Category: News

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.

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.

Named for the late Rev. Don McNeill, C.S.C.—the founding director of the Institute for Social Concerns—the program is designed as an interruption to a student’s undergraduate trajectory, making them briefly but acutely aware of the challenges faced by unhoused people.

While one cohort navigated the Sonoran Desert, other Proximities students pursued parallel examinations of structures of justice and injustice across the country: examining healthcare access in Minneapolis, analyzing environmental health and industrial policy in New Orleans, and exploring restorative justice and the use of arts to promote dignity in Philadelphia. Grounded in the conviction that understanding injustice requires getting proximate to those most affected by it, the seminars bridge interdisciplinary inquiry with immersive witness.

Through the Enacting Catholic Social Tradition series, the tradition is being brought to bear on issues of technology design, environmental degradation, the contemporary housing crises, financial decision making, and community organizing. A joint publishing project between the Institute for Social Concerns and Liturgical Press, the series has tackled these issues with volumes that are accessible to practitioners while also extending scholarship.