistakeholder online tool designed to advance a more inclusive and equitable economy. Students will also undertake research projects connecting their own intellectual interests and disciplinary expertise to the JWI's foundational question: What makes any given wage just or unjust? In addition, students will collaborate with the instructor and local, national, and international practitioners to envision and execute collaborative research and advocacy campaigns to promote a just wage economy. Extended weekly class sessions will feature visits by scholars and activists, as well as facilitate interactive group discussions and collaborative experiments.

“Reentry” is one of the key fields of justice the U.S. must address in the 21st century: how to engage the millions of incarcerated people who reenter the outside world from prisons and jails every year, often with significant barriers to voting, housing, education, employment, and other staples of society that help create strong communities. This course will explore what it means to reimagine reentry, from small, technical questions of policy and programming to the deep moral issues that underlie them. What changes in policy and programming would most help those returning from prison or jail? What are the most transformative new models for thinking about reentry support? What responsibilities do returning citizens have to their communities and governments, and what responsibilities do their communities and governments have to them? Is “reentry” something that starts at the moment of release, or does it begin long before release, and end long after? As part of the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, this course will bring together inside students (people incarcerated at the South Bend Community Reentry Center) and outside students (people enrolled at Notre Dame) learning with and from one another and breaking new ground together. Most weeks of the semester Notre Dame students will travel to the Community Reentry Center for class alongside the inside students. All are responsible for the same reading and writing assignments and will participate equally in class activities and discussions, together exploring transformative new models for thinking about reentry. Full attendance is required. Travel to and from the class site provided. Apply online via the Institute for Social Concerns website: socialconcerns.nd.edu/courses.

How has the use of fossil fuels for heat, energy, and raw material shaped contemporary Christian ethics and social teachings? Has the Catholic pursuit of virtue and the common good driven climate change? Is there a need to “decarbonize” Christian concepts, cultures, and communities? While the concept of decarbonization is most commonly applied to technology, policy, and the economy, what would a “decarbonized” vision of human flourishing and the common good look like? In this course, we will generate responses to these questions by examining the extent to which fossil fuels have shaped Catholic concepts of moral virtue, human dignity, and the common good in the modern world, as well as how Catholic moral and social teachings can inform a just transformation of energy systems. In recent years, scholars from multiple disciplines have argued that there is a two-way influence between the material properties of things, like coal and oil, and human values and cultural ways of life. These dynamics are the object of our study in this course. In addition to engaging with developments in history, we will also explore emerging models of non-carbon intensive human flourishing and the common good as well as the virtues and practices needed to sustain them. Throughout the course, each student will conduct a case study of one moral virtue or Catholic social principle both to examine how it has been “carbonized” and to develop an argument about whether or how it should be “decarbonized.” This course in energy and environmental studies engages with perspectives drawn from history, environmental/climate studies, ethics, theological studies, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. There are no required prerequisites.

This research lab will employ an interdisciplinary approach to research on a range of issues related to mass incarceration. Collaborating with faculty, scholars, activists, practitioners, those impacted by systems of incarceration, and other classmates, students will develop, refine and implement a research project which contributes to the overall body of scholarship on incarceration. Students will be able to design projects (exploring moral, normative, and/or empirical etc. dimensions of incarceration) which connect their own academic and intellectual interests to emerging research questions at the Institute for Social Concerns. This research lab is open to students in all disciplines.

Environmental justice has emerged as one of the most significant frameworks shaping contemporary environmental policy and scholarship at local, national, and international scales. Less well known is that it originated and has been led at the grassroots level with social movements making connections between racial, gender, and economic justice, political empowerment, and vastly unequal exposure to environmental harms and hazards. In short, the meanings, values, strategies, and concepts that make up the environmental justice (EJ) framework have been driven by grassroots leaders and organizations with a transformative vision. This course in environmental humanities and social sciences examines this transformative approach to EJ as it has emerged in places as diverse as rural North Carolina, urban New York, Louisiana's “Cancer Alley,” tropical forests around the world, and most recently transnational networks of grassroots leaders responding to climate change. Through interdisciplinary engagement with scholarship in environmental studies, religion, ethics, history, sociology, anthropology, and politics, as well as analysis of primary source documents, this course equips students to analyze the dynamic relationship between human cultures and environmental realities at local and global scales. In particular, it equips students to answer questions such as: To what extent has the EJ movement been shaped by religion and culture? How do transformative approaches to EJ differ from other approaches? How do diverse concepts of the sacred, nature, and justice factor into contemporary debates about environmental and climate action? What moral and political resources do EJ communities draw on to sustain their commitments? What commitments inform students’ personal approach to EJ issues?

Throughout this course, students will examine the social and cultural aspects of sport through an exploration of the unique ways that race and identity influence sport participation, access and engagement. This course will engage topics such as: Sport and Identity; Identity, "Success" and resilience; Media Imagery, Identity and Power; and, Race in American Sport.

This course introduces some of the issues behind calls to reform the US criminal legal system, including mass incarceration and supervision, racial disproportionality, and the challenges of "reentry." But the heart of the course is our exploration of deeper concerns, including why our criminal legal system relies on punishment, how we might cultivate other forms of justice, and what responsibility we have for the systems that operate in our names. As part of the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, the course involves inside students (people incarcerated at the Westville Correctional Facility in Westville, IN) and outside students (people enrolled at Notre Dame, St. Marys, or Holy Cross) learning with and from one another and breaking new ground together. Most weeks of the semester, outside students will travel to Westville for class sessions with the inside students. All students are responsible for the same reading and writing assignments, and participate together in class activities and discussions. Together, we will examine myths and realities related to crime and to punishment, explore the effects of current criminal legal policies, and develop ideas for responding more effectively to harm and violence in our communities.

