Institute for Social Concerns Newsletter | April 2025
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| Pursuing justice by
getting proximate
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From Los Angeles to Tucson to the Twin Cities to New Orleans, students visited sites of justice-oriented work in the United States to briefly but intensely engage with a question of justice in a specific time and place as part of the spring Proximities seminars.
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Samantha Deane is carrying on her family’s legacy by bringing her expertise in education and curriculum development to the Institute for Social Concerns. Deane joined the institute last fall as senior research associate for Virtues & Vocations, which is a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education.
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| Interpreting the signs
of the times
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The 2025 Catholic Social Tradition Conference gathered over 250 scholars of theology, sociology, political science, ethics, and more from across the United States and around the globe on March 20–22. Collectively, they offered historical, constructive, and comparative approaches to examine religious nationalism as a significant sign of the time in contemporary national and international contexts.
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Homelessness is on the rise globally. As many governments leave the provision of housing to the markets, access to adequate, affordable housing is becoming more precarious. Widening inequality, fueled by a capitalist and neoliberal ideology, is exacerbating the problem. Damaging social narratives deepen the stigma of homelessness, while the systemic injustices causing the housing crises are often overlooked.
In Dwelling with Dignity, moral theologian Suzanne Mulligan examines how Catholic social teaching can help us to re-think homelessness and our commitment to justice in the world.
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Webinar: Civility, Courage & Conviction
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University deans Dayna L. Cunningham and Jed Atkins are authors from the spring 2025 issue of Virtues & Vocations: Higher Education for Human Flourishing. We will discuss the issue, including questions around civic discourse.
Monday, April 21, 2025
noon–1:00 pm, online via Zoom
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Join us for a fun evening with the institute's Graduate Justice Fellows and learn how they engage with justice through their research!
Wednesday, April 23, 6:00 pm, Geddes Hall, McNeill Gallery
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The Labor Café convenes the Notre Dame community for casual conversation on contemporary questions about work, workers, and workplaces. Participants choose the concrete topics, all people are welcome, and all opinions are entertained.
Friday, April 25, 5:00 pm, Geddes Hall, Coffee House
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The institute is hosting an online book club for alumni of our programs and courses. Join us May 7 to talk about Everything is Tuberculosis by John Greene.
Wednesday, May 7
7:00 pm to 8:15 pm EST
Hosted by Dr. Connie Snyder Mick and Haley Beaupre ‘10
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Community Mural Celebration
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Students in the institute's Art and Social Change course have partnered with La Casa de Amistad to honor the contributions of the Latino community in South Bend. Enjoy the art and hear the stories from generations of ballplayers and civic leaders. Plus, free taco trucks!
Friday, May 9
4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Southeast Neighborhood Park, Fellows St. at Wegner, South Bend
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Congratulations, Class of 2025! All students who have participated in and been formed by courses at the institute are invited to attend a ceremony that celebrates a commitment to the common good. Following the ceremony, families and friends are invited to attend an evening of celebration, food, and drinks.
Friday, May 16
7:00 pm to 8:00 pm
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
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Virtues & Vocations Annual Conference
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The 2025 conference will be a cross-disciplinary, cross-professional convening on cultivating character in the classroom and on campus.
Plenaries, breakout sessions, and workshops on pedagogy, formative frameworks, assessment, professional identity formation, new scholarship, and more.
Tuesday–Thursday, May 20–22
University of Notre Dame
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| ND Alumni Reunion Open House
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As part of Alumni Reunion Weekend, the Institute for Social Concerns will host an Open House to welcome alumni to Geddes Hall. Visit the beautiful Chapel, learn about the Institute’s current programming and initiatives, and enjoy refreshments in the coffee house.
All alumni, family and friends are welcome.
Friday, May 30
8:30 am to 10:00 am
Geddes Hall Coffee House
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Giving Is Open for Notre Dame Day!
April 29–30 marks the 12th annual Notre Dame Day—a time when students, alumni, parents, and friends come together as a global community to celebrate all things Notre Dame! Consider supporting the institute on or before the day!
