Institute Stories

This September, the Institute hosted the first-ever Christian faith-based Integrating Virtue Together (IVT) workshop, welcoming nearly 30 faculty from 24 Christian colleges and universities across the country to the University of Notre Dame.

Commissioned by the Institute and painted by local artist and Pokagon Band citizen David Martin, the mural is the latest in a series of public artworks conceived and led by the Institute and its partners to illuminate the communities and histories that have shaped South Bend through baseball.

The Institute for Social Concerns named six University of Notre Dame students as recipients of the 2026 Research for the Common Good Award. Selected from a pool of 206 entries, the honorees conducted original research during eight-week summer immersive experiences across the globe through the Institute’s justice education programming.

This summer, the Institute for Social Concerns placed over 332 Notre Dame students with 150 partner organizations through its celebrated summer programs. Students spent the spring semester preparing for immersive summer experiences from New York to San Francisco, Belfast to Mumbai, where they would spend eight weeks conducting original research while engaging with local communities. 

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…

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…

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…

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.