Caritas Veritas Symposium 2019

Parmer 108
Board of Trustees

Strategic planning, fiduciary responsibility, fidelity to mission are all hallmarks of the life of a university trustee. What dreams do our trustees have for Dominican? How does their work make that dream come to life? What perspectives do they bring from their professional experiences to their service as trustees? Join some members of the University Board of Trustees to learn about what they dream and do for love of Dominican.

Martin Recital Hall
Danielle Cahalan, Amelia Discher, Alyssa Lendy

As human beings, we require food to function and think properly. For students, interns, and staff members, this means consuming a nutrient-dense, calorically appropriate diet. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford or has access to these types of foods, or any food for that matter. In the past year, student hunger on campus has been an increasingly noticeable problem, one that is alarming and difficult to overlook. Numerous student and faculty-led meetings have convened in an attempt to ensure food is being provided to those in need, but we need your help to raise awareness and advocate for these efforts. What we know, on a fundamental level, is that food is human right. Through the mission of Caritas Veritas, we are striving to live in this truth and spread love through pathways that will make a lasting impact and difference in others lives. Please join us to learn more about food insecurity on college campuses and what the Student Nutrition and Dietetics Association (SNDA) is doing to progress in living this truth of basic human needs.

Lund Auditorium
Leticia Villarreal Sosa

Latinx youth continue to be underrepresented in honors courses, Advanced Placement courses, and gifted programs while they are overrepresented in discipline referrals, dropout rates, grade retention, and special education (Noguera, 2008).  Educators, some by necessity and some by choice, become nepantleras in the process of mediating their own or their students’ cultural and psychological borders (Reza-López, Huerta Charles, & Reyes, 2014).  This paper explores the degree to which school social workers and teachers act as nepantleras, and the various constraints they face in attempting to serve immigrant and Latinx students.

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Todd Kleine

When identity, faith, religion and community intersect on a college campus, what truths emerge at the cross roads? What does dialogue look like when both pleasant and tough truths emerge? Based on the outcomes of a year-long, phenomenological dissertation, this session explores how gay men perceive their experiences of attending a Catholic university.

Noonan Reading Room
Jane Cho, Gilmer Cook, Joyce Shim, Melissa Murphy Thompson

Genuine dialogue about diversity, discrimination and oppression can be challenging for both students and educators. This panel presentation will engage participants in how the use of mindfulness can be applied in higher education, allowing all members of a learning community to explore their lived experiences with dignity and compassion. The panel will then present their successes and failures in working to unlearn oppression and how they bring the results of this exploration to the learning communities they lead.

Parmer 107
Sheila Bauer Gatsos, Rachel Hart Winter, Tim Milinovich, Ellen McManus

This panel will discuss how the climate outlook has changed since Laudato Si' was published in 2015, how the global political situation has made both climate action and social action more difficult, and how worldwide movements have begun taking action in the face of these challenges.  We will also explore with the audience how Dominican might more fully embody the principles of the Pope’s encyclical.

Parmer 113
Lisa M. Amoroso, David Aron, Molly Burke, Daniel Condon, Khalid Razaki, Brooke Reavey, John Vail, K.R. Vishwanath

Join Brennan School of Business faculty as they “run” for five minutes and then “pass the baton” to the next presenter for a fast-paced session. Each presenter will take exactly 5 minutes (and not a second more) to share the key points or findings from their research that they find most compelling, or perhaps they will share an inherent tension or dilemma they have faced within their area of research, or last they might share an aspect or finding of their work that has deeply impacted them as individuals. Ready. Set. Go.

Springer Suites
Tim Cook, Megan Chesney, Susan Hebble, Keegan Lannon

This workshop explores the journey four Dominican University instructors have taken on their pursuit of truth. These journeys were not always linear, and some lead down dead ends or to unexpected discoveries, but each of the instructors followed their passions to chase down their dreams.

Dining & Social Hall

Please refer to your nametag for your lunch session.