Direct readings and/or capstone with one of the Minor's affiliated faculty. The student will produce a product as approved by the faculty member (research project, research paper, manuscript, work or art, composition, poster board display of research results, etc.). Prior approval is required by one of the Justice & Society Minor Directors.

In this collaborative workshop, you will learn the craft of public scholarship as you explore a variety of methods and venues for communicating research findings regarding community concerns. The culmination will be a portfolio of compositions (an op-ed, a policy memo, an exhibit, etc.) to showcase your justice research.

This introductory course, open to non-majors and majors, will show students how the reproduction of images has created social change for better or for worse. In doing so, the course will survey a variety of basic traditional and contemporary printmaking techniques including relief, etching lithography, and silkscreen. Through global conversations about printmaking, demonstrations, lectures, and readings, students will become actively involved in specific social justice issues while understanding how printmaking can function as a relevant voice in the context of the modern world.

The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the rich tradition of Catholic social teaching in order to develop skills for critical reading and appropriation of this canon of magisterial documents. Students will examine papal, conciliar, and episcopal texts from Rerum novarum (1891) up to the present time, identifying operative principles, tracing central theological, ethical, and ecclesial concerns, and locating each document within its proper historical context. Students will hold recurring themes in conversation with the broader theoretical framework of Catholic social thought and relevant secondary literature. Finally, students will examine some foundational topics in the early weeks of this course, such as the Biblical roots of CST, its natural law underpinnings, and its ecclesiological influences.

Research workshop for students in the Impact Consulting Minor. Students will meet with the instructor individually for approximately one hour per week.

In this course we ask: Why are people poor? We take an interdisciplinary look at poverty to better understand the forces that maintain poverty and the forces that resist it. From sustainability to social entrepreneurship, from economics to creative writing, we explore a variety of mindsets and methods for understanding, representing, and assessing poverty. Through academic and experiential learning, we gain a deeper understanding of the public and private programs and institutions that address poverty on the local, national, and global level. We also gain a deeper understanding of what has worked and what hasn't in domestic and international efforts to reduce poverty. Finally, students consider how they are called to address poverty in their personal and professional lives, exploring individual actions and careers that align with their skills and interests related to poverty. This course was formerly titled "Introduction to Poverty Studies." It counts as the gateway course for Poverty Studies minor curriculum and as an elective in the Justice & Society minor.

Students will work with a South Bend neighborhood to explore a structural challenge and, with the guidance of a local artist, respond to this challenge alongside community members in creating an artistic piece that serves the good of the neighborhood. This seminar will also provide a "hands-on" experience as students are exposed to practices of participatory research methods and the art-making process.

Self discovery. Personality Development. Communication Styles. Social Engagement. This course will explore a better understanding of self, a more differentiated look at the other person, looking at individual strengths and stretches, and cultural and religious differences to find out how one can best contribute to a common good oriented society. In this class, we will study Carl G. Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, and his terminology and understanding of the human person, especially the inner world, our Self. How do our personality types support a certain world view? How can we look at God, Religions and Spirituality from a psychological perspective? How can a symbolic understanding of tradition and biblical stories, as well as dreams, help us in our inner development and our individuation process? This course will encourage you to think in images and not just words and numbers, thus the course will incorporate Visual Arts in different ways. There will be assignments that encourage creative engagement.

This course will prepare students for an 8-week immersive summer experience where they will work alongside a community organization. During their summer students will explore their vocational aspirations, consider the dynamics and drivers of injustice and conduct original research in collaboration with their community partners. Preparation for summer will include vocational discernment and cultivation of basic research skills.

This one credit S/U course examines the U.S. healthcare's intersections with poverty, housing, addiction, and migration. We will do so through the lens of Minnesota’s healthcare system, recently ranked as one of the best in the United States. What structures are in place that support people’s flourishing? Where are there gaps? Why? In order to bridge theory and praxis, the course will involve a 5 day immersive experience to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota over Spring Break. We will hear from experts in the healthcare field, visit non profit organizations working in healthcare, and listen to people impacted by healthcare concerns. Class sessions before and after the trip will focus on healthcare justice and possible responses inspired by Catholic Social Teaching. This course is open to all undergraduate students. Transportation, food, and lodging are provided. So that we may book flights and make other arrangements, students who add this class will be required to sign a participation agreement.

This one credit S/U course examines why migrants leave their home countries, what they encounter at the border, responses from U.S.-based citizen and faith groups, and the effectiveness of U.S. enforcement policies. In order to bridge theory and praxis, the course will involve an immersive experience to the Tucson, Arizona borderlands area during Spring Break. While there, students will have the opportunity to observe legal proceedings, attend a humanitarian aid training, tour a Border Patrol facility, listen to stories from migrant families, visit the border wall, and participate in a humanitarian desert trip. Class sessions before and after the trip will focus on the experience of migration and possible responses inspired by Catholic Social Teaching. This course is open to all undergraduate students. Transportation, food, and lodging are provided. So that we may book flights and make other arrangements, students who add this class will be required to sign a participation agreement.

This one credit S/U course explores how the arts can be utilized as a tool to promote justice and the common good. In order to bridge bridge theory and praxis, the course will involve a 5 day immersive experience to Philadelphia, PA over Spring break to engage with community organizations and local artists who are navigating the art world through a lens of justice. While there, students will visit museums, artist studios, and local art centers all while practicing their own interpretations and appreciation of art. Class sessions before and after the trip will focus on how the arts can be utilized for justice. This course is open to all undergraduate students. Transportation, food, and lodging are provided. So that we may book flights and make other arrangements, students who add this class will be required to sign a participation agreement. This course is open to all undergraduate students. Transportation, food, and lodging are provided. Final travel itinerary TBD.

