The center next door

By: Mary Ellen Woods ’80

September 1, 2022

It was a fine spring day. You know the kind. The sky is the color of Notre Dame’s blue and the day so resplendent you think that everything you touch may just turn into gold. I exited Geddes Hall–by the side door for some reason–to find my home under the Dome, Breen-Phillips just across the path. And so it has been that the Institute for Social Concerns always seems to be next door–at every turn. 

One year ago, I returned to Notre Dame as a fellow in the 2021–22 Cohort of the Inspired Leadership Initiative (ILI). One of my goals for the year was to connect with the Institute for Social Concerns and to meet the new Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director, Suzanne Shanahan, Ph.D. And on this fine day, as Suzanne and I shared a wonderful conversation, my appreciation for the center deepened and it dawned on me how truly close it has been to me since its founding. 

An opportunity to align values with purpose

Truth be told, I first encountered the center in the late 1980s. I was active in the Notre Dame Club of Chicago and a request went out to alumni and friends. Students would be coming to Chicago for the summer for an immersive learning experience and some would need housing. Would anyone be interested? I was well-settled in my condo in Hyde Park, had a spare bedroom and bath, and why not, it would be fun to have a guest for a few months. Soon I met Suzy Happ, ‘88, a rising senior from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Suzy had chosen to participate in a Summer Service Project (the program’s name before it became Summer Service Learning Program in 1983) as she was looking for a way to align her values with her purpose. Suzy’s placement was at the Rogers Park Community Center–a one hour commute from my home in Hyde Park. In this case, hardly “next door.” In a recent conversation with Suzy, she reflected on the work she did coordinating activities for a summer camp for kids. As only Suzy could, she even arranged to take the kids on a canoe ride on Lake Michigan, a rather large Great Lake. She also had the unfortunate experience of being assaulted in an attempted bike theft as she rode my bike along the waterfront that summer; she instinctively hung on and yelled for help, which gratefully came. 

All these many years later, a few things stand out about that summer. First is the gift of our friendship. Married now to Chris Shine, ’85 and law, ’89 with two college age children, we remain good friends. Most importantly, Suzy describes her experience of the ups and downs of her summer service project as “having changed the course of her life.”  Suzy is a most giving person, caring for and ministering to women as they bring new life into this world. Though she and her family make their home in Portland, Oregon, our friendship makes it seem as if she were still “next door.”  My friend, the former Notre Dame science major, would soon change directions, joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps after graduation, attending nursing school, and becoming a maternity nurse, practicing both at home in Portland, Oregon as well as doing annual service trips to Guatemala.   

Integrating scholarship and service to create a more just and compassionate world

In preparing this reflection, I learned that a friend and Notre Dame classmate, Mary Meg McCarthy, ’80 was instrumental in the creation of the center and played an integral role in its being located “next door” to Breen-Phillips Hall. Mary Meg participated in various service activities while a student at Notre Dame. She, Fr. Don McNeill, C.S.C., and other staff and students decided that the Office of Volunteer Services and the Center for Experiential Learning needed to be consolidated into one center–the Institute for Social Concerns–and that the center needed to be centrally located with high visibility on campus. Mary Meg describes with well-deserved pride and joy their meeting with Fr. Hesburgh, C.S.C, then president of the University. To my friends, it was abundantly clear that we needed a Institute for Social Concerns and that the former home of WNDU television station on the southwest side of Hesburgh Library was the perfect location. Informed by his commitment to justice, Fr. Hesburgh asked his guests to present their proposal to the University Board of Trustees, which they did not long after the meeting. And so the center was born and, importantly, housed “next door,” on the site of the current Geddes Hall. I have often heard Mary Meg describe how her Notre Dame education provided her a unique and invaluable opportunity as she integrated her academic studies with experiential learning and reflection to respond to the pressing needs of our time.

As we look back now, fifty years later, it is clear that the center embodies Mary Meg’s and Fr. Don’s vision and hope and so much more. The center is the spiritual, intellectual, and experiential home for community engagement at Notre Dame. It provides students with placements throughout the United States and in more than 30 locations on three continents. The center integrates intellectual pursuits in their programming through both the Summer Service Learning Program (SSLP) and the International Summer Service Learning Program (ISSLP). At Our Lady’s University, service walks hand-in-hand with scholarship, each mutually informing and enriching the other. In Mary Meg’s words, the center integrates academic learning and spirituality with action, which was unique to higher education when it was created.

Living the work

Upon my return home to Chicago after ILI, I had the opportunity to visit with two SSLP students at their placement at Our Lady of the Angels (OLA). OLA is home to Bishop Bob Lombardo, C.F.R. ‘79 and the Franciscans of the Eucharist of Chicago. The Franciscans are a newly established religious community living and serving the poor in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood. West Humboldt Park isn’t exactly “next door” to my home, but OLA does bring Notre Dame students to my town and nearer to my friend and his life’s work. 

Bishop Bob and the religious at OLA have hosted one to three SSLP students each summer (COVID permitting) since 2007. Every year they host Mass and a barbeque for all the Chicago-based SSLP students. I joined the group at their 2022 event and had a chance to catch up with my friend, Bishop Bob (as he likes to be known) and two of the students completing their SSLP at OLA. Speaking with students gave me the opportunity to appreciate more fully the SSLP experience. These students described working at the OLA food pantry serving 300-500 families each week. Their work also included general housekeeping and sharing in the daily comings and goings of the Mission. Chosen from among a wide range of possible placements, two of these students found their time at OLA compelling if in no way glamorous. In their words, they “wanted to experience a new place and to be actively engaged in the community.” Both students spoke of the power of their faith in service. 

Bishop Bob also took some time to chronicle the history of the relationship of the Mission to the center. It began very shortly after his arrival in Chicago in 2007 and speaks to how central service is to Notre Dame and Notre Dame to Bishop Bob. Over the years, Lombardo estimates that some 40–50 SSLP students have worked and lived at OLA. Reflecting on those students and their experiences, Bishop Bob sees one central dilemma: In a country as rich as our United States, it is a mystery that so many can live in poverty and need. And that this is a new and different experience for the SSLP students as they are living it–even if it is for just two months in one summer.

My question

It is this dilemma to which I return: How can so many have so much, yet all too many, and many so close to us, have so little?  While I don’t have the answer and know that the problems strike far too close to home, I am grateful to the center and all those who work with and through it for their efforts to understand and redress inequities in our world; grateful to Mary Meg McCarthy and Fr. McNeill for daring to elevate the need for a home for experiential learning at our alma mater; grateful that the center brought Suzy to Chicago and into my life, and grateful to Bishop Bob Lombardo and Our Lady of the Angels for hosting SSLP students over the years. I can only marvel that the center has touched my life in so many ways and so powerfully over the years. Grateful always that it has ever been “next door.”