As friends, family members and healthcare staff we sometimes struggle in finding the right thing to stay to individuals as they approach the end of life.  This panel, composed of faculty and students will discuss what measures we can take to ease the suffering of these individuals and their loved ones with the understanding that these words and actions will have a lasting impact on all those involved.

Aikido, a Japanese martial art shows that failure (or falling) is not separate from success.  In the senior seminar, “Aikido as Contemplation,” students learn to connect Aristotle’s ethics with Aikido where they learn that virtue or excellence begins with choosing the good.  We can choose to let setbacks defeat us or we can choose to learn from them and use setbacks as a lesson.  Join us for this interactive presentation.

A university-wide commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice means that everyone on campus needs to live and work effectively in a multicultural, multilingual, intergenerational, interfaith and geographically diverse population.  We need to be intentional about learning how to work together across differences in class, sexual orientation, perspectives, viewpoints, and lived experiences.  Caritas and Veritas invites us to bear witness to our successes as a more equitable campus even as we explore places where we have fallen short.  The workshop will provide an opportunity to have participant voices heard and develop feedback for the President's Advisory Council on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, building a just and humane campus.

This workshop will address the current sociopolitical climate regarding immigrant, refugee and asylum seekers' rights by sharing  our first-hand experience learning from and working with our brothers and sisters across the border in Chula Vista/Tijuana and El Paso/Ciudad Juarez. The “walls” of internalized racial oppression and internalized racial superiority within will be explored and used to discuss the similarities between “Al-Jidar” in Palestine and “The Wall” on the U.S./Mexico border. We welcome you to take this journey with us in better understanding what it means to “buscando vida” and fight for social justice.

Six faculty members in Education, Information Studies, and Social Work within the College of Applied Social Sciences (CASS) will present 6 ignite-talks about their experiences participating in faculty lead peer observations. Hear and see what the CASS faculty community is doing to move forward to create a more humane and just work environment and academic institution for its students, staff, and faculty. Achievements made, lessons learned, and emerging hopes will be shared.

The Sinsinawa Sisters have given Dominican a powerful legacy not only in their ongoing struggles for social justice but also in their 2016 Land Stewardship Plan, their 2018 Corporate Stance on Climate Change, and their ongoing Care for Creation initiatives. The audience will be invited to discuss what they think it means to Care for Creation and what future actions can be collectively taken.

How does the prevalence of health and disease correlate with the availability of healthy food within a neighborhood? Join the Community Nutrition students as they describe their journey to answer this question in relation to the very diverse neighborhoods within Chicago.

A personal story in the pursuit of the principles of nonviolence (based particularly on the teachings and actions of Gandhi and King.) The journey traverses three historical moments over the past half century.  First, the Civil Rights movements in the ‘60’s; second, the war years (Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq); and, finally, in modern times, the gradual/ violent destruction of Earth through ecological mismanagement.

Dining & Social Hall

Please refer to your nametag for your lunch session.

In this session, we will provide examples of integrating the creative processes of the 4-step Lectio Divina methods appropriate for higher education classrooms. Participants in this embodied and experiential session will, in John Dewey’s words, “learn by doing” to appreciate its effectiveness and become aware of alternative modalities for inner growth through reflective and intellectual inquiry.

The truths about climate change are not easy to hear and therefore not easy to tell.  This panel will explore three aspects of this difficult truth-telling:  the far-reaching and well-funded campaign to obscure the facts about the changing climate; the reluctance of the government, the media, and educational institutions to face what climate change means for our future; and the interconnectedness between climate policies and social justice.  The panelists will invite audience discussion about how these deeply intertwined problems can be faced together.

Dominican University has a large percentage of students personally connected to the world through histories of “traveling" that have to do with colonialism, economic migration, forced displacement, and/or diaspora. As faculty leaders of study abroad, we travel with students taking into account their need to (re)connect with their cultural legacies while raising critical and transcultural awareness of their positionalities as US residents. Our panel will focus on DU’s recent study abroad program to Córdoba and other cities connected to the al-Andalus, in modern Andalucía (Spain) and Morocco, as a case study that focuses on global, historical, and critical awareness, comparative cultural perspectives, and ethno-relativism through experiential pedagogy abroad.

