Perspectives: Jay Brandenberger ’78 | Institute for Social Concerns

YEAR IN REVIEW

PERSPECTIVES

Jay Brandenberger ’78

PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE
DIRECTOR FOR ASSESSMENT AND ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP

The Institute for Social Concerns is a home for justice research and education for scholars at any stage of their academic career, from undergraduate students to seasoned professors.

Jenifer Solano Becerra is a junior at Notre Dame, majoring in neuroscience and behavior with a minor in chemistry. Amandhi Mathews is a Ph.D. candidate in the Cody Smith Laboratory, studying neurodevelopment. Suzanne Mulligan joined the Institute last fall as professor of the practice and co-director of the Catholic social tradition minor. Jay Brandenberger ‘78 will retire this December after 36 years as professor of the practice and, most recently, director for assessment and engaged scholarship and director of academic community engagement at the Institute. Each reflects on how the Institute has played a crucial role in their scholarship and pursuit of justice and the common good.

What is the purpose of a university? What would a flourishing university look like?

These are questions I’ve explored in my journey at the Institute for Social Concerns. Universities help us understand the world, an essential function and no small challenge. But to flourish, a university, like a person, needs an integrated social purpose. Founder Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., was resolute: Notre Dame du Lac “will be one of the most powerful means for doing good in this country,” and such purpose resounds to this day, even globally. I am pleased to have been a small part of such work.

“I arise in the morning,” noted E. B. White, “torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” I know such tension but found a way to overcome it— finding challenging work that I love. In 1991, a friend shared a description of a faculty position open at the Institute. “This sounds like you,” she said. Ever since, I have helped to extend learning from the classroom to the margins. Being proximate—rather than isolated in the ivory tower— provides a lens to clarify our vision.

The University mission statement calls us to “create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.” The Institute helped to operationalize such an ideal, and over the years I have built courses taking students to the Civil Rights Heritage Center in South Bend; to Washington, DC, for interviews with policy makers; to Florida to pick oranges alongside migrant workers; and to Appalachia, Haiti, El Salvador, and more. Students always ask great questions, and they often return with new worldviews and issues to explore in their classes and disciplines. They have responded with ethical sensitivity and moral imagination, and it’s a joy to feel their energy and hear of their good work years later.

Such learning is one element of engaged scholarship, which has become increasingly salient across universities worldwide. Another component is engaged forms of research. My scholarship, building on my concurrent appointment in the Department of Psychology, has focused on the impacts of engaged learning on student and community development over time. In one longitudinal study covering 17 years (it pays to stay around!), colleagues and I showed that social action and engagement during college is a strong predictor of adult generativity and integrity (elements of flourishing). I co-led a national study of how individuals understand and apply Catholic social teaching principles. I helped guide the work of the University’s interdisciplinary Community Engagement Coordinating Council and of late have worked with an international effort—Uniservitate—to enhance engaged scholarship at Catholic colleges and universities. Recently I’ve begun a series of oral histories (to be housed at the Notre Dame Archives) interviewing students, community partners, and alumni who have lived lives of moral commitment.

It has been an honor and a blessing to join in such work. Throughout, I have been buoyed by excellent colleagues of good will and skill. While I have many boxes of Institute history, teaching materials, and research data to go through, I look forward to continuing work as an emeritus faculty member, including engagement in restorative justice efforts locally. Not to mention more tennis and woodworking.