Art & Social Change

SOCO/CST 23200 

Meets: F 1:00–3:00pm

Instructors: Mike Hebbeler and Geneva Hutchinson

Students will work with a South Bend neighborhood to explore a structural challenge and, with the guidance of a local artist, respond to this challenge alongside community members in creating an artistic piece that serves the good of the neighborhood. This seminar will also provide a “hands-on” experience as students are exposed to practices of participatory research methods and the art-making process.

Social Concerns Summer Fellowship

(Includes summer experience!)

SOCO 23202 

Meets: W 5:00–7:00pm (2/10/27–4/28/27)

Instructor: Keona Lewis

This course will prepare students for an 8-week immersive summer experience where they will work alongside a community organization. During their summer students will explore their vocational aspirations, consider the dynamics and drivers of injustice and conduct original research in collaboration with their community partners. Preparation for summer will include vocational discernment and cultivation of basic research skills. Eight weeks of summer travel is required. Application required. Eight weeks of summer travel is required. Application required. Apply online via the SOCO website.

Whole Person Healthcare

(Includes spring break experience!)

SOCO 23203 

Meets: Sat., Feb. 27, Sat., March 27, from 1:00–3:00pm, plus immersive experience March 8–12, 2027

Instructor: Ed Jurkovic

This one credit S/U course examines the U.S. healthcare’s intersections with poverty, housing, addiction, and migration. We will do so through the lens of Minnesota’s healthcare system, recently ranked as one of the best in the United States. What structures are in place that support people’s flourishing? Where are there gaps? Why? In order to bridge theory and praxis, the course will involve a 5 day immersive experience to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota over Spring Break.

Justice at the México-U.S. Border

(Includes spring break experience!)

SOCO 23204 

Meets: Sat., Feb. 27, Sat., March 27, from 1:00–3:00pm, plus immersive experience March 8–12, 2027

Instructor: Felicia Johnson O’Brien

This one credit S/U course examines why migrants leave their home countries, what they encounter at the border, responses from U.S.-based citizen and faith groups, and the effectiveness of U.S. enforcement policies. In order to bridge theory and praxis, the course will involve an immersive experience to the Tucson, Arizona borderlands area during Spring Break. While there, students will have the opportunity to observe legal proceedings, attend a humanitarian aid training, tour a Border Patrol facility, listen to stories from migrant families, visit the border wall, and participate in a humanitarian desert trip.

Arts of Dignity

(Includes spring break experience!)

SOCO 23911 

Meets: Sat., Feb. 27, Sat., March 27, from 1:00–3:00pm, plus immersive experience March 8–12, 2027

Instructor: Geneva Hutchinson

This one credit S/U course explores how the arts can be utilized as a tool to promote justice and the common good. In order to bridge bridge theory and praxis, the course will involve a 5 day immersive experience to Philadelphia, PA over Spring break to engage with community organizations and local artists who are navigating the art world through a lens of justice. While there, students will visit museums, artist studios, and local art centers all while practicing their own interpretations and appreciation of art. Class sessions before and after the trip will focus on how the arts can be utilized for justice.

Migrant Farmworker Solidarity: Coalition of Immokalee Workers

(Includes spring break experience!)

SOCO 23210 

Meets: Sat., Feb. 27, Sat., March 27, from 1:00–3:00pm, plus immersive experience March 8–12, 2027

Instructor: Mike Hebbeler

This one credit S/U course introduces students to the daily experience of migrant farm workers in the United States, and examines the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding migrant farm labor and the food supply chains in which we all participate. Students will travel to Immokalee, Fla. to learn alongside the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a worker-based human rights organization internationally recognized for its achievements in the fields of social responsibility, human trafficking, and gender-based violence at work.

Reimagining Crime and Justice

(Includes spring break experience!)

SOCO 23211 

Meets: Sat., Feb. 27, Sat., March 27, from 1:00–3:00pm, plus immersive experience March 8–12, 2027

Instructor: Samuel Sokolsky-Tifft

This one-credit S/U course examines how organizations have been practicing moral imagination in the space of mass incarceration, reimagining the support that can be provided for communities before, during, and after incarceration. In order to bridge theory and praxis, the course will involve an immersive experience to the Chicago, IL area during Spring Break. While there, students will have the opportunity to engage with grassroots activists and policy-makers across the city, participate in jail support at Cook County Jail, provide direct prisoner support through Midwest Books to Prisoners, listen to stories from formerly incarcerated community members, and engage in Restorative and Transformative Justice practices.