Developing a personal brand in a social media world doesn’t have to be a challenge!  Join us to learn how to Play the Game and stay in Good Company while creating your Millennial Brand.  Participants will leave singing Don’t Stop Me Now after learning about points of parity, points of difference, and determinant variables.

Migration from Guatemala to the U.S. began on a large scale in an attempt to escape the 36-year civil war, and continues today in a context of corruption, extreme inequality, land displacement, and continued human rights. Students of the School of Social Work, who engaged in an immersive 2-week trip to Guatemala, will share the history and current issues threatening the survival and livelihood of the Guatemalan people.

How did the global financial crisis of 2008 go unpredicted? Why do financial crises occur in the first place? What factors, events, and elements cause recurring financial crises in the United States’ economy? How can the United States forecast future recurring crises?

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Collette Chucherko, Steven Szegedi

How many Sinsinawan Sister artists can you name?  Have an interest in central Italy? Allow Dominican’s Archivist, Steven Szegedi, to introduce you to a dozen or so Sister artists, come spend some time with their original art, and learn about Rosary’s 1948-1985 Italian fine arts school, Villa Schifanoia.

In this panel presentation, Dominican student recipients of scholarships from TheDream.US share their stories on the challenges they encountered in gaining access to and navigating college as well as about the benefits of the scholarship, the resources, and the education that they are obtaining.  The co-founder of TheDream.US and 2019 Bradford-O’Neill Medallion recipient, Don Graham, will join us to share the values and opportunities that TheDream.US has created for their DACA scholars throughout the country.

Parmer 113
Luis Beteta, Liz Collier, John DeCostanza

Our unique social locations shape the ways that we pursue truth, love others, and perceive and achieve success and failure on the road from dreaming to doing. Speaking from their own professional and personal experiences, Luis Beteta, a Catholic Relief Services partner and Dominican University parent, and Drs. Collier and DeCostanza will explore the ways that the call to doing is grounded in the dignity of our neighbors, even and especially those on the other side of the world. Using the work of Catholic Relief Services as a lens for theological reflection, Beteta, Collier and DeCostanza will invite those gathered into a dialogue about faithful humanity probing the possibilities of solidarity, proximity, and local action in a time of global disruption, xenophobia, and isolation.

How do journalists find and report the truth? What is the role of journalism and journalists in our country and culture today? With the breakneck pace of the news cycle, how does a reporter keep up and maintain integrity? An alumna of Dominican University's journalism program will share stories of her own work embracing the rigor of the news cycle and how she views certain cases of media coverage.

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Bill Crowley

This session considers how the truth can be attacked in numerous ways including: social networking echo chambers, heuristics and biases, propaganda and the proliferation of fake news. The possible roles for us -- faculty, staff, and students -- in support of a broader identification and provision of validated facts at a time of often unreliable electronic information is at the heart of this session.

As Baby Boomers continue to reach the age of 65 and older in large numbers, how do we help prepare our students to compassionately work with elders in their future careers? As ageism continues in the United States resulting in students' hesitation to work with elders, intergenerational activities increase the comfort that students experience when interacting with elders. Learn about an activity that brought undergraduate students together with elders at an Adult Day Center to discuss nutrition and caregiving resources.

Our panel will provide a summary of the current issues that are at hand regarding environmental sustainability and preservation. We will then offer further insights into the steps that can be taken by further educating our general population with factual information, and steps to take to make every effort count on helping our common home to sustain us!

The Mary Nona McGreal, OP Center serves as a resource and research center for Dominican historical studies. It holds over 20 different archives from Dominican collaborative endeavors. Each collection is filled with countless documents and those papers tell stories about real people. The documents reveal how people search for truth and how love drives them to do what they do. Today we will meet three real people who actually live the stories that the documents reveal.