“The Catholic University of the 21st Century: The Influence of Location on Mission”
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Thursday, September 30, 2004 at 3:00 p.m. at Gesu Church
Rev. Paul Locatelli, S.J., President of Santa Clara University, will explore the implications of the University of Detroit Mercy’s commitment to “an urban and regional moral ecology.”
- How do the traditions of the Sisters of Mercy “compassionate service to the poor in cities” and the Jesuits’ promotion of social justice — shape the way UDM lives out its university mission of excellence in research and teaching in this time and urban location?
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What difference does it make that UDM’s place in the world includes a high tech international manufacturing and communication economy in the same region where concentrated poverty leaves some citizens effectively locked out of high quality health care and education?
- What difference does it make that Detroit is a center for art, sport, and superb music in the same region that sees the highest volume of international trade anywhere in the United States across the city’s border with Canada?
Fr. Locatelli comes to these questions from his experience at Santa Clara University. He asks
questions of precisely the same kind about Santa Clara’s responsibilities to its context in the dramatically changing world of Silicon Valley.
Because of its Mercy and Jesuit roots, argues Fr. Locatelli, UDM must reach for “a pedagogy that engages urban Detroit at its best and its most bedeviling.” UDM, like any truly Catholic university, must not only study about its urban context, it must allow that urban reality to become part of the fabric of the university. Paying attention to one’s place in the world gives distinctive character to the university: its research choices, its curriculum, its volunteer programs, its social life, and its spiritual identity.
For information and reservations, please e-mail udmgrad@udmercy.edu.
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