Author Archives: Jessamyn Anderson

Dr. Melissa Browning, the graduate program director for our MA in Social Justice and Community Development degree, has recently been published on the Huffington Post Religion page. Check out her article here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-browning-phd/climate-change-and-setting-the-world-on-fire_b_2630715.html

IPS Damen Award Recipient 2013

Named for Loyola University Chicago’s primary founder, Arnold Damen, S.J., this award is granted to an alumnus(a) from each of Loyola’s schools and colleges.  It recognizes the qualities of leadership in industry, leadership in community, and service to others.  This year IPS is proud and pleased to announce that Father Garanzini will bestow this award upon

MR. JIMMIE FLEWELLEN 

Jimmie L. Flewellen, Sr. is a native of Columbus, Georgia, born in 1926.   He completed high school in Columbus and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1945.  After his service he married and moved to Chicago.  He converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1960. In 1970 he joined the training program for Permanent Deacons in the Archdiocese of Chicago, and was ordained a deacon as a member of the first class, in 1972.  He began service in his home parish, St. Thaddeus, a ministry he continued for 34 years.  In 1985, he was appointed a Catholic Chaplain for the United States Justice Department.  In this appointment he was the first African American Catholic Chaplain in the History of the United States.  He served as prison chaplain in Springfield, Missouri from 1985 to 1993.  In 1993 he was transferred to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago as its Head Chaplain.  He held that position for nine years, until his retirement.  Deacon Flewellen received a Master of Pastoral Studies in 1983.  This award will be presented at Founders’ Day, June 8, 2013.

Dear Friends,

Instead of paying the Art Institute for a membership – have I got news for you!

This spring 2013 semester the University is partnering with the Art Institute of Chicago to pilot a program to provide students, faculty, and staff with free access to the museum and its exhibits till the end of the semester.

To gain access to the museum, simply show them your Loyola ID.

For more information about University Partner benefits, please contact the museum’s Corporate Relations office at 312.443.3121 or universitypartners@artic.edu.

Dear Loyolans,
As our Jewish brothers and sisters observe Passover, our new Jesuit pope, Pope Francis, prepares to celebrate his first Easter as the leader of the Catholic Church. He chose the name Francis in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi and as a reminder to himself and the Church of our need to care for the poor and least among us.
In all that we do for our students, each other, and our community, may we share in the desire of Saint Francis that God would “enlighten the darkness of our hearts, give us true faith, certain hope, and perfect charity, sense, and knowledge, that we might carry out God’s holy and true command.”
With my wishes for a blessed Holy Season,
Michael J. Garanzini, S.J.
President and CEO

Click here to access the original post: http://blogs.luc.edu/ilweekly/2013/03/28/an-easter-message-from-father-garanzini/

Dr. Melissa Browning, assistant professor and graduate program director for the MA in Social Justice and Community Development degree, recently wrote a reflection on the tragic events that occurred in Newtown, CT on Friday, December 14. You can read Dr. Browning’s piece on the Huffington Post Religion page here.

by Michele G.

As a veterinarian, I have been “parabled” many times.   During the course of my career, I  have come to appreciate many clients and patients as teachers  and know that there are lessons to be learned if I can only open my ears and heart and, at times, suspend belief.  As is the case with parables in their truest sense, there have been uncomfortable twists to some tales, endings that I could not have anticipated and events that challenged my previous ways  of thinking.  Perhaps one of the most potent parables, out of the many, occurred on Christmas Eve 1983.

I was working a double shift that day as a technician at a veterinary emergency clinic on Chicago’s North Side.  The evening was bitterly cold  (it would plummet to  – 25 degrees Fahrenheit) and concern  among the staff was,  as always,  for the homeless people and animals who had no place to go for warmth, food and safety.   Early in the shift, we received several calls from the far South Side about a dog who had been hit by a car and was lying unattended in a gutter.  Our calls to the local police station, humane organizations and animal rescues found no one who would come and take the dog out of the elements and into a shelter.   After a few hours, the calls from the public regarding the dog stopped coming.  We all presumed that someone had stopped to pick up the poor pooch and get him to a place of warmth and treatment.  Or, perhaps he had succumbed to his injuries.

About 10 p.m. that night, the doorbell to the clinic rang and as I peered out through the window, I saw a thin, older, shabbily dressed African American man cradling a large (approximately 40 pound) dog in his arms.  I buzzed him in and he and the dog entered the clinic in a blast of frigid air and fog.  It was clear that the dog had been injured and other staff members quickly surrounded the man and dog, wrapping each of them in heated blankets and bringing them to the back treatment area.  It was only then that the doctor on duty made the connection that this was most likely the dog that we had heard of earlier in the day – the one who had been hit and left to suffer on South Ashland Avenue.  Indeed it was. (more…)

Partial Mock-Up of Jitish Kallat’s Public Notice 3 on the Woman’s Board Grand Staircase of the Art Institute of Chicago

by Claire Esker, IPS Student

“As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”

– Hindu Hymn, as quoted by Swami Vivekananda

At times, a spirit of hubris dominates modern thought.  We like to think that we are more learned, more advanced, and more capable than those who came before us.  We like to think that we are wiser and that our ancestors, even our most recent ancestors, have made their contribution.  It is easy to overlook the fact that a contribution made does not exist within a finite moment, but, under the right conditions, can extend infinitely.

These were my thoughts as I looked at Jitish Kallat’s Public Notice 3, an immersive environment created on the Women’s Board Staircase at the Art Institute of Chicago.  A site-specific piece of art, Kallat’s work remembers both the terror of September 11, 2001 and the hope of September 11, 1893.  This hope is best exemplified by a speech given by a Hindu teacher, Swami Vivekananda, who would later become instrumental to the introduction of Eastern spirituality to the West.

Approaching the piece, the viewer passes through a hall lined on every side by artwork drawn from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions.  At the end of that room, the viewer is gradually faced by an amazing sight – and apropos sight: a monumental stone Buddha seated in front of a wall of illuminated text on a black background.  It is only on closer examination, though, that one realizes that the colors of those LED lights are the same as the Department of Homeland Security’s Terror Alert System.

The importance of the work, though, is not political.  Rather, it is spiritual and emotional, a unified work.  On the steps, children and young people stop to read the words of Swami Vivekananda, which begin with the ringing cry, “Sisters and Brothers of America,” as if it was a plea addressed to a very modern audience.  Young art students with cameras kneel to touch the work and feel the texture of the electrically-charged words; families sit on benches, surrounded by the text of the speech (interspersed with quotes from the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s interpretation of God’s message to Man), simply meditating.  Public Notice 3 is a piece of such profound and quiet power, it is difficult not to cry at the realization of how much better a people we are called to be. (more…)