Faculty lead Catholic social tradition workshops in local parishes
The Institute is organizing faculty-led workshops at local parishes to apply Catholic social teaching to the needs of the community. These energizing sessions share principles and inspire participants to encounter and engage their neighbors with renewed intention. This is the latest initiative coming out of the Institute’s South Bend Citizens Collaboratory.
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Faculty workshop reimagines purpose in business education
Aligned with its work on Virtues & Vocations, the Institute welcomed business professors from across North America interested in learning about Management as a Calling. This signature program is designed to lead business students through a process of discernment of a personal mission and develops the courage to pursue that mission. It provides a lesson that is unfinished in a single course but essential to pursue for a meaningful life.
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Ayana Mathis delivers hope in unsettling times
Acclaimed novelist Ayana Mathis presented the Institute’s annual Junior Parents Weekend Lecture on campus, sharing her own crisis of faith and connecting with parents as she affectingly articulated the aspirations a parent has for a child. Her riveting lecture demonstrated how literature offers hope in unsettling times.
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| Virtues & Vocations
Spring 2026: Joy
The spring 2026 issue of Virtues & Vocations: Higher Education for Human Flourishing features ten different authors who bring very different life experiences and scholarly backgrounds to reflections on what joy means to them and their work. The issue introduces us to the science of joy, speculations about joy, and experiences of joy.
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Literatures of Exile: Author Panel
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Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance is a research collective and lecture series hosted this semester at the institute. Join us for authors Aria Aber and Jamil Jan Kochai in conversation with Mehak Faizal Khan.
Thursday, March 19
5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
McKenna Hall Auditorium | online
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Labor Café: Climate and Jobs
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The Labor Café convenes the ND community for critical conversation on contemporary questions about work. In this month’s meeting we’ll consider who benefits, and who bears the costs, in our carbon-centric economy.
Friday, March 20
5:00 pm to 6:00 pm
McNeill Gallery, Geddes Hall
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V&V Webinar: Magazine launch
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The spring 2026 issue of Virtues & Vocations: Higher Education for Human Flourishing focuses on joy. Join us as we launch the issue and hear from two of the authors: Cameron Kim, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University, and Laura Dunham, Dean of the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas.
Monday, March 23
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
On Zoom
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Encounter Lecture Series: Traci C. West
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For the next speaker of our 2026 Encounter series, Rev. Dr. Traci C. West will offer a lecture “Tested Loyalties: Christianity, Racism, and Gender Abuse.” Light reception to follow. Join us!
Friday, March 27
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Andrews Auditorium, Geddes Hall
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Encounter Lecture Series: Linda Hogan
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For the final speaker of our 2026 Encounter series, Linda Hogan will offer a lecture “Ethical by Design? Catholic Social Teaching in the Age of AI.” Light reception to follow. Join us!
Friday, April 17
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Geddes Hall Coffee House
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Poverty Lecture: Claudia Rowe
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Join us for the 2026 Poverty Studies Distinguished Lecture, delivered by Claudia Rowe, journalist and author of Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care.
Tuesday, April 21
5:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Andrews Auditorium, Geddes Hall
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The 2025–26 Genesis student cohort is seeking submissions for The Art of Justice, an exhibition on April 9 in the McNeill Gallery of Geddes Hall. Interested students are encouraged to submit an artistic work by March 23.
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The 2025–26 Genesis student cohort is hosting Stories of Courage in Andrews Auditorium in Geddes Hall on April 14 from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Join us to hear inspiring stories from your peers.
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The 2025–26 Genesis student cohort is welcoming local ND alumni back to campus to speak on how experiences rooted in service and justice have shaped their lives and career paths.
Wednesday, March 18
Dr. Don Zimmer ’04
Tuesday, March 24
Steve Camilleri ’01
Tuesday, April 7
Rudy ’01 and Cecilia ’25 Monterrosa
5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
McNeill Gallery, Geddes Hall
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Share your passion for justice! Genesis is an exceptional cohort of ten dynamic, creative, and motivated students who collaboratively develop initiatives that support, extend, and deepen the work of the institute across campus.
Applications are now open for the 2026–2027 cohort. Review the program requirements and apply today!
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Students spent spring break across the country as part of Proximities seminars, one-credit courses that include opportunities to briefly but intensely engage a question of justice in a specific time and place. Above: For the Whole Person Healthcare seminar, students visited the Minnesota state capitol where they met with representatives to speak about current legislative efforts on reforming Minnesota’s healthcare system. Below: For the Arts of Dignity seminar, students visited museums, artist studios, and local art centers in Philadelphia, all while practicing their own interpretations and appreciation of art.
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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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Hirudini Fernando is a Ph.D. candidate in the Marya Lieberman Lab in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and a 2025–26 Graduate Justice Fellow at the Institute for Social Concerns.
What is the focus of your current research?
My research mainly focuses on the opioid epidemic. In 2021, US drug-related overdose deaths topped 100,000, primarily due to illicitly manufactured fentanyl mixed with other drugs. Harm reduction strategies like drug checking are vital, but most communities lack proactive analysis, and transporting street samples to a lab for analysis is legally complicated.
My research bypasses these hurdles by optimizing ways to extract drug residues from used materials—like discarded test strips—that are usually thrown away. Since most of these materials are considered trash after use, they can easily be transported to the lab. I extract unregulated residues from this “drug trash” and develop analytical techniques like liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify the substances present. Information about samples is then shared with the stakeholders, including harm reduction organizations, care providers, and the public.
How did you get interested in this topic?
I started this project when I joined the Lieberman Lab. Initially, I was focused on the lab process efficiency—data, chromatography, and technical challenges. As lab chemists, we rarely get the opportunity to see the real-world impact of our work. That changed for me when I spoke with someone in recovery at a local harm reduction group.
They explained how our findings and results empower people to make safer, informed decisions. That conversation grounded my work in reality. It showed me the importance of drug checking and was a deep, personal motivation to continue, improve, and expand our drug-checking methodologies.
How do you view your research advancing the common good?
Our research is shifting the response to the opioid crisis from reactive to proactive. By the time an overdose happens, it’s often too late to warn others. My method provides an early warning system. For example, in a case study, my method detected carfentanil—an opioid 100 times more potent than fentanyl—in Ohio. By identifying emerging drugs like carfentanil and other drug trends before they become mass casualties, we are able to help address a national opioid crisis and take a step toward more healthy, flourishing communities.
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