Thanks Mrs. First Lady
10/27/2006
Last week we got to hang out with former first lady Rosalynn Carter as well as 800 or so other folks at a big downtown hotel as we were one of only three Illinois schools honored as part of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for Campus-Community Collaboration. It's the first time this award was given in Illinois, so the fact that we were one of the three was and is, ahem, a Very Big Deal. Below you see Mrs. Carter along with our own superb Director of Service Learning MaDonna Thelen as well as my brilliant colleague Hugh McElwain, an advocate of service learning in his own teaching, and who was dean before me before he saw the light and went back to full-time teaching.
Here's another picture with some others including, next to Mrs. Carter, Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, as well Dominican trustee Judy Scully and my dear colleague Sr. Melissa Waters (about whom I've blogged before). I'm the goofy looking one in the back.
It was a great night for Dominican as we were honored for our partnership with San Miguel Schools. We provide them with volunteer support to effectively educate the nearly 200 children enrolled at their schools, and our students and faculty have opportunities to learn about diversity and civic responsibility. As MaDonna puts it: "Together we build bridges to cross over the gaps that leave many out of the benefits and privileges of education. And, together we build bridges that connect our education to our responsibility for citizenship."
At Dominican, we pursue truth so that we can make our lives, the lives of others, and even in some way our world itself, better. And we do this, each in our own way, discerning our own particular best gifts, and then turning them into gifts of service to others. There are many "right" livelihoods, and we strive every day to help each student, through study and practice, through contemplation and action in mutually critical correlation, to find her or his own way forward.
Last week we got to hang out with former first lady Rosalynn Carter as well as 800 or so other folks at a big downtown hotel as we were one of only three Illinois schools honored as part of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for Campus-Community Collaboration. It's the first time this award was given in Illinois, so the fact that we were one of the three was and is, ahem, a Very Big Deal. Below you see Mrs. Carter along with our own superb Director of Service Learning MaDonna Thelen as well as my brilliant colleague Hugh McElwain, an advocate of service learning in his own teaching, and who was dean before me before he saw the light and went back to full-time teaching.
Here's another picture with some others including, next to Mrs. Carter, Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, as well Dominican trustee Judy Scully and my dear colleague Sr. Melissa Waters (about whom I've blogged before). I'm the goofy looking one in the back.
It was a great night for Dominican as we were honored for our partnership with San Miguel Schools. We provide them with volunteer support to effectively educate the nearly 200 children enrolled at their schools, and our students and faculty have opportunities to learn about diversity and civic responsibility. As MaDonna puts it: "Together we build bridges to cross over the gaps that leave many out of the benefits and privileges of education. And, together we build bridges that connect our education to our responsibility for citizenship."
At Dominican, we pursue truth so that we can make our lives, the lives of others, and even in some way our world itself, better. And we do this, each in our own way, discerning our own particular best gifts, and then turning them into gifts of service to others. There are many "right" livelihoods, and we strive every day to help each student, through study and practice, through contemplation and action in mutually critical correlation, to find her or his own way forward.