ND Bridge

(Includes summer experience!)

SOCO 23911 

Meets: Sat., Feb. 27, Sat., March 27, from 1:00–3:00pm, plus immersive experience March 8–12, 2027

Instructor: Ryan Juskus

What does justice look like? How are injustices created and perpetuated? What is my responsibility to promote justice and the common good? How can research contribute to these goals? In this required course for students selected to participate in the NDBridge summer program, students are equipped to answer these questions as they develop a framework for encountering people in marginalized communities and understanding the challenges these communities face. Through lectures, course materials, discussions, group projects, and brief writing assignments, the course aims to introduce students to the ethics of engagement, cultivate their moral imagination, and prepare them to carry out research for the common good.

Contemplative Leadership Practicum

SOCO 23916 

Meets: T 6:00–7:15pm

Instructor: George LaMaster

Studying the theory and practice of contemplative leadership, students reflect on their leadership experiences on and off campus. Restricted to students in the Hesburgh Scholars Program. (One enhancement/activity credit; may be repeated.) This course is restricted to students in the Corde Scholars Program.

Wickedly Good Professions: It Matters Who You Are

SOCO 43000 

Meets: TBD (the class will meet 10 times)

Instructor: TBD

What does it mean to become a good financial analyst, engineer, or physician in the face of wicked problems? Wicked problems are complex, intertwined, and significant social, environmental, and organizational issues that constrain and corrupt the common good, and as such, they demand nonlinear and holistic understandings of the contexts, consequences, and persons who strive for just solutions.

Taking Justice To The Streets: Community Engaged Research Methods for Justice

SOCO/JUS/CST 30575

Meets: M/W 3:30–4:45pm

Instructor: Kevin Hargaden

Taking Justice to the Streets: Community Engaged Research Methods for Justice introduces students to the theory and practice of justice-orientated research. This course combines fascinating theoretical approaches to research with hands-on experience. Through the semester, you will pick a real space, landmark, or community initiative here on campus or in South Bend and learn how to actually conduct community-located qualitative research.

Housing & The Common Good Research Lab

JUS/SOCO/CST 23000

Meets: T/Th 2:00–3:15pm

Instructor: Margaret Pfeil

This course will devote the first part of the semester to establishing an account of the historical roots of the current affordable/low-income housing crisis in the United States, paying particular attention to the local St. Joseph County context. It will also introduce students to the housing “continuum of care” in the City of South Bend, noting the various institutional and governmental agencies currently involved in addressing housing needs as well as the gaps in coverage, e.g., the need for a permanent low-barrier intake center and more permanent supportive housing (PSH).

Conflict Transformation

SOCO 30857

Meets: T/Th 3:30–4:45pm

Instructor: George LaMaster

Conflict produces emotional stress. Productively engaging in conflict is not about managing others or resolving problems. Instead, when we know ourselves well, we can choose to communicate in ways that build community and honor the dignity of all people. Conflict can be a gift that transforms relationships. This course explores the role of communication in managing interpersonal and organizational conflicts. Balancing theory and practice, topics addressed include power in conflict, violent language, articulating boundaries, self-differentiated leadership, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Mass Incarceration Research Lab

SOCO/JUS 33312 and SOCO 63312

Meets: M 6:00–8:30pm

Instructor: Samuel Sokolsky-Tifft

This research lab will employ an interdisciplinary approach to research on a range of issues related to mass incarceration. Collaborating with faculty, scholars, activists, practitioners, those impacted by systems of incarceration, and other classmates, students will develop, refine and implement a research project which contributes to the overall body of scholarship on incarceration. Students will be able to design projects (exploring moral, normative, or empirical dimensions of incarceration) which connect their own academic and intellectual interests to emerging research questions at the Institute for Social Concerns. This research lab is open to students in all disciplines.

