Common Good Initiative Program
"The obligation to "love our neighbor" has an individual dimension, but it also requires a broader social commitment to the common good."
- Economic Justice for All, USCCB
In Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI says that "moral evaluation and scientific research must go hand in hand, and that charity must animate them in a harmonious interdisciplinary whole, marked by unity and distinction" (no. 31). To graduate students in particular, these words are a challenge to integrate the teachings and practices of charity and justice ever more fully into one's work, regardless of occupation, discipline, area of research, or ministry. The Department of Theology's Common Good Initiative Program (CGI) seeks to cultivate such a harmonization among the University of Notre Dame's graduate student population. The CGI is a chance for graduate students to reflect upon the ways in which their work advances the common good and can be an answer to Christ's call to "love our neighbor".
The CGI offers graduate students enriching and challenging opportunities to develop both research and practical leadership skills through hands-on social justice endeavors and community-based research. The CGI course is structured around the option of participating in either a week-long immersion experience or an eight-week non-profit/pastoral internship within Central and North America. In these contexts, students work with people of diverse economic and cultural backgrounds who face discrimination due to homelessness, mental illness, addiction, poverty, race and gender. These experiences are then joined with preparatory coursework and post-experience integration sessions. These sessions aim to engage our students with the fundamentals of Catholic social teaching and a multi-dimensional analysis of poverty and its redress. The heart of the CGI is to give graduate students the opportunity to bring their work and formation to the realities of poverty and to integrate this with the wisdom afforded by the Catholic social tradition.
Learning Goals of the Common Good Initiative Program
- Students will articulate and integrate Catholic social teaching more fully into their professional or ministerial framework and identity. They will learn to identify Catholic social teaching's relevant concepts in their placement communities, and will gain a deeper sense of the theological dimensions of work for justice and the common good.
- Students will gain a deeper understanding of the multi-dimensionality of poverty, will analyze root causes, and will learn to identify these factors in their placement community, as well as any other applicable social, theological, and pastoral concerns.
- Students will integrate their community-based learning experience into not only their future coursework and research, but into their very lives.
Interdisciplinary Focus
Housed in the Department of Theology, the CGI seeks to build an interdisciplinary network of graduate students from across the Notre Dame campus who are committed to the advancement of the common good, as articulated by the Catholic social tradition. We envision the diversity in our students' backgrounds and areas of expertise to be a source of mutual enrichment for all involved in this collective task. Of interest to those outside of the Department of Theology or involved in theological research, the CGI is committed to working with the learning and research goals of our potential students, so as to provide the best fit and experience. And of interest to students preparing for ecclesial ministry through the Master of Divinity program, the CGI seeks to provide formation in the practical and pastoral leadership skills necessary for effective social justice ministry. To these ends, all University of Notre Dame graduate students are both welcomed and encouraged to apply.
2009-10 Sample CGI Immersion and Internship Placements
André House: A ministry rooted in the elements of the Catholic Worker Movement and the charism of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, André House serves the homeless and poor population in downtown Phoenix.
Annunciation House: Dedicated to serving immigrants, migrant workers and low-income people of the El Paso/ Juarez border community.
Downtown Chapel: A Roman Catholic parish sponsored by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, the DTC serves people in Portland who are homeless, mentally ill and/or who struggle with addictions.
Farm of the Child: A faith-based orphanage in Trujillo, Honduras.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Office for Justice, Peace and Human Development: Coordinates policy development, advocacy and educational tools on domestic and international social justice issues.
Cost
Most participant costs (travel, modest housing, food) for students involved in immersions and/or internships are covered by the CGI Program. Students committed to an eight-week internship receive a stipend of $2,300. A small program fee is required of students who are accepted into the Common Good Initiative Program.
2012 CGI Course Information Sessions
- November 2nd and 3rd, 2011 - 209 DeBartolo Hall, 4:30 p.m.
2012 Application - Due November 28th, 2011. Available here: 2012 CGI Application.
Students interested in the CGI must complete an application, participate in an interview process, and sign a contract of agreement. For more information please contact Bob Pfunder, Program Manager of the Common Good Initiative Program at (574) 631-2575 or rpfunder@nd.edu. Applications will be provided at the November 2nd and 3rd info sessions. Starting November 2nd, they will also be made available online.
"The CGI has been a chance for me to experience the needs of those on the margins of society. It has been a chance to understand new people, new places and new ways to minister. The opportunity to minister in an impoverished community has been eye opening and challenging, but most of all a chance to grow in my understanding of what it means to serve and love the people of God".
-Megan Trout, Former MDiv Student