This one credit S/U course examines the structure of environmental racism and the impact on people and their communities, how faith leaders and organizations address the risks of climate change, community resilience, and strategies for adaptation and mitigation. In order to bridge theory and praxis, the course will involve a 5 day immersive experience to New Orleans, LA, and nearby “Cancer Alley” during Spring Break. While there, students will have the opportunity to listen to stories from environmental activists, hear from Catholic and other faith leaders about their justice work, visit communities in Cancer Alley, and observe the impact of policy on addressing environmental injustice. Class sessions before and after the trip will focus on environmental justice and possible responses inspired by Catholic Social Teaching. This course is open to all undergraduate students. Transportation, food, and lodging are provided. So that we may book flights and make other arrangements, students who add this class will be required to sign a participation agreement.

This course examines Christian approaches to peace and justice in the context of contemporary global conflicts, with particular focus on the challenges posed by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Through an interdisciplinary lens combining theological, historical, and ethical perspectives, students will analyze biblical teachings, Pacifism, Just War Theory, Just Peacemaking Theory, and the role of religious institutions in both conflict and peace-building. The course addresses how unresolved historical legacies contribute to current geopolitical tensions, while developing practical mechanisms for establishing and maintaining just peace through careful analysis of Scripture, Church teaching, and contemporary situations.

This lab is a research collaborative community of faculty, students and community member seeking evidence-based interventions to eradicate human trafficking. The lab will bring together legal, social scientific, technological and theological perspectives to address various dimensions of the $150 billion annual trade in person (children and adults) for forced labor or sex. Students from all fields and disciplines are welcome to participate in the project teams that will address different dimensions of this problem. Questions animating the lab may include: If AI is helping exacerbate child sex trafficking are the ways to use it to stem child sex trafficking? How can Catholic Social Teaching give us new insight into how to address this exploitation? What role might policing and legal interventions play? How can we best address the needs of survivors?

How can we design AI systems that foster human excellence rather than diminishing it? In this two-semester sequence of one-credit courses, students will encounter philosophical and theological perspectives on AI and human flourishing, learn methods for applying those ideas in software design, and then put them into practice within team-based, real-world projects that will be part of a hackathon competition in the spring. The first semester course is required; the second semester can (but need not) be taken for credit, though students are expected to help complete their projects regardless of whether they register for the spring course. In the first semester, students will be introduced to a virtue-ethics approach to technology design and evaluation, will learn how Catholic Social Teaching can inform technology assessment, and will be guided through a team-based, software design process that keeps virtues at the forefront. There are no formal prerequisites, though students are expected to have some experience in ethics and/or computer science. To keep project teams balanced, registration requires a short application. Apply online via the Institute for Social Concerns website: socialconcerns.nd.edu/courses. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until August 27th.

This fall break service learning course combines hands-on outdoor work experiences with community living and study in the spirit of Pope Francis' encyclical, Laudato Si'. The course is held at the Franciscan Life Process Center, a Franciscan retreat center founded by the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist and located on 230 acres of rural land outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The center is a small working farm and outdoor education center with three miles of nature trails, a restored native prairie, animal barns, rain gardens, an orchard and vegetable gardens. Students will stay in simple rooms in the retreat center building and have access to the kitchen, chapel, library, nature trails, outdoor stations of the cross and outdoor rosary walk. Prayer/liturgical opportunities will be available. During the week students will work outside on environmental projects such as building a rain garden and assisting with native prairie restoration, as well as with the farm and animals. Students will also be guided in learning how to cook meals with homegrown foods. Daily seminar-style meetings complement the outdoor work and focus on readings from Laudato Si', as well as Catholic and non-Catholic writers who reflect on the nature of creation and the unique role of humans in caring for it in today’s world. The course could be a valuable experience for those majoring in both technical and non-technical disciplines, as well as those interested in social concerns.

This course is an interdisciplinary and experiential seminar focused on the roots, application, and practice of modern restorative justice. As a social movement and a set of practices, restorative justice seeks to elevate peaceful processes to address harm and violations of legal and human rights. It is often explored as an alternative to punitive criminal justice processes. Restorative approaches are increasingly adopted to address social justice issues as wide-ranging as racial reconciliation and environmental degradation. As a class, we will explore restorative practices through class dialogues focused on criminal justice, education, and historical harms. Students will learn about community building circles, victim/offender dialogues, and effective communication techniques as well as the practical context of implementation. Students will be invited to imagine moving their work beyond the classroom into areas such as research, leadership, and community engagement locally and globally.

Students selected to participate in the Pursuit of Purpose summer fellowship enroll in this course exploring the intersection of the common good and moral purpose. Special attention is paid to integrating a robust vision for the common good in vocational, career, and other life pursuits. Students will consider the cultivation of a particular kind of life and how personal and communal choices and commitments enable tangible responses to the demands of justice. Readings and class assignments are designed to create space for students to reflect and discern key questions facing them in the near and longer term. Throughout the semester, students will actively design a summer fellowship experience alongside, and in consultation with, Institute for Social Concerns staff, faculty and partners.

What does justice look like? How are injustices created and perpetuated? What is my responsibility to promote justice and the common good? How can research contribute to these goals? In this required course for students selected to participate in the NDBridge summer program, students are equipped to answer these questions as they develop a framework for encountering people in marginalized communities and understanding the challenges these communities face. Through lectures, course materials, discussions, group projects, and brief writing assignments, the course aims to introduce students to the ethics of engagement, cultivate their moral imagination, and prepare them to carry out research for the common good. Students will grapple with key concepts in the Catholic Social Tradition, engage with theories about systems that cause and maintain injustice, consider the design and purposes of research, and practice self-reflection and moral attentiveness to others. By the end of the course, students will draft a plan for their summer work that integrates their learning in the course.

Studying the theory and practice of contemplative leadership, students reflect on their leadership experiences on and off campus. Restricted to students in the Corde Scholars Program. (1 enhancement/activity credit, may be repeated) [Semester].

