Author: David Cramer

By creating these spaces of encounter, the Institute for Social Concerns bridges the gap between campus and community, transforming theological principles into a shared power for local change.

The Institute for Social Concerns leverages research to respond to the complex demands of justice and to serve the common good. This series, ReSearching for the Common Good, highlights some of the scholars in our community.

Ayana Mathis described her newfound understanding of hope as a vision of the imaginative possibilities of the now that does not promise to remove all doubts, fears, and vulnerabilities. Instead, these are part of “the web of uncertainties that make real hope possible.” In place of optimism about a certain future, “we are better served,” Mathis stated, “by the precarities of the now.”

Out of their overlapping commitments, Suzanne Shanahan, the Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director of the Institute for Social Concerns, joined forces with Andy
Hoffman to bring the vision of management as a calling to life as a faculty workshop hosted at Notre Dame.

The McNeill Winter Plunge, a one-credit course offered by the Institute for Social Concerns, serves as a purposeful bridge between the classroom and the world’s most pressing needs. Inspired by the legacy of the institute’s founder, Rev. Don McNeill, CSC, the course is a carefully designed curriculum of proximity, accompaniment, and inspiration.

Fr. Boyle gave Ozonze complete access to Homeboy Industries in East Los Angeles. Throughout November 2025, Ozonze lived in the local Jesuit community, worked alongside the “homies,” and interviewed those willing to share their story. He paid close attention to the daily rituals, particularly the “morning meeting.”

On Friday afternoon of Walk the Walk Week, the Institute for Social Concerns hosted a reentry simulation in Remick Commons. This immersive experience—centered on a deep collaboration with community partners—was designed to mirror the first four weeks of life after returning from incarceration. Students from across the University gathered for the two-and-a-half-hour event, where the game-like elements of a simulation quickly gave way to high stakes and mounting frustration.

The Institute for Social Concerns leverages research to respond to the complex demands of justice and to serve the common good. This series, ReSearching for the Common Good, highlights some of the scholars in our community.

Through its Justice & Society Minor, the institute calls students who refuse to simply study the world as it is. Students who instead desire to be the spark for change. 

The Institute for Social Concerns leverages research to respond to the complex demands of justice and to serve the common good. This series, ReSearching for the Common Good, highlights some of the scholars in our community.