Together building a more just future

The Center for Social Concerns is an interdisciplinary institute responding to the complex demands of justice through a combination of justice education and research for the common good. We bring people together to think carefully about the world’s most pressing social concerns in order to develop creative and effective approaches to addressing them.

Justice Education

We cultivate moral imagination, practical wisdom, and the courage to act through a range of curricular and co-curricular programs for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.

Research for the Commond Good

We work with academics, advocates, and artists to study the world’s most pressing social concerns and develop creative and effective community-based approaches to addressing them.

Consequential Conversations

We convene critical conversations that include diverse perspectives and foster innovative approaches to questions of justice from religious freedom to gun violence to racial health inequalities.

Center stories

Center collaborates to pursue question of labor rights in Bangladesh

During fall break, the leaders of the global Catholic Social Tradition Network, SPIRE, collaborated with the conveners of the center’s Just Wage Initiative to sponsor a conference on questions of labor rights and working conditions in Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim country as well as the globe’s second largest exporter of ready-made garments.

Inaugural graduate institute considers community-engaged scholarship in South Bend, Chicago

“Unleash your imagination.” That challenge from visiting keynote speaker Dr. Timothy Eatman framed the 2022 Graduate Institute for Engaged Teaching and Research. From October 17–19, Eatman and a group of community leaders and faculty from South Bend and Chicago joined 14 graduate students to explore models of effective community-university partnerships.

Center hosts international symposium on children and integral human development

A recent symposium hosted by SPIRE gathered more than 30 researchers, non-profit practitioners, and young people for three days to explore the theory and practice of a dignity-centered approach to childhood development, safety, and protection. It decentered adult perspectives on childhood and childrens’ experience and promised further work in new directions.

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