The McNeill Winter Plunge consists of a three-day immersive experience that takes place over winter break, followed by a one credit S/U course in the Spring semester. The program invites business majors interested in being virtuous leaders to step outside the classroom and into the realities of being unhoused. Students will spend time alongside community partners, service providers, and individuals experiencing homelessness to better understand the economic, social, and human dimensions of this pressing issue. This course, offered by the Institute for Social Concerns, was inspired by Fr. Don McNeill, C.S.C. who engaged, encouraged, and empowered Notre Dame students to make the world a better, more just place for all. Grounded in Catholic social tradition, the program challenges students to consider what it means to lead with purpose. Through site visits, conversations, and hands-on engagement with high level community and business leaders, participants will examine how structural forces and business decisions—ranging from housing markets to employment practices—shape the landscape of poverty and opportunity. This program challenges students to imagine business not only as a driver of profit, but also as a force for good.

Taught by a veteran of the global apparel industry, this one-credit practical course explores “fast fashion.” This revolutionary approach to clothing manufacturing is taking the world by storm, based on unimaginably low prices that make clothing, essentially, disposable. We will together focus on the costs of this approach to fashion, starting with fast fashion brands themselves. With prices so low, how is this business model even viable? How does this affect what had previously been associated with the industry of fashion? And, importantly, what is the impact of fast fashion brands’ severe cost-cutting on the people who make our clothes? What other externalities – like pollution, waste, and damage to ecosystems – come into play? And how can we begin to calculate the true cost of this explosive mode of global apparel production? In workshops and class discussions, students will learn the unique way in which costing in fashion’s global supply chains is typically done. They will also engage in hands-on, real-life calculations of how living wage increases for the people making our clothes would impact the prices brands and consumers pay for a t-shirt or pair of jeans. Armed with their new skills and knowledge, students will be well-equipped to envision innovative solutions that can deliver a transformed and more hopeful future for global fashion.

This immersive 8-week summer course, which builds on the NDBridge spring semester course, provides a structured framework for students to integrate their community engaged work and research with Catholic Social Teaching principles. Through weekly discussions, readings, and written assignments, students reflect on how they are cultivating a moral imagination, practicing ethical encounters, honing intercultural communication skills, and conducting research for the common good. The course culminates in a community engaged research project in which students apply concepts and principles from the spring NDBridge course, resulting in either a research paper, an original creative work, or an organizational contribution that they share with their site.

Explore the responsibility inherent in using, creating, and developing new technology. Students will begin with the following questions: What is justice? How does Technology promote or reduce justice? Does it do both? We will engage these questions through ancient frameworks such as the thinking of Aristotle and through modern frameworks outlined in Catholic Social Teaching. We then turn to the question of what scientists and engineers owe their creations, which we address through engaging with the classic literary work, Frankenstein. Finally we will look into the relationship between technology and economy through the lens of community. We will ask how we actually create meaningful change and what systems are at play. We will read the work of technology ethicists and economists as well as moral theologians. Technologies and economies work together and against each other to create community; we will explore how to create and promote a just future.

Dialogue is way of talking and listening together that cultivates shared understanding. Especially when we face divisive issues, dialogue provides a valuable alternative to debate. In this class, students lead conversations about controversial issues such as abortion, gun control, economic justice, and immigration – and practice withholding judgment, empathetic listening, and questioning assumptions. Reflecting on the theory and practice of dialogue, this course develops interpersonal and small-group communication skills for engaging conflict, building community, representing vulnerable people in conversation, and facilitating discernment.

Put your education to work for justice. The study of justice—discerning how to know what is right, just and fair---is an ancient, multi-disciplinary pursuit. This interdisciplinary course offers students a foundational understanding of this rich theoretical tradition while also providing them with the research tools and skills to both explain and indeed respond to today’s most challenging questions of justice in the areas of environment, labor, incarceration, migration, poverty, and technology. What does it mean to live and act justly, both individually and collectively? Explore the answers in Doing Justice.

Gender has been fundamental to the organization of nearly all human societies, but what gender has meant in terms of identity, opportunity, and economic activity has varied widely across time and space. This course will explore gender at work in US history, taking a chronological approach to show gender's evolution and ongoing intersections with class, race, age, religion, region, and sexuality from 1776 to the near present. The term "gender at work" expresses a double meaning here -- first, it connotes that this is a labor history course, with an emphasis on the ways gender has operated at the workplace; second, it suggests the ubiquity of gender in shaping Americans' lives, experiences, and imaginations not only at the workplace, but also in formal politics, informal communities, and every space in between. By exploring the ways gender has been both omnipresent and contingent throughout US history, students should better understand -- and perhaps act upon -- seemingly intractable contemporary conundrums involving questions of equal opportunity and pay, household division of labor, work-life balance, and the proper relationships among employers, workers, households, and government.

This seminar will provide an overview of and framework to understand the global refugee crisis. We will trace the evolution of international refugee law and policy dealing with this ever-growing population. Central are the ethical challenges that refugees pose for the international community. What is the nature of our collective obligation to refugees? What determines the extent of this obligation? Through a series of legal and sociological case studies, students will also grapple with the social, legal , political and ethical challenges posed by humanitarian intervention on behalf of refugees and the often unintended consequences of such policies. How do the different models for dealing with refugee resettlement affect the life chances of refugees? This project-based course will pair students with a refugee community to address a pressing social concern.

