Home > Academic Courses and Programs > Spring Seminars
Experiential Learning Seminars with an immersion between Friday, March 9 and Saturday, March 17, 2102
(dates vary depending on the seminar).
Social Concerns Seminars are one-credit experiential and service-learning opportunities built around national and international immersion experiences. Students examine social issues from multiple perspectives, read relevant texts, study the Catholic social tradition and take an active role in building a learning community.
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Spring seminar locations |
Applications are now closed.
Placements will be published at https://www.nd.edu/~csc/application/documents/CSC_Seminars_SP12.pdf .
You will be notified by email when placements have been uploaded.
The goal of the Appalachia Seminar is to introduce students to the culture and social issues of the Appalachia region through community-based learning. The course provides the opportunity for active participation in the community and direct relationship with Appalachian people. Exploration begins in the orientation classes where students become acquainted with the history, culture, and challenges facing the region.
In the United States alone, over 25 million people are affected with mental illness. Countless family members, friends and mental health professionals struggle to understand and help those diagnosed with these confusing and often debilitating diseases. Unless we know someone or struggle with similar issues ourselves, the majority of the rest of us know virtually nothing about the confusing ‘world’ of mental illness. This seminar gives students the opportunity to learn about mental illness from the personal perspective of those most directly impacted by it; those living with it, family members, and health care providers. The goals of this seminar are to help students become more knowledgeable about these diseases and their early warning signs and to develop compassion for those who suffer from them.
L'Arche communities were created by Jean Vanier (winner of the Notre Dame Award for international humanitarian service) to provide places where persons with disabilities and people without disabilities can live and work together in the spirit of the beatitudes. In the process, the unique value and vocation of each person is affirmed. Students will stay in Toronoto and Washington D.C. residential home to worship, serve, and learn from the current L’Arche community residents.
The goal of the Migrant Experiences Seminar is to introduce students to the cultural and social issues surrounding migrant farm labor through experiential learning. Such learning creates a strong foundation of knowledge through direct participation, allowing the development of relationships capable of revealing the diversity, culture, and life challenges of migrant farm workers. Exploration into the plight of migrant farm workers begins in the mandatory preparatory class sessions involving presentations, discussions, videos, and selected readings. The Seminar centers on a week-long trip to Immokalee, Florida during the semester break.
(formerly known as the Children and Poverty Seminar;
previous Children and Poverty participants would be repeating the course)
The goal of the Youth, Risk, and Resilience Seminar is to educate participants on issues affecting low-income, urban youth living in at-risk environments in America. Topics will include violence, healthcare, education, welfare, homelessness, food insecurity and mental health, and means to promote resilience. Students will begin exploration during orientation sessions, which will examine the current state of youth living in at-risk environments, as well as available resources and developmental support, both public and private. Follow-up class meetings will complete the learning cycle.
This seminar will serve to prepare spring 2012 seminar leaders for immersion experiences over spring jbreak. The seminar aims to improve overall leadership skills, facilitate communal learning across seminars, and uniformly prepare leaders for the specific aspects of Center seminars. The course will consist of approximately 4-6 classes around a particular leadership theme led by a variety of Center staff and faculty. The format for the class will be a 30-minute training session followed by small group discussion. The Experiential Learning Council sponsors the seminar and curriculum will be co-coordinated by student leaders. This seminar will culminate in leading a 2012 immersion seminar. Departmental approval required.
As American citizens have begun calling for changes to our deteriorating health care system, politicians have responded by making health care reform a major issue in the upcoming elections. As voters, we have a responsibility to evaluate our current system as well as the various proposals to reform it. Furthermore, the Catholic Social Tradition invites persons of good will to pursue a health care system that raises the dignity of each person. This seminar invites you to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of our health care system, explore the possibilities for the future of American health care, and ask how modifications might help create the society we hope to become.
The Center for Social Concerns also offers a seminar that does not include traveling over winter or spring break:
Take Ten is a research-based violence prevention program and curriculum designed at the Robinson Community Learning Center. Volunteers work on a weekly basis with schoolchildren of all grades to teach them the skills needed to resolve conflict peacefully. Take Ten’s mission is to provide youth with positive alternatives to violence and build their capacity to make more informed choices when faced with conflict. Students participating in the Take Ten seminar will serve as Take Ten volunteers during the semester (February through April with training in January), being part of a team that works at a school in the area one time per week. Additionally, the readings and reflections will allow students to focus on understanding issues of youth and violence from various perspectives.
The following seminars do not include an immersion.
Available only to students studying abroad in Santiago, Chile
The Approaches to Poverty and Development Seminar in Santiago, Chile, is a multi-disciplinary course combining experiential and service learning with social analysis, theological reflection and ethical viewpoints. The seminar is taught by Professor Isabel Donoso at the Jesuit University Alberto Hurtado, which has many graduate and undergraduate academic resources in the social sciences, theology, and new forms of education.
Available to senior students only
The Discernment Seminar provides senior-level undergraduate students an opportunity to reflect on their Notre Dame experience and consider postgraduate plans with one another through small-group discussion. Each session is structured to assist the students’ exploration and articulation of their respective vocations through a variety of means, including narrative theology, spiritual direction, literature, and the arts.
The Leadership through Solidarity Seminar seeks to cultivate an understanding of leadership through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching. This seminar includes an experiential learning component as undergraduate students practice relationship building through prayer and service with the South Bend Catholic Worker community. The principles of solidarity and the common good are explored through faith sharing, service learning, and fellowship at the Worker and in the classroom.
