·èÂíÐãÊÓƵ

So-called deaths of despair—deaths from drug overdoses, suicide, and alcohol-related disease—markedly increased in the United States in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. In 2017, the American Psychological Association issued a report on the implications of climate change for mental health: “climate grief” is now a recognized term. Therapists are also reporting what is called “democracy grief,” over the parlous state of our nation. Last but not least, the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked trauma and moral injury on healthcare providers and threatens to leave new forms of despair in its wake.

This interdisciplinary conference, which took place on September 8, 2022, on the ·èÂíÐãÊÓƵ campus in Wilkes-Barre, was concerned with both the consequences and the causes of despair in the United States: the consequences for health and for our politics; the cultural, economic, and social causes. The conference also sought, however, to identify and investigate reasons for hope and practices that support it.

Click here to see the list of speakers, topics, and learning objectives. Visit the  to see recordings of the four sessions. The conference was jointly provided by ·èÂíÐãÊÓƵ and the Lehigh Valley Health Network, with the support of the Moses Taylor Foundation.

Information about continuing education credits (types, hours) is available here. Email healthhopedespair@kings.edu with any questions about documenting your attendance.

The complementarity of faith and reason; a commitment to philosophy and theology as "sapiential" and "architectonic" disciplines; the belief that all reality is suffused with the presence of God such that God may be found in all things; an understanding of education as a work of sanctification if not even resurrection; and an ambition to educate hearts as well as to instruct minds -- these are, among others, the ideas that have animated and animate yet today Catholic colleges and universities in the United States. But how do these ideas fare, and how can they best be expressed, in today's undergraduate colleges? Are philosophy and theology up to the charge? How should courses in these disciplines be conceived and structured in general education curricula? Further, how do the other disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences serve and express the basic mission of Catholic higher education? Do professional programs in business, education, engineering, or nursing have distinctive vocations within the context of Catholic higher education? What roles do campus ministry, service centers, learning communities, and the like have to play? More precisely, how can they be, not extra-curricular, but co-curricular, contributing to the educational mission of the college? And just what is the warrant for an institution of higher learning to seek to transform students' hearts?

The conference "The Idea of a Catholic College: Charism, Curricula, and Community" took place Friday, September 19 and Saturday, September 20, 2014, on the ·èÂíÐãÊÓƵ campus. The conference's keynote speaker was the Reverend John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., President of the University of Notre Dame. Ten other invited speakers participated in three panel discussions, and the program included as well thirty-plus presentations by forty-some faculty and administrators from institutions across the country.

•  for a reflection by Jason King, a presenter at the conference and faculty at Saint Vincent's College, posted on the blog "Catholic Moral Theology."

Select conference proceedings have been published in the  and in . A video of Father Jenkins' talk,  in Commonweal, is available on the ·èÂíÐãÊÓƵ YouTube channel. A video of the panel discussion on core curricula at Catholic colleges is likewise available. (Go to the Center's "Recordings" page and scroll down.)

What are the horizons against which a Catholic business school ought to teach its students? In other words, what sorts of jobs and careers-and what sorts of contributions to the world-ought a Catholic business school prepare and point its students toward? One tried-and-true possibility is for-profit corporate America, but there are paths less taken as well.

The purpose of our March 2019 conference on "The Horizons of Business Education" was threefold: first, to come to a greater understanding both of non-profits and of social entrepreneurship; second, to learn about initiatives to prepare business students for the possibility of jobs and careers in non-profit organizations and as social entrepreneurs; and third, to learn about non-profits and social entrepreneurs currently making a difference in northeastern Pennsylvania and beyond.

Speakers for Thursday, March 28 included , formerly President and CEO of the nonprofit  (American Near East Refugee Aid) in Washington, D.C.; , Director of Research for the Shore Entrepreneurship Center at Kennesaw State University; , Associate Professor of Non-Profit Management at Regis University; , President of the non-profit coffee cooperative Just Haiti and formerly Director of University Programs at Catholic Relief Services in Baltimore, Maryland; , Associate Director of the Social Innovation Initiative at Marquette University; and Nicholas Santos, S.J., Assistant Professor of Marketing at Marquette University.

Panels on Friday, March 29 featured ·èÂíÐãÊÓƵ alumni and alumnae working in non-profits; leaders of regional non-profits; leaders of regional non-profits concerned in particular with health care; and several social entrepreneurs. See the program for all names and affiliations.

• Horizons of Business Education program final.pdf

For winter-spring 2021, the McGowan Center co-organized the lecture series "Catholic Higher Education in Light of Catholic Social Thought." This series comprised fourteen events (all online via Zoom) hosted by eight institutions across the country. Topics included: presidential searches; the fate of the liberal arts in a pre-professional world; labor and investment policies; race, diversity, and inclusion on campus; lay and women leadership; the finances of higher education; the environmental crisis; and the changing demographics of our students. The series grew out of a faculty-staff reading and discussion group that took place at ·èÂíÐãÊÓƵ over academic year 2018-2019, as well as out of the work of the Catholic Social Thought Learning and Research Initiative (CSTLRI), a collaboration of faculty and administrators at multiple institutions. The lectures were works-in-progress that will appear in the book Catholic Higher Education in Light of Catholic Social Thought: Critical-Constructive Essays, ed. Bernard G. Prusak and Jennifer Reed-Bouley (New York: Paulist Press, forthcoming 2022).

Use this link to see a full listing of the events.

Here are recordings of events in the series:

 (1/12/21, co-hosted by ·èÂíÐãÊÓƵ and the University of Scranton)

 (2/2/21, hosted by the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, Loyola University Chicago)

 (2/9/21, hosted by John Carroll University)

 (2/16/21, hosted by the Hank Center)

 (2/23/21, hosted by Collegium)

 (3/2/21, hosted by the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, Loyola University Chicago)

 (3/22/21, hosted by Collegium)

 (3/23/21, hosted by the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, Loyola University Chicago)

 (4/12/21, hosted by ·èÂíÐãÊÓƵ)