This applied research methods course will allow students to examine research as a driver of change in poverty studies. Throughout this course students will learn a variety of research methods that will equip them with the skills to engage research that in some way seeks to disrupt, reduce, or abolish poverty. Students will learn the foundations of applied research through qualitative and quantitative methods including sampling basics, grounded ethnographic approaches, survey design and the utilization of secondary sources. Students will also engage with experiential learning that is focused on problem-based goals and relevant applications in the area of poverty. This course will create an opportunity for students to learn practical approaches to data identification, collection, analysis and dissemination. It will include a lecture and seminar-based format where students are introduced to key concepts in research methods as well as hands-on opportunities to practice what they've learned in collaboration with community partnerships. At the end of this course, students will have the strategies, tools and confidence to handle complex data, to develop practical solutions to current challenges, and develop a clearer understanding of the varying ways knowledge can be created and accessed. The course will culminate in a group research project proposal.

This course explores the relationships among and between workers, employers, government policymakers, unions, and social movements since the end of World War II, as well as the ways in which those relationships have shaped and been shaped by American politics and culture more broadly. The United States emerged from the Second World War as the globe's unequaled economic and political power, and its citizens parlayed that preeminence into a long postwar economic boom that created, however imperfectly, the first truly mass middle-class society in world history. At the heart of that new society was the American labor movement, whose leaders and members ensured that at least some of the heady postwar profits made it into the wallets of workers and their families - and not just the wallets of union members, as working Americans generally experienced great improvement in wages, benefits, and economic opportunity during the quarter-century ending in 1970. During those same years, civil rights activists challenged the historic workplace discrimination that kept African Americans at the bottom of the labor market, confronting the racism of employers, unions, and the government, and inspiring others, primarily Mexican Americans and women, to broaden the push for equality at the workplace. Since that time, however, Americans have experienced a transformation in the workplace -- an erosion of manufacturing and the massive growth of service and government work; a rapid decline in number of union members and power of organized labor; and unresolved conflicts over affirmative action to redress centuries of racial and gender discrimination. Meanwhile, income inequality and wealth disparities have grown every year over the past three decades. What accounts for the decline of organized labor since 1970, and why have the people of the mythic land of milk and honey experienced declining upward mobility and widening gaps between the rich and everyone else? Are these phenomena linked? What has the decline of the labor movement meant for workers specifically, and the American economy and politics more broadly? How and why have popular perceptions of unions changed over time? What has been the relationship of organized labor to the civil rights movement, feminism, modern conservatism, and the fortunes of individual freedom more broadly? What is globalization, and what has been its impact upon American workers? Through an exploration of historical scholarship, memoirs, polemical writings, and films, this course will try to answer these questions and many others. It will also address the prospects for working people and labor unions in the twenty-first century.

Conflict produces emotional stress. Productively engaging in conflict is not about managing others or resolving problems. Instead, when we know ourselves well, we can choose to communicate in ways that build community and honor the dignity of all people. Conflict can be a gift that transforms relationships. This course explores the role of communication in managing interpersonal and organizational conflicts. Balancing theory and practice, topics addressed include power in conflict, violent language, articulating boundaries, self-differentiated leadership, forgiveness and reconciliation.

This interdisciplinary research lab enlists students in the efforts of the Just Wage Initiative (JWI), a collaborative research and advocacy project of the Higgins Labor Program at the Institute for Social Concerns. Students will help develop, refine, and update the Just Wage Framework, a multistakeholder online tool designed to advance a more inclusive and equitable economy. Students will also undertake research projects connecting their own intellectual interests and disciplinary expertise to the JWI's foundational question: What makes any given wage just or unjust? In addition, students will collaborate with the instructor and local, national, and international practitioners to envision and execute collaborative research and advocacy campaigns to promote a just wage economy. Extended weekly class sessions will feature visits by scholars and activists, as well as facilitate interactive group discussions and collaborative experiments.

In 1964, when Martha Reeves sang, "Calling out around the world/Are you ready for a brand new beat?/Summer's here and the time is right/For dancing in the street," was she beckoning listeners to join a party or the civil rights struggle? Or both? From spirituals sung by enslaved workers to protest anthems shouted at union rallies, music has provided the soundtrack to social justice causes throughout American History. Whether performed by rank-and-file reformers or famous recording artists -- from Frank Sinatra to Nina Simone to Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, and beyond -- popular music has accompanied and sometimes fueled transformations in American politics, culture, and social life. In this course students will explore American popular music in its many forms -- blues, country, jazz, folk, rock, punk, disco, hip hop, tejano, and more -- to understand its power and limits as both a force for social change and a window into major themes of the American experience.

This course will devote the first part of the semester to establishing an account of the historical roots of the current affordable/low-income housing crisis in the United States, paying particular attention to the local St. Joseph County context. It will also introduce students to the housing “continuum of care” in the City of South Bend, noting the various institutional and governmental agencies currently involved in addressing housing needs as well as the gaps in coverage, e.g., the need for a permanent low-barrier intake center and more permanent supportive housing (PSH). The second part of the course will involve constructive and innovative engagement as students collaborate on specific research projects introduced in the first part of the course. Students will have the opportunity to network with area housing agencies and local government entities as well as research best practices in other urban areas. During this segment of the course, students will engage with experts in the field, both virtually and in person. This work will lead into students’ constructive proposals for a concrete contribution to meeting the current low-income and supportive housing needs locally, regionally, and/or nationally. All these signs of the times will be held in conversation with the Catholic social tradition, exploring the concept of housing as a human right and duty in service of the common good. We will also use the CST concept of integral ecology to understand the social, economic, and ecological aspects of the current housing crisis, in conversation with Laudato si’, Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical.