Pursuing Justice & the Common Good

SOCO 33350

Meets: T 5:30–8:00pm

Instructor: Ryan Juskus

What does pursuing justice look like in the real world? What does it take to sustain a commitment to pursuing justice amid everyday challenges, opposition, and different visions of the good? How does a commitment to the common good differ across a range of professions, careers, and vocations? How can research contribute to the common good? This interdisciplinary course equips students to answer these questions about the practice of pursuing justice and the common good through engagement with the fields of ethics, theology, history, politics, science studies, anthropology, sociology, literature, and the arts.

Powerful Means Research Lab

SOCO 48002

Meets: Th 7:30–8:45pm

Instructor: Tom Purekal

The Powerful Means Research Lab is a selective, two-semester research experience for students seeking to conduct rigorous, independent research that addresses consequential social challenges and contributes to the common good. Offered through the Institute for Social Concerns, the Lab provides students with the structure, mentorship, and peer community needed to move from an important question to a meaningful research contribution. The Lab combines independent research with a small, collaborative cohort of up to six students. Students who enroll are required to take both the Fall and Spring sections of the course. Over the course of two semesters, each student will develop and complete an individual research project centered on a clearly defined social issue, opportunity, or question.

Poverty & Justice: Inside-Out

CST/JUS/SOCO 20610

Meets: F 11:00am–4:30pm (includes travel time)

Instructor: Connie Mick

Lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson says, “In too many places, the opposite of poverty is not wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice.” This course will consider this claim as we advance our understanding of how to abolish poverty in the United States. Matthew Desmond’s book Poverty, By America will provide a foundation for our discussion based on the experience in the room and additional books and readings that will challenge and expand our collective knowledge. Together, we will research programs and practices that have and have not worked to disrupt poverty, including our investment in mass incarceration. And together, we will develop our moral imagination for what could work to create a place where everyone has what they need to flourish and live a just life.

Delivering Justice: Justice & Society Minor Capstone

JUS/SOCO 48001

Meets: T/Th 2:00–3:15pm

Instructor: Connie Mick

In this collaborative workshop, you will learn the craft of public scholarship as you explore a variety of methods and venues for communicating research findings regarding community concerns. The culmination will be a portfolio of compositions (e.g., an op-ed, a policy memo, an exhibit) to showcase your justice research.

Introduction to Catholic Social Teaching

CST/SOCO/JUS 20610

Meets: M/W 11:00am–12:15pm

Instructor: Suzanne Mulligan

The primary goal of this course is to familiarize students with the tradition of Catholic social teaching with a view toward developing skills for critical reading and appropriation of these documents. We will examine papal, conciliar, and episcopal texts from Rerum novarum (1891) up to the present time, identifying operative principles, tracing central theological, ethical, and ecclesial concerns, and locating each document in its proper historical context.

Discipleship: Loving Action for Justice in the Catholic Social

CST/SOCO/JUS 20625

Meets: T/Th 9:00–10:45am

Instructor: Margaret Pfeil

Using the method of community-engaged learning, requiring 20 hours of work in the South Bend community, this course will afford students the opportunity to explore the theology and practice of the Catholic social tradition. Students will combine social analysis with theological reflection in integrating their site experiences. In conversation with primary texts of the Catholic social tradition, the course material will consider a variety of thematic issues through an ethical lens, including education, health care, restorative justice, racial justice, power relations, environmental justice, and structural violence.

Saints for Justice: Exploring How a Hunger for Holiness Feeds a Hunger for Justice

CST/SOCO/JUS 30574

Meets: M/W 2:00–3:15pm

Instructor: Kevin Hargaden

This course explores how rich interior holiness and sacramental devotion historically fuel a fascinating and creative commitment to the common good and the defense of human dignity. The course moves from early Christian ascetics to modern 20th-century martyrs, exploring how saints are more than historical figures or objects of devotion but as profound theological exemplars of grace, virtue, and truth-telling.

Catholic Social Tradition Minor Senior Capstone

CST 48001

Meets: W 5:30–8:00pm

Instructor: Suzanne Mulligan

The Capstone Course is the culmination of the Catholic Social Tradition Minor. This course draws together your understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, and aims to facilitate a piece of critical research that builds upon the learning of the Minor. Classes will combine structured reading, peer-to-peer learning via in-class presentations, and focused presentations that explore each student’s area of research.