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2025 Student Awards
The Institute for Social Concerns welcomes nominations for two annual awards for seniors active in Social Concerns minors (Poverty Studies and Catholic Social Tradition), courses, Justice Labs (housing, just wage, mass incarceration), or programs. Read more and nominate a student.
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Above upper-left: Members of the SOCO home team welcome admitted students at the Rally, an immersive experience that introduces them to the vibrant, inclusive, and inspiring Notre Dame community. Below lower-left: Professor of Sociology Mark Berends presents at the latest South Bend: Questions of Justice gathering focusing on education. Above right: Students in SOCO's Appalachia course spend their spring break examining the relationship between solidarity and service and considering how the common good is expressed in local communities across the region.
Below left: Monalisa, practitioner in residence, reflects on her time spent engaging with students and the broader community on the question of how technology changes the landscape of child sex trafficking for a talk co-sponsored by the institute and the Notre Dame Initiative on Race and Resilience held in the Sojourner Truth Commons. Below right: University of San Diego theologian Victor Carmona shares his work on creating more just immigration systems through the lens of Catholic social teaching for the Encounter series in the Coffee House.
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As an interdisciplinary academic institute, the Institute for Social Concerns leverages research to respond to the complex demands of justice and to serve the common good. This series, ReSearching for the Common Good, highlights some of the scholars in our community.
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Joachim Ozonze is a doctoral candidate in the Theology and Peace Studies program at the Kroc Institute of the University of Notre Dame. He holds a master’s degree in theological studies from Notre Dame, with a major concentration in systematic theology and minors in gender studies, digital cultures, and peace studies. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and theology from Bigard Memorial Seminary Enugu, Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary Onitsha, and Urban University Rome.
Ozonze was a 2022–23 Graduate Justice Fellow of the Institute for Social Concerns.
What are you researching right now?
My research explores the intricate intersections of drug addiction, violence, and healing justice. At its core, my work seeks to advance evidence-based strategies for responding to drug crises—approaches that go beyond surface symptoms to confront the deeper structures of human disposability. I examine the drug crisis not as an isolated phenomenon but as a rupture of deeper structures of violence and as a window into how communities are socialized into cycles of harm.
I see it as a potential site where we might cultivate pathways toward healing, solidarity, and hope. I’m particularly inspired by the possibilities emerging from digital technologies for imagining new possibilities and opening up immersive spaces for empathy, when guided by ethical care and creativity.
How did you become interested in this research?
Initially, my research focused on the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70). But in late 2019, something shifted. Social media exploded with disturbing videos from Southeast Nigeria: young men and women tied to wooden beams in public squares, publicly scourged for using or selling crystal meth. These harrowing spectacles were desperate communal responses to a spiraling methamphetamine crisis. I couldn’t unhear the screams. That haunting encounter marked a turning point.
From that moment, I began an ethnographic journey. It quickly became clear that the drug crisis in Nigeria was not an isolated issue but the eruption of deeper cultural, structural, and historical legacies of violence. I started to understand the cane deliverance ritual as a desperate communal response that is trapped in legacies that continue to mark communities violently, blurring the lines between punishment, protest, healing, justice, and violence.
Where do you hope to take this research and how do you see it advancing the common good? I’m working to establish a foundational database of the drug crisis in these regions. The goal is to build an interactive digital map that invites global collaboration while honoring community engagement. Beyond the data, I dream of the creation of a peace tech research and rehabilitation center that would integrate peace studies, addiction recovery, and digital technologies to address drug addiction, incarceration, and structural violence. Guided by Catholic social thinking, this center will be shaped by those who have been on the frontlines of the drug crisis, those recovering from addiction, and those emerging from incarceration—not as subjects of research but as co-creators of knowledge and change.
This research has become a profound invitation to reflect on the meaning of the common good. The drug crisis reveals both the limits of individualism and the need to critically engage community responses. It offers a powerful lens through which to explore vulnerability, not simply as a condition to be hidden or overcome but as a sacred starting point for reimagining identity, belonging, and solidarity.
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