“Reentry” is one of the key fields of justice the U.S. must address in the 21st century: how to engage the millions of incarcerated people who reenter the outside world from prisons and jails every year, often with significant barriers to voting, housing, education, employment, and other staples of society that help create strong communities. This course will explore what it means to reimagine reentry, from small, technical questions of policy and programming to the deep moral issues that underlie them. What changes in policy and programming would most help those returning from prison or jail? What are the most transformative new models for thinking about reentry support? What responsibilities do returning citizens have to their communities and governments, and what responsibilities do their communities and governments have to them? Is “reentry” something that starts at the moment of release, or does it begin long before release, and end long after? As part of the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, this course will bring together inside students (people incarcerated at the South Bend Community Reentry Center) and outside students (people enrolled at Notre Dame) learning with and from one another and breaking new ground together. Most weeks of the semester Notre Dame students will travel to the Community Reentry Center for class alongside the inside students. All are responsible for the same reading and writing assignments and will participate equally in class activities and discussions, together exploring transformative new models for thinking about reentry. Full attendance is required. Travel to and from the class site provided. Apply online via the Institute for Social Concerns website: socialconcerns.nd.edu/courses.

Racial Justice in America is focused on the historic and current impact of racial injustice and the urgency of the work of racial justice today. Racial Justice in America will invite course participants to consider how the stories of the struggle for racial justice in the United States shapes our imaginations for the work of racial justice today. The centerpiece of this course is a required spring break immersion to major civil rights locations in the South. Additionally, students will read/reflect on how we tell the stories of racism in the United States and will create their own narrative/reflective account of their experience with racism and the civil rights movement sites.

How has the use of fossil fuels for heat, energy, and raw material shaped contemporary Christian ethics and social teachings? Has the Catholic pursuit of virtue and the common good driven climate change? Is there a need to “decarbonize” Christian concepts, cultures, and communities? While the concept of decarbonization is most commonly applied to technology, policy, and the economy, what would a “decarbonized” vision of human flourishing and the common good look like? In this course, we will generate responses to these questions by examining the extent to which fossil fuels have shaped Catholic concepts of moral virtue, human dignity, and the common good in the modern world, as well as how Catholic moral and social teachings can inform a just transformation of energy systems. In recent years, scholars from multiple disciplines have argued that there is a two-way influence between the material properties of things, like coal and oil, and human values and cultural ways of life. These dynamics are the object of our study in this course. In addition to engaging with developments in history, we will also explore emerging models of non-carbon intensive human flourishing and the common good as well as the virtues and practices needed to sustain them. Throughout the course, each student will conduct a case study of one moral virtue or Catholic social principle both to examine how it has been “carbonized” and to develop an argument about whether or how it should be “decarbonized.” This course in energy and environmental studies engages with perspectives drawn from history, environmental/climate studies, ethics, theological studies, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. There are no required prerequisites.

If the first year at Notre Dame was defined by finding where you belong, the sophomore year marks the critical pivot toward who you are becoming. Positioned in the sweet spot between the transition of your first year and the pressure to translate your studies into a career path (alt. the rising urgency about what comes next), this seminar offers a deliberate discernment checkpoint. Becoming a force for good means understanding the CST principle of Rights & Responsibilities and what it means to pursue the Common Good. This course invites students to look beyond the "What" - GPA, resume building, and LinkedIn profiles - to interrogate the "Who." In this way, you will learn what fuels a meaningful life and how your unique vocation can be tuned to serve the common good.

This course explores the interaction of thinking and action for justice, of cognitive science and social change. In this contested moment, how might we examine the ideas with which we think as we envision social transformation and work toward solidarity and the common good? We will draw from psychology and neuroscience to understand how to overcome attribution errors, implicit bias, and motivated reasoning in work to promote justice. We will examine how assumptions about knowledge and our theories of mind impact our communication and work, and explore means to overcome conflict through engagement, reciprocity, and reparation. We will explore, in seminar format, means to promote intellectual humility, ethical imagination, practical wisdom, and commitment to action. Students will be encouraged to learn through experience and community engagement, and apply the lessons of the course in their own journeys. This fall, the course will have a particular focus on restorative justice: students will be given the opportunity to participate in and co-lead restorative circles that honor each participant’s voice and story. After the first week, we will travel to Indiana University’s Civil Rights Heritage Center in South Bend for class each week.

This research lab will employ an interdisciplinary approach to research on a range of issues related to mass incarceration. Collaborating with faculty, scholars, activists, practitioners, those impacted by systems of incarceration, and other classmates, students will develop, refine and implement a research project which contributes to the overall body of scholarship on incarceration. Students will be able to design projects (exploring moral, normative, and/or empirical etc. dimensions of incarceration) which connect their own academic and intellectual interests to emerging research questions at the Institute for Social Concerns. This research lab is open to students in all disciplines.

Just Life is an interdisciplinary exploration of what it means to live an ethical life of purpose, meaning and impact. Drawing on philosophy, political theory, sociology and theology but also on contemporary fiction, the course will explore moral purpose, theories of justice and understandings of why and how we are called to the common good. It will foreground core principles of Catholic Social Teaching linking them to other disciplinary and theological traditions. The course will also introduce students to research and evidence linking robust moral purpose to positive health outcomes and higher levels of happiness. But more significantly, it will provide a space for students to begin discerning their own moral purpose beyond the predictable false binaries of money or happiness or success or community. It will also challenge students to consider how they might support the common good across their lifetimes in whatever profession or community they find themselves a part of. Through lectures, discussions, exercises, experiments and short essays this course is where students will come to understand that living a just life is an all-day, every day pursuit. It is a way of life, it is not what you do but who you are or can be. Being good means doing good. Students must be part of the Institute for Social Concerns McNeill Justice Fellows program to take this course.

During this course, the student will gain a deeper understanding of their unconscious bias towards differently-abled people in society, and study theories of mindfulness, giving voice, empowerment, and existing public policies governing society’s acceptance of differently-abled people. This course focuses on the challenges those with disabilities face in their daily lives. It will look back at the history of how people with disabilities were initially treated, introduce the baseline on current policies, and subsequent laws that were established, to spotlight issues on inclusion and diversity, and other relevant social justice issues pertaining to this topic. Evin Hartsell shares his personal story in his book, Abled In A Disabled World, which he completed two weeks before his death in April 2018. Evin speaks directly to the reader by making an incredibly wise declaration at the beginning of his book, “I am the same as you, I just look different”. During this course, the student will gain a deeper understanding of their unconscious bias towards differently-abled people in society, and study theories of mindfulness, giving voice, empowerment, and existing public policies governing society’s acceptance of differently-abled people.

This interdisciplinary course equips students in Strategic Human Rights Advocacy- an innovation driven approach to solve society’s most wicked problems. It gives students a blueprint to identify rights based issues with precision, contrast them with competing claims and propose creative solutions. The course journeys through multiple case studies of human rights violations that grew from local to international and thus equips students with the building blocks of advocacy. Taught in a workshop format, the course will focus on remedying the role of social media and artificial intelligence (AI) in child sex trafficking. Students will study and apply some of the most creative approaches to bring justice to victims. For instance, how did US consumers use ‘false advertising’ claims against chocolate companies to address child labor in Ghana? How can hotels’ usage of AI for bookings be curated to safeguard children? How did a viral rap on mercury poisoning lead to justice for the victims? Understanding these approaches, the course will culminate in recommendations for social media companies and an ‘implementation plan’ for online safety of children.

Environmental justice has emerged as one of the most significant frameworks shaping contemporary environmental policy and scholarship at local, national, and international scales. Less well known is that it originated and has been led at the grassroots level with social movements making connections between racial, gender, and economic justice, political empowerment, and vastly unequal exposure to environmental harms and hazards. In short, the meanings, values, strategies, and concepts that make up the environmental justice (EJ) framework have been driven by grassroots leaders and organizations with a transformative vision. This course in environmental humanities and social sciences examines this transformative approach to EJ as it has emerged in places as diverse as rural North Carolina, urban New York, Louisiana's “Cancer Alley,” tropical forests around the world, and most recently transnational networks of grassroots leaders responding to climate change. Through interdisciplinary engagement with scholarship in environmental studies, religion, ethics, history, sociology, anthropology, and politics, as well as analysis of primary source documents, this course equips students to analyze the dynamic relationship between human cultures and environmental realities at local and global scales. In particular, it equips students to answer questions such as: To what extent has the EJ movement been shaped by religion and culture? How do transformative approaches to EJ differ from other approaches? How do diverse concepts of the sacred, nature, and justice factor into contemporary debates about environmental and climate action? What moral and political resources do EJ communities draw on to sustain their commitments? What commitments inform students’ personal approach to EJ issues?

What does pursuing justice look like in the real world? What does it take to sustain a commitment to pursuing justice amid everyday challenges, opposition, and different visions of the good? How does a commitment to the common good differ across a range of professions, careers, and vocations? How can research contribute to the common good? This interdisciplinary course equips students to answer these questions about the practice of pursuing justice and the common good through engagement with the fields of ethics, theology, history, politics, science studies, anthropology, sociology, literature, and the arts. Whereas Just Life, the prerequisite for this course, focused on exploring what it means to live an ethical life of meaning and purpose, this course explores what it takes to live an ethical life across a range of professions and vocations, including students’ current roles as students and McNeill fellows. Through readings, lectures, discussions, exercises, engagement with exemplars, and writing assignments, students grapple with discerning opportunities for meaningful action within the context of real world constraints and the challenges of working with others to discover and pursue shared goods. By the end of the course, students will produce a plan for their summer work that integrates their learning in the course. Students must be part of the Institute for Social Concerns McNeill Justice Fellows program to take this course.

This one credit course aims to develop a shared understanding of advocacy and the common good, and to cultivate skills to help strengthen students' advocacy planning and action in pursuit of social justice. This course is designed to train students in effective advocacy techniques to competently present matters to policy makers and work within the legislative process. The course is divided into 3 phases: research, messaging, and meeting with a decision maker. Students will learn through conducting research actions, writing op-eds, mapping power, and role-playing. Students will work in groups to research legislation, present initiatives to policy makers, and influence the process. (Please Note: This course has extra required meeting times and/or events outside of the displayed meeting schedule.)

This course is designed to introduce students to the cultural and social issues of the Appalachian region - its history, people, culture, challenges, and strengths - through study and experiential learning. The course also provides engagement with the people of Appalachia through a required immersion over Break. The Appalachia Seminar utilizes a Catholic Social Tradition (CST) framework to build skills around social analysis, critical thinking, and theological reflection. Students examine the relationship between solidarity and service and consider how the Common Good is expressed in local communities across the region. This course has a fee.

The Catholic Social Tradition invites persons of good will to pursue a health care system that raises the dignity of each person. This course examines and assesses our current and evolving healthcare system, explores the possibilities and direction of the future of U.S. healthcare, and investigates how modifications might move us toward a society that reflects care for the common good. Students will travel to Washington, D.C., during break to spend time with policy makers, health care advocacy groups, medical professionals, and researchers.

This one-credit, interdisciplinary course is an exploration of the question: What is the relationship between healthy, sustainable communities and the principle of the Common Good? Beginning with an introduction to basic principles of environmental justice, students will explore how the equitable and culturally appropriate distribution of environmental benefits and burdens serves the aim of community health and the common good. Reflective conversations and community visits will shape how students engage questions about the links between health disparities and disproportionate exposure to environmental pollution. Students will leave this course with a foundation of knowledge to address issues at the intersection of health, poverty, sustainability, and justice.

This course provides undergraduate students an opportunity to reflect on their undergraduate education and to explore their respective vocations as it relates to the common good. Whether considering a change in major, deciding on postgraduate plans, navigating a relationship, or seeking greater intentionality in daily life, students in this class will accompany each other as they consider their vocation, learn different methods of discernment, and develop practices to listen and respond to these callings. Content will include Catholic Social Teaching, cultural critique, narrative theology, spiritual practices, and the arts. Must be a sophomore, junior or senior to take this course.

