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Together building a more just future

The Center for Social Concerns is an interdisciplinary institute responding to the complex demands of justice through a combination of justice education and research for the common good. We bring people together to think carefully about the world’s most pressing social concerns in order to develop creative and effective approaches to addressing them.

Justice Education

We cultivate moral imagination, practical wisdom, and the courage to act through a range of curricular and co-curricular programs for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.

Research for the Common Good

We work with academics, advocates, and artists to study the world’s most pressing social concerns and develop creative and effective community-based approaches to addressing them.

Critical Conversations

We convene critical conversations that include diverse perspectives and foster innovative approaches to questions of justice from religious freedom to gun violence to racial health inequalities.

Center stories

Award-winning novelist Colson Whitehead to visit Notre Dame

The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner is the author of 11 novels, including “Crook Manifesto,” “Harlem Shuffle” and “The Underground Railroad.” He’ll deliver the 2023 Rev. Bernie Clark, C.S.C., Lecture on Oct. 3 in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.

Exploring big questions — from religion to justice to frisbee

Growing up, Wes Siscoe always had a lot of questions — about God, faith, morality, and the best way to store a frisbee. His career has taken him all over the world and now to Notre Dame, where he’s a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Social Concerns.

Faculty couple reflects on teaching at Westville Correctional Facility

Bill and Marie Donahue are two of the more than 40 faculty members from Notre Dame who have taught at Westville through the Moreau College Initiative, part of the ND Programs for Education in Prison housed at the Center for Social Concerns.  

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1,000

More than 1,000 students a year

550

Community partners in 36 states and 26 countries

40

Years of transformative impact

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