Category : Social Justice & Community Development

Meet Elesha West

Elesha-West-IPSBlog

Meet Elesha West, she’s a recent grad of Baylor University in Waco,Texas. During her undergraduate career she studied Medical Humanities and Religion. Over the years she has been actively involved in outreach and evangelism ministry in the capacity of running a summer outreach program for the south suburbs of Chicago for six consecutive years. She did Mission Work in Haiti, Croatia, Washington, D.C. , and Detroit and worked as Assistant Director for Chicago Urban Outreach.

Elesha is currently a first semester grad student in the dual Master of Divinity/ Master of Pastoral Counseling Programs.

I am so excited to start this new journey with the Loyola community. While in undergrad I was enrolled Church History and Old Testament. So, I have some knowledge of the history and the Bible, but I am eager to learn more on a greater level.

What do you do outside of class?

I love traveling, going to plays and culture events, and anything to do with water (I love the beach!).

Any spots on campus or in Chicago that you like the most? 

If I had to pick a spot in Chicago I like the most is anywhere sitting in front of the lakefront. Often times I will go up north and sit by the water for hours. 

A favorite book, or one that impacted you and why? 

The Healers Calling- Daniel Sulmasy- focuses on professionals administering healthcare from a holistic perspective . I enjoy topics such as health care from a Christian perspective, end of life care, suffering, and medical ethics.

Any advice you would give students about how to get the most out of their education? 

Ask a lot of questions and submit yourself to someone bigger and better to you! Learn from those who are doing what you would like to do.

What do you do outside of school?

I currently work part-time at Arrupe College of Loyola University and Cornerstone Christian Center.

What is your favorite quote? 

Proverbs 31: 17-18 – She equips herself with strength [spiritual, mental, and physical fitness for her God-given task] And makes her arms strong.18  She sees that her gain is good; Her lamp does not go out, but it burns continually through the night [she is prepared for whatever lies ahead].

What are your plans for after graduation?

When my program is over, I aspire to open up my own counseling practice focusing on family counseling and adolescents. My desire is to see other young people lay their life down for the church, unashamed, unhindered, and free to do what God has called them to do. Also, to be on pastoral staff at a local church as an evangelism/teaching pastor.


Meet Grace Girardot

Grace Girardot is a current student in the MA in Social Justice program. When she is not busy working in Water Tower Campus Ministry as a Grad Assistant or doing her school work, you can find her doing yoga, cooking, being outside, attempting to play piano or guitar, knitting and trolling used book and record stores for hidden treasures. To learn more about Grace and her experience as a student, please continue to read below.

What is a little of your background?

I am a Chicago area native, hailing from the western suburbs. When I was 18, I was transplanted to South Bend, IN, where I attended the University of Notre Dame for my undergraduate years. Although I am a die-hard Fighting Irish fan, I got a lot more out my time in South Bend than simply the football seasons. I studied Spanish, Latino Studies and Poverty Studies. During this time I developed a deep love of Latin American Literature and music, which forced me to examine themes of marginality and otherness. Through service learning experiences abroad as well as in South Bend, I was able to deepen my interest in these topics, which has eventually led me to pursue the MA in Social Justice at IPS.

Why Loyola?

I chose to pursue the MA in Social Justice at Loyola due to the unique emphasis on faith as being the foundation upon which we understand the work of social justice. As an undergraduate leading service learning immersion seminars, I had relied on the tools and language that Catholic social teaching provided to help students (and myself) name the sensations that we were experiencing. Just as on an airplane you must secure your own oxygen mask before helping those around you, I wanted to continue to build up my own lens of CST, so that I would better be able to help others to identify their experiences through that same lens.

What have you learned by studying at IPS?

By studying at IPS, I have learned how to reimagine the world. I continue to learn about the complexity of the interconnectedness of our relationships with our environment, others, God and ourselves, and how these complexities relate to certain themes and events that we experience in the world today.

What is your favourite quote?

