Author: David Cramer

This June, the University of Notre Dame served as the epicenter for a movement committed to the holistic formation of students, as the Institute for Social Concerns hosted Virtues & Vocations’ third annual Conference on Higher Education and Human Flourishing. Drawing 140 educators from 75 institutions, the conference was both an academic gathering and a vital space for reigniting educators’ love for forming fully alive young people.

Human rights lawyer and practitioner in residence at the institute Monalisa ’18 LLM has spent her career serving minors who are victims of sexual exploitation. Now, through a partnership with Shreya Kumar, assistant teaching professor of computer science and engineering, she is utilizing digital technology to help children, parents, and teachers understand the risks of online grooming.

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.

At the ceremony, the institute celebrated nearly 90 graduates who minored in Catholic Social Tradition or Justice & Society or engaged with the institute’s undergraduate programs or courses, while sending them forth to be agents of hope in the world.

As the University of Notre Dame’s scholarly home for interdisciplinary responses to questions of justice, the Institute for Social Concerns is inspired and emboldened by Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas. The encyclical’s calls to protect human dignity, serve the common good, foster solidarity, and care for the vulnerable are bedrocks of our mission and work. It is an essential document in the face of  the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential for disruption.

Virtues & Vocations, a national forum for interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners housed at the Institute for Social Concerns, is pleased to announce that Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, will receive the 2026 Virtues & Vocations Book Award for his book The Student: A Short History, published by Yale University Press.

Delivering the annual Poverty Studies Distinguished Lecture at the Institute for Social Concerns, Rowe presented a chilling map of the “long shadow” cast by the American foster care system. Drawing on 35 years of reporting at the intersection of youth and government policy—research central to her recent book Wards of the State—Rowe described a system that often functions more as a carceral engine than a sanctuary.

The Institute for Social Concerns is launching a record-breaking cohort of summer programs. These programs remain remarkable in quality and scope.

The Institute for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame was honored to receive the Bridge Builder Award at the 39th annual community celebration and benefit dinner for Dismas House of Indiana on May 2, 2026.

As part of the NEA’s Celebrating America250 program, the Institute for Social Concerns launched the project “Cultivating Beauty through Printmaking.” The project puts the institute’s mission into practice, utilizing research and arts engagement to promote the dignity and wellbeing of populations often unseen or unheard.