Category: Story

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. 

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.

For Ryan Juskus, assistant professor of the practice at the Institute for Social Concerns, the true cost of our global energy systems is best seen not in atmospheric charts but in the mines, extraction sites, and waste pits of marginalized areas like Appalachia or the Amazon.