Stories

From Ukraine with love

Rev. Yuriy Shchurko joins the institute for the spring 2025 semester by a selective invitation to aligned visiting scholars to provide opportunities for scholarly conversations and target unique chances to enrich the institute’s course offerings.

McNeills in Montgomery

Each spring semester over the long weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the first-year McNeill Fellows retreat to a US city to engage a particular question of justice. They had read Stevenson’s book Just Mercy during their fall-semester Just Life course with Suzanne Shanahan, so a trip to Montgomery seemed like a great way to inform their classroom discussions with first-hand, experiential learning.

On our shelf

Virtues & Vocations

Edited by Suzanne Shanahan, Virtues & Vocations: Higher Education for Human Flourishing (V&V) is a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education.

This issue of V&V focuses on civic virtue and, more specifically, civility and our ability to summon the courage to act on our convictions in difficult times.

Events

Webinar: Black Excellence, HBCUs & American Democracy

Deondra Rose is associate professor of public policy, political science, and history at Duke University. We will discuss Rose’s recent book The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy, and lessons we can learn from HBCUs about cultivating character for the common good. 

Monday, March 31, 2025
noon–1pm, online via Zoom

Labor Café

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 4, 5pm, Geddes Hall, Coffee House

Just Lunch

Join us in the Coffee House for food, fellowship, and informal conversation around justice.

Wednesday, April 30, 11:30 am to 2 pm, Geddes Hall, Coffee House

Featuring catering from Cultural Bites: Afghan Traditional Food

A Series on Catholic

Social Tradition

Join us on Friday afternoons for lectures by distinguished scholars in the field of Catholic social teaching, who will share their insights and provide critical conversation on matters of justice and the common good. 

All lectures will be in Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium at 5pm

Scenes

Above: Journalist, poet, translator, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Eliza Griswold, left, shares a laugh with Suzanne Shanahan and Rev. Hugh Page before her Junior Parents Weekend lecture.

Below: Dé Bryant, professor of psychology and director of the Social Action Project at Indiana University South Bend, discusses food insecurity with community partners at the South Bend: Questions of Justice gathering on February 28.

Community of scholars

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.

Charlie Desnoyers is a junior chemistry major at the University of Notre Dame, originally from Tinley Park, Illinois. He is interested in how chemistry research can be applied to real-world problems, such as testing for falsified and expired pharmaceuticals, and guide scientific policy, such as lot testing. 

Desnoyers is a McNeill Common Good Fellow of the Institute for Social Concerns and a recipient of the 2025 Norbert L. Wiech Award for undergraduate research.

How do you see your research advancing the common good?

I am interested in how we can use science—and for me, chemistry—to tackle issues of importance for the common good. My current research focuses on developing technologies to analyze vaccines. Applications of my research include looking at expired or falsified vaccines and also a basic push in science to understand how these vaccines work to develop better ones. This project was inspired by reports of expiring vaccines and the need to develop rigorous yet accessible testing for impurities. While this is one small piece of research in a much larger issue of falsified pharmaceuticals, I hope by doing this work and raising awareness for these issues, I can help others to find their own ways to tackle this issue.

How did you become interested in this research and where do you hope to take it?

When I joined the lab, I did not know that I would be working on this project. However, I’ve always been interested in applying chemistry directly to real-world issues. The McNeill fellowship has been great at developing my skills to approach an issue and research project. By getting a robust understanding of the issue, both scientifically and from firsthand experiences, I am able to finetune the approach I took with this project. I am hoping to take this upcoming summer to witness the issue firsthand and work with local pharmacists and practitioners not only in rural, low-resource areas in the United States but also internationally. 

What has it meant to be a McNeill Common Good Fellow?

Being a McNeill Common Good Fellow has given me the opportunity to learn from an interdisciplinary group (my awesome cohort!) of students interested in researching for the common good. This is not something I typically encounter as a chemistry major, but I have found that it has influenced my perspective on what science can do. This fellowship has challenged and improved the way I approach and think about problems. It has inspired me to think differently about how I approach the projects I am working on in the lab. It taught me that having a strong understanding of and personal experience with the issue you are trying to solve or research leads to a better outcome.

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