This course will take place in a local neighborhood and students will learn fundamental concepts and skills of community organizing alongside residents of South Bend. Together, neighbors and students will learn the art of organizing through relational meetings, house meetings, power-mapping, and research actions. The culmination of the course will include participation in a public action with local officials addressing a pressing issue in our community. Through a series of trainings and hands-on application, students will build public relationships, amplify their voices, cultivate power and leverage it for justice.

Throughout this course, students will examine the social and cultural aspects of sport through an exploration of the unique ways that race and identity influence sport participation, access and engagement. This course will engage topics such as: Sport and Identity; Identity, "Success" and resilience; Media Imagery, Identity and Power; and, Race in American Sport.

What does it mean for an individual and a society to be free, and what does this freedom require? We will explore these fundamental questions of human existence through literature that portrays imprisonment and liberation. This course follows the Inside-Out model of prison exchange now well established across the United States. It provides an opportunity for "inside students" (at the Westville Correctional Facility) and "outside students" (from Notre Dame) to learn with and from each other and to break new ground together. Notre Dame students travel to Westville each week of the semester for dialogue with students at the facility, who have read the same relevant texts. Works include fiction and nonfiction, and the chains we encounter will be both figurative and literal. Of special focus will be the relationship between the individual and society, as students will reflect on their personal narratives within their respective communities and the broader social structures that bind us all. We will identify chains that hinder our freedom and chains that link us together as we seek to liberate ourselves and our communities. An application/interview is required for this course.

This course introduces some of the issues behind calls to reform the US criminal legal system, including mass incarceration and supervision, racial disproportionality, and the challenges of "reentry." But the heart of the course is our exploration of deeper concerns, including why our criminal legal system relies on punishment, how we might cultivate other forms of justice, and what responsibility we have for the systems that operate in our names. As part of the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, the course involves inside students (people incarcerated at the Westville Correctional Facility in Westville, IN) and outside students (people enrolled at Notre Dame, St. Marys, or Holy Cross) learning with and from one another and breaking new ground together. Most weeks of the semester, outside students will travel to Westville for class sessions with the inside students. All students are responsible for the same reading and writing assignments, and participate together in class activities and discussions. Together, we will examine myths and realities related to crime and to punishment, explore the effects of current criminal legal policies, and develop ideas for responding more effectively to harm and violence in our communities.

This zero-credit course is for students who have passed the Social Concerns Summer Fellowship course in the spring and who will participate in robust community-based work and research for 8 consecutive weeks in the summer. It is offered through the Institute for Social Concerns and invites students into a transformative intersection of academic research and community-engaged work. Participants will explore their vocational aspirations while analyzing the systemic drivers of injustice through immersive on-site experiences. Integrating scholarly inquiry with daily engagement, students will collaborate with community partners to conduct research that promotes the common good.

In South Bend Stories you will produce reported narratives across a variety of nonfiction genres, including prose writing and documentary filmmaking. This course draws its inspiration and subject matter from the city of South Bend and the greater Michiana region, as you will work with classmates and community partners to tell stories of local interest and significance. Topics may include close-up looks at a wide range of ideas—family, sport, education, history, etc.—but the ultimate goal is to describe real-world truth at the “felt-life level,” revealing something of what it means to be alive in this particular time and place. We wish to highlight the daily lives, cultural events, natural and built spaces, and social issues of South Bend. Projects are collaborative, with students working in teams. With guidance, you will look for stories, request access and permission to tell those stories, and gather material en route to crafting meaningful narratives. Each group will produce several different stories, though subjects and forms will often converse with one another. For instance, storytelling teams may create short documentaries, works of prose journalism, photo essays, audio narratives, creative nonfiction essays, or more avant-garde documentary projects, etc. We will interrogate the boundaries between subgenres of the factual artforms. Students will decide which types of stories they will produce. Telling others’ stories is a profoundly ethical act. It is also a creative process that allows us to grow as individuals and as a community. This challenging process demands your respect and your time as a media-maker. The class will regularly engage in discussions about media ethics and accountability, in the traditions of journalism and documentary filmmaking courses. You must be prepared to use resources to travel beyond campus and engage with people who are not students and may not be affiliated with the university. Additionally, you must act ethically as a storyteller and collaborator. Further, you must solve a range of challenges—conceptual, logistical, and narratological—while being prepared to spend time with your subjects outside of class time and often according to others’ schedules.

The end is nigh! Who will save us from Apple or the AI replicants or the alien invasion? If you take this class, it might just be you. Do you think you have what it takes to confront the digital leviathan with its insatiable hunger for human data? If so, you will need cutting edge survival skills and friends you can trust. This course offers both in the form of radical ideas, acts of digital rebellion and real offline friendships that cannot be reduced to a group text. It also helps to know that we’ve been here before. With each new advance in human communication technology, the cultural DNA mutates and spawns new forms of art, belief, political discourse and economic power. Understanding this process is the key to surviving the upheaval. In this course, we are not optimistic or pessimistic about technology, only apocalyptic. What is being revealed and what will be required to preserve our humanity?

What does it mean to become a good financial analyst, engineer, or physician in the face of wicked problems? Wicked problems are complex, intertwined, and significant social, environmental, and organizational issues that constrain and corrupt the common good, and as such, they demand nonlinear and holistic understandings of the contexts, consequences, and persons who strive for just solutions. Drawing on the wicked problems approach, this one-credit seminar brings together seniors from across the pre-professional spaces of Architecture, Business, Engineering, and Science to discuss why character matters for professions and how professionals can draw on their character to address today’s most pressing wicked problems.

This course will be set up on an individual basis and allows students to pursue individual interests in topics taught by Institute for Social Concerns faculty.