Center for Social Concerns

Dear friends,

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.

As part of our mission, we provide justice education by cultivating moral imagination, practical wisdom, and the courage to act through a range of curricular and co-curricular programs for undergraduates, graduate, and professional students. In order to do research for the common 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. Additionally, we convene critical and consequential conversations that include diverse perspectives and foster innovative approaches to questions of justice from religious freedom to gun violence to racial health inequalities.

We invite you to join us virtually this year for Virtues & Vocations, a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education. During our webinars, we will consider issues related to character and work, how to pursue virtues such as hope and wisdom within higher education and the professions, and how mental health and moral purpose connect to human flourishing.

Suzanne Shanahan, Ph.D.

Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director; Professor of the Practice

Center For Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame