Author: David Cramer

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.

On September 26, a new group of nearly 20 faculty from across the University participated in the 2025 Engage South Bend tour, visiting locations in the Kennedy Park, Near West, Near Northwest, Northeast, and Southeast neighborhoods, as well as downtown South Bend. At each stop, they spoke with Notre Dame faculty or community members about ways the institute is engaging with neighborhoods.

The Postbaccalaureate Fellowship is organized around three major components. First, each fellow is developing a substantive research project related to their work. Second, they engage with institute staff in discernment work on next steps as they pursue a life committed to justice. And, finally, they work in collaboration with community members and organizations focused on returning citizens.

Maya Tello was one of six research award recipients, joined by fellow NDBridge participants and Social Concerns Summer Fellows who were among the 283 students who participated in the institute’s programs across 149 partner organizations in 36 countries last summer.

In the summer of 2024, Ty Harrington ’26—a program of liberal studies (PLS), philosophy, and theology major from Carmel, Indiana—spent eight weeks studying the intersection of Indian philosophy, spirituality, and care for the earth in Mumbai, India, through a Social Concerns Summer Fellowship at Govardhan Ecovillage (GEV). 

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.

As the international justice poetry fellow at the Institute for Social Concerns, Kyla is practicing what she learned from her grandfather as a child—using her art to create understanding and connection across differences of language, culture, and geography.

As Notre Dame’s 2,118 incoming first-year students were preparing to make the significant transition from the world they have known into the world of higher education, 63 of them prepared by exploring the complex demands of justice through the RISE program at the Institute for Social Concerns. These students were selected from a competitive pool of applicants to the program, which includes both a Hometown and a South Bend option.

In addition to Bretherton’s keynote address, the conference featured two days of panels, listening sessions, and roundtable discussions where academics and practitioners shared from their respective expertise about what everyday democracy looks like on the ground in our local communities.

Building on the institute’s deep ties to and ongoing work in the South Bend area, the Collaboratory brings together the wisdom and experience of South Bend civic leaders with the disciplinary expertise of Notre Dame faculty in order to cultivate long-term, impactful partnerships in service of justice and the common good.