Events Calendar

The Jesuit Center and the Office of Equity and Diversity will host Dr. Mary Wardell, Vice Provost for Diversity Engagement and Community Outreach at the University of San Francisco, at the next diversity and inclusion lunch and learn workshop. All faculty and staff are invited to participate on February 25, 2021 at 12:00PM. Registrants will receive short reading materials to review before the workshop. Please click here to register by February 22.

A Call to Conversion: Eliminating Anti-Black Racism as a Jesuit, Catholic University will show how our Ignatian values and traditions are tied to racial justice work, and teach us how to use our gifts for racial justice.  In her work, Dr. Wardell relates, “To ensure the fulfillment of the Universal Apostolic Preference of walking with the poor, the excluded, the outcasts of the world as an act of reconciliation and justice, I would like to offer a reparational framework for racial justice and reconciliation informed by teshuva for