I am torn between two. Both are relatively short.
“Thou mayest.” –John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“The strength of a tree lies in its ability to bend.” –Zen Proverb

Tell us one fun fact about you.

I know how to hula dance.

What is the best compliment that someone has given you?

I think the best compliment that someone has given me is not necessarily something they have stated verbally but through their actions. I feel most humbled and flattered when friends, students, or family members show their trust in me by asking for help, advice, or coming to me to chat about their innermost ponderings.


IPS Students Uniting Against Lead Epidemic

IPS students are uniting to create change for a health issue that is affecting millions of families and children across the country and they are asking you to support the mission too. Among them is Emily Benfer (IPS social justice certificate student, clinical professor of law, and the director of the Health Justice Project) who wrote a piece about this issue that was recently published in the New York Times. In addition, there is Alicia Crosby (MASJ ’16) who recently drafted an email, making the points below.

Children across the country are developing lead poisoning and suffering from the devastating and permanent harm it causes. Over 1.6 million families with children in federally assisted housing across America are at risk of exposure to lead hazards because outdated federal policies, in place since the 1990’s, fail to protect them. It’s clear that we must call this crisis what it is – a lead epidemic. The lead present in these homes, as well as in pipes and soil, creates environments in which Black children are nearly 3x more likely than their white peers to have elevated blood lead levels. The crises we see in Flint, Michigan as well as those emerging in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other locales are just the tip of the iceberg. Join the Health Justice Project at Loyola University Chicago and the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law as they work to elevate public awareness and mobilize communities to take action to alleviate this epidemic’s irreversible effects.

Credit: Dylan Petrohilos
Photo credit: Dylan Petrohilos

You can help end the lead epidemic and protect our children’s futures. There are a number of ways you can connect to this movement for change.

Inform yourself and others on the root causes of and solutions to the lead epidemic by reading and sharing these articles:

Sign the petitions! The Health Justice Project is working with ColorofChange.org and Groundswell to raise public consciousness about this and encourage civic engagement.

Contact your Congresspeople and remind them of their duty to protect children from harm and to end the lead epidemic! Millions of children have endured irreparable brain damage as a result of lead poisoning. We need to say to Congress “No more; not one more child!” The Lead-Safe Housing for Kids Act of 2016 (HR4694/S2631) will make critical changes to federal policy and better prevent lead poisoning. Encourage your elected officials to join Sen. Durbin (D-IL), Sen. Menendez (D-NJ), Rep. Quigley (D-IL), Rep. Ellison (D-MN), and the growing number of Congressional leaders who support the end of the lead epidemic.

Get your community involved! Your organization or congregation can endorse the effort to end lead poisoning in federally assisted housing. Join the Health Justice Project and the 30+ groups who have committed to supporting the push for lead safe housing.

Join in for digital action during key points in the campaign! Email healthjustice@luc.edu if you want to participate in social media storms making policymakers as well as civic and faith leaders aware of the need for lead safe housing and other measures to address this lead crisis affecting so many. Feel free to join in at any time or to tweet at/tag people when using the following hashtags: #LeadEpidemic #PoisonInOurWalls #LeadSafeHousing.

Get updates via social media! This movement can be followed on Twitter (@LeadSafeHousing & @e_catalyst) and at this Facebook page.

By drawing attention to this issue, the Health Justice Project hopes to inspire people to pursue justice within their own communities so that our most vulnerable, our children, can live healthy lives and reach their fullest potentials. No family should have to choose between having a home or protecting a child’s health.


***Join the conversation by following @BrianSchmisek on Twitter and @LoyolaIPS on Instagram! Also, network with the Loyola Chicago IPS community on LinkedIn.


Teaching and Learning: Field Education and the Business of Curiosity

This semester in the IPS Foundations of Social Justice course, students began the semester by thinking about what it means to teach and learn. They were challenged to not only think of themselves as students or learners, but also as teachers who will share the knowledge they learn as they practice social justice in their communities. This week we’re featuring some of their reflections on teaching and learning at IPS.

As part of the Masters of Divinity program, students participate in a Field Education experience. This experience is comprised of a yearlong internship and weekly group gatherings in which members of the group present case studies that are then discussed by the whole group. It is within this context that I experienced education as a transformational, liberating, empowering, communal, engaging, and curiosity-filled process. It is also within this context that I experienced teachers as learners and learners as teachers. The leadership roles were fluid and the group engaged in a common purpose that moved and motivated our reflection. This common purpose was one of awareness, understanding, learning, and growing.

bell hooks (1994) in her book, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom writes so much of education as a practice and process that frees, liberates, empowers, excites/enthuses, and engages.

hooks writes of education as a communal effort when writing, “As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interests in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence” (p 8). In reflection, the field education group was not trying to transfer knowledge. Rather, they were walking with me, in community, to help me see and discover those things that were otherwise hidden to me. The communal activity of sharing and engaging story helped me to work through my own story, be present with it, engage it, look at its various dimensions, interact with it, allow it to speak to me and me to it, and then work towards some sort of resolution.

When preparing a case study, we were asked to look for moments in our experience of ministry that challenged us, made us uncomfortable, brought us joy, and, essentially, left us thinking, “What the heck is this all about?”

The case studies began with experience and curiosity. I had many, many cases that brought me right up against fear, uncertainty, and confusion. Often my identity as a person and as a minister was brought under the microscope and, always, I was being asked to take a critical look at myself.

Paulo Freire (1998) beautifully writes about curiosity in his book, Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage, saying,

“Curiosity as restless questioning, as movement toward the revelation of something hidden, as question verbalized or not, as a search for clarity, as moment of attention, suggestion, and vigilance, constitutes an integral part of the phenomenon of being alive. There could be no creativity without curiosity that moves us and set us patiently impatient before a world that we did not make, to add to it something of our making” (p 37-38).

This beautifully written statement was true of my experience of field education. The curiosity embedded in the very process of the work of field education, of critically examining cases in ministry, led to a sense of wonder and awe that resulted from the sharing of story and communal learning that took place. The type of questioning the took place “forced” us, in a way, to be very honest with ourselves and with one another as we, together, searched for the hidden treasures, questioned, and noticed the movements at play.

More than anything, though, this process gave my classmates and me a passion for curiosity. To be curious is to know, and to have a passion for knowing, that the world is full of things yet to be seen, grasped, explored, learned, and understood. As Freire suggests, this process is never quite done.

Thank goodness for that, too! The business of curiosity is the business of passion. It is what moves and motivates, it is what yearns, it is what makes us alive, and it is what grants us the hope that anything is possible.


Abby Gapinski is a Master of Divinity student in her third year of the program. She currently works at St. Gertrude parish as a youth minister.

 


Teaching and Learning: “I’m an Over-Achieving Perfectionist”

This semester in the IPS Foundations of Social Justice course, students began the semester by thinking about what it means to teach and learn. They were challenged to not only think of themselves as students or learners, but also as teachers who will share the knowledge they learn as they practice social justice in their communities. This week we’re featuring some of their reflections on teaching and learning at IPS.

I cannot believe that I am starting this blog post with a confession, but here goes nothing. I’m an over-achieving perfectionist.  Why would I start with such a confession?  Well, after reading the progressive works of Pablo Freire, Sarah Amsler, bell hooks and Sharon Welch, I realized that while perfectionism could be sometimes seen as such a desirable character trait in academic settings, and in fact it has pushed me in many ways, it has actually been my greatest stumbling block.

In my high school classes and my early years of undergraduate work, I saw the classroom as yet another way to prove, mostly to my insecure self, that I was excellent, hard-working, and, if I applied myself enough, maybe even close to perfect.  With this mindset, though, I also thought I would eventually learn something along the way, but the goal of learning never took precedent over the most important goal: the good grade.  If I got a good enough grade, then that meant I must have learned something, right?  After reading Freire, I realized that, pushed by my perfectionistic tendencies, I lived within, what he calls, the “banking system” of education but had no personal stake or interest in actually being “engaged in a continuous transform,” which Freire claims is “true learning” (33).  Who knew that my own fear of failure had kept me from transformation?

Just like for hooks, who speaks of educators in her early educational life that “were on a mission” and impacted how she thought about learning, I feel like I had such encounter once I attended Georgetown.  Andria Wisler, my sophomore year Justice and Peace Studies professor, revolutionized my previously held thoughts and feelings toward the goals of a formal education.  Operating from a largely Freirian, non-violent educational pedagogy, Andria forced me to fail and be uncomfortable, which was all I needed to actually begin to learn.   Hooks claims, “any radical pedagogy must insist that everyone’s presence is acknowledged.”  Andria firmly practiced such pedagogy, to my own dismay.  My perfectionism, up until this point in the classroom, expressed itself as hiding, keeping my head down, and memorizing in order to regurgitate exactly what the professor emptied into my consciousness, because in previous classes that would give me the best grade.  I would never want to participate out of fear that what I had to say would not sound enlightened or would basically be wrong.  Well, Andria decided to do things differently.  She created a classroom environment in which everyone’s voices were expected to be heard and valued.  Essentially, this course began as my worst nightmare but ended as the mark of my first real educational experience.

I did not have to know the ‘right’ answer or any answer at all to have my voice heard.  The classroom became a place for me that was defined by failing, or what I began to understand as experimenting, more than it was about achieving unattainable perfection.  I fully understand Freire’s claim that “the necessary requirements for correct thinking is a capacity for not being overly convinced of one’s own certitudes.”  Through this conversion and transformation process within my education, I now understand the need for people that want to be involved in communal or society change to be open to failing and changing within their own lives.  My short time within the MA in Social Justice and Community Development program at Loyola University of Chicago has continued this educational transformation and reinforced my beliefs that hands-on experience and the willingness to fail are the marks of a genuine and committed learner. Welch concludes her first chapter in After the Empire with a quote that speaks to the importance in life and in social justice work of recognizing our own and others’ capacities for being wrong, which I will try to remember during any experience or even the courses I take at Loyola.  Welch writes, “I and every person, movement, group and institution that I trust can be deeply, profoundly, tragically wrong.” Through accepting that notion, I am able to think critically and deeply allowing the information I encounter to transform me personally.  Freire would probably say that I have finally begun to really learn.


Mackensey Carter is a first year dual degree (MSW/ MASJCD) student at Loyola University Chicago. After completing her BA in Theology at Georgetown University, she moved to Chicago to participate in a year of post-grad service through a faith-based program called Amate House.  During this year, she worked at parish’s after school program for middle school and high school students in the Mckinley Park neighborhood. She hopes to work specifically with social justice issues relating to racial reconciliation and the prevention of youth violence in the city of Chicago.


Teaching and Learning: Discussing Poetry at the Crack of Dawn

This semester in the IPS Foundations of Social Justice course, students began the semester by thinking about what it means to teach and learn. They were challenged to not only think of themselves as students or learners, but also as teachers who will share the knowledge they learn as they practice social justice in their communities. This week we’re featuring some of their reflections on teaching and learning at IPS.

It was a typical Tuesday morning. My 20 teammates and I had awoken before the sun and stumbled our way over to the weight room, using our cold breath as a guide. Many of us had been up late the night before (reading, writing papers, catching up with friends and family). As a result, when we spotted each other during bench presses, it wasn’t uncommon to see “crusties“ in each other’s eyes, or toothpaste smudged across our chins from a quick morning brush.

Most mornings I could go back to my room after these crack of dawn workouts. Change my clothes, wash my face, and give my teeth a proper brushing – maybe even fit in a solid 30-minute mid-morning nap before enjoying a buffet breakfast in the Wege cafeteria.

Not on Tuesdays, however: there was something better in store.

Tuesdays were a rush. Just as the sun started to rise, I would power walk out of the weight room to the main Academic Building. My peers (much like myself a couple hours earlier) would be groggily climbing the stairs to the ivy covered building, wondering, begrudgingly, why on earth they signed up for an 8am class.

My clothes still sweaty and hair damp, tightly twisted into a bun on top of my head, I made my way up to our second floor classroom. The chairs were arranged in a circle. Sometimes it was hard to find an opening and we acrobatically threw our book bags into the middle and jumped our way into a seat. There was no teacher desk – it was not needed. The professor, Dr. Jennifer Dawson, joined right in.

Before reading Friere, Amsler, and Welch, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I’d been blessed from kindergarten through undergraduate studies with passionate teachers. Educators who were experts in their fields, whether it be teaching multiplication tables or dissecting “The Wasteland.” Many seemed to genuinely love their jobs, and equally so, were invested in educating their students. There was something about Dr. Dawson, however, that made her stand out from the rest. In Friere’s words, she lived out his belief that, “Whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning.” Her mind was brilliant, but so was her heart. Because of this, she had the ability to educate my mind as a teacher, and educated my heart in her ability to be a student.

Dr. Dawson’s class was a seminar on Margaret Atwood. I had previously read only some of Atwood’s poetry, and I came into the class with no real expectations.

Each week became a spiritual experience. We came into class, formed our circle, and with an opening sentence, “So what did you guys think?” our class would begin. When I or a classmate shared a comment, Dr. Dawson would look them intensely in the eye. Not the eye of an examining authority, but the eyes like that of a mother. One who has absolutely every intention on hearing what you have to say. If your comments offered a genuine insight that clearly reflected your time and effort spent digging into the words, it wasn’t uncommon for Dr. Dawson to respond, “Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!”

She allowed her emotions to shine through. She told us sections of books that always made her cry. Themes that left her up at night, worrying about the future of her children. Certain quotations and threaded motifs that identified what she considered the mark of a genius writer. She shared her intellectual mastery, but also her intimate vulnerability. In response, my classmates and I took on the individual challenge to do the same.

For all intents and purposes, this class could be considered an accelerated book club. Dr. Dawson would provide historical and literary tidbits to provide a deeper context, but the majority of our classes were group discussions of the book at hand. As Amsler and Welch suggest, she was radical in her trust and willingness to allow us, the students, guide the flow of the class. One person would offer up a quotation of interest, and others would start uncovering another piece, another connection. The purpose of this class was not to “transfer knowledge” but to embrace “creating possibilities” (Friere).

This to me was perhaps the most meaningful of educational experiences. Because my voice was valued, I felt a responsibility to dive into our class materials, to make connections that could be offered in class and see if anyone else made the same connection. After all, we were the teachers just as much as Dr. Dawson (something I have only recently come to understand).

As a result, the themes, topics, and questions we discussed in this class nearly four years ago are still among the freshest in mind. They stuck. Not simply because I felt my voice was valued, but also as Welch suggests, I was diving into the social awareness of the themes at hand. Hearing how they were played out in my classmates and how they play out in our society at large.

Needless to say, it was worth every smudge of toothpaste left on my face.


Monica Rischiotto is originally from Portland, OR and just finished up a year in Detroit as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corp where she worked with school gardening programs in Detroit Public Schools. She studied English and Community Leadership at Aquinas College (Grand Rapids, MI) and feels extremely honored and privileged to continue her studies at the graduate level through LUC’s Social Justice & Community Development program. 


Teaching and Learning: Not a Parrot in a Cage

This semester in the IPS Foundations of Social Justice course, students began the semester by thinking about what it means to teach and learn. They were challenged to not only think of themselves as students or learners, but also as teachers who will share the knowledge they learn as they practice social justice in their communities. This week we’re featuring some of their reflections on teaching and learning at IPS.

Many people praise the unique capability of the parrot to reproduce faithfully different sound, even of human beings. My education, in most cases, expected me to memorize and repeat information uploaded into my head by the teacher. In general the pedagogy applied by my schools system did not instill personal and social transformation. I deal here with a rare occasion that transformed me and how it is relates to our course readings.

The image of parrot is a good symbol of for my education as a “recording machine”. Most of the time in primary, high school and at university in DR Congo, a student is required to read, memorize, and reproduce – without mistake – volumes of books, which often are dated from the last half of the last century. This education is a colonial heritage, and it has never undergone any major change since it was designed.  The system never intended to form independent persons capable of transforming society. The intention of the designers of the educational system to which I was exposed was not to foster a critical mind but to prepare people who will fill the gap in the colonial administration.

In this regard, my experience in this area is similar to bell hooks’ experience after the racial integration period: ‘The banking system of education (based on the assumption that memorizing information and regurgitating it represented gaining knowledge that could be deposited, stored and used at a later date) did not interest me’ (bell hooks 1994, 5).

The learning experience that deeply transformed me happened in a workshop prior to an internship experience in South Africa. During this meeting, I was expecting the speaker to lecture us on a set of methods, attitudes, and formulas to say to people, much likemy previous educational experiences. On the contrary, he talked only for fifteen minutes, and what did he say? “You are all that these people out there need. They need your compassion, your energy, your creativity, your intelligence – and your silence, if words are not enough or if you don’t understand the local language (this was my case). After these few words, the group was set to start the experience.

I was shocked and disappointed with the speaker. I asked many people wondering if that is all that he had to tell us. I became very insecure because he shared so little information. But when I arrived in the terrain, people didn’t come with problems related to philosophy or highly disputed theological topics. They came with daily living situations: unemployment, hunger, and sickness; the stigma of HIV/AIDS, of having been raped, of drug addiction. Confronted by these existential problems, neither words nor theory was enough. What was most important was simply being present. It is then that I understood the relevance of the speaker’s words, his simplicity and lack of an authoritative tune. I understood that I am the first asset needed in that context – not an encyclopedic knowledge, but my wholeness. This experience changed my view on what the world is expecting from me: to be present not only with my head but my whole person. I related this newfound understanding with my faith experience. This is exactly what Jesus professed in coming to stay with us:

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: ‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, my God’ (Hebrew 10:5-7).

God made me in His image with freedom and free will. Why then should I be imprisoned by a ‘banking system’ education? These readings made me aware of the disastrous effects education based only on memorization has had on my life. It prevented me from believing in myself. Instead I trusted more in the “information” received. Now I was beginning to understand my discomfort with the shortness of the instructor’s presentation. My reaction was the consequence of my education background which Paulo Freire called “banking system”. This system produces:

Intellectuals who memorize everything, reading for hours on end, slaves to the text, fearful of taking a risk, speaking as if they were reciting from memory, fail to make any concrete connections between what they have read and what is happening in the world, the country, or the local community”(Freire 1998, 34).

I want to regain my dignity, the right of being the primary agent of my formation and transformation. God does not desire sacrifice or burnt offerings. He desires me. He desires a human being, He gave me a body. Through critical pedagogy, I am empowered, my capacities are valued, and I am challenged to challenge the world where I live. I fulfill my destiny, which in St Iranaeus’ words is God’s glory.

The parrot is admired for its capacity of reproducing sound and its place apart from the forest is in the cage. But I am a free man. Not made to live in a cage. My place is in the heart of human failures, struggles and conquests. That is why I would like to forgive my previous school systems, which caged me and made me a dominated person who is ‘crushed, diminished, and converted into a spectator, [maneuvered] by myths which powerful social forces have created’ (Amsler 2013, 70). I ought to follow the example of bell hooks and Sharon D. Welch, who have constantly reflected on their educational heritage and have found creative ways to make difference in history.


Gauthier Buyidi, SCJ is a first-year MASJCD student from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who seeks to place faith, poverty, justice, peace, development, reconciliation, and conflict resolution in dialogue with one another, particularly in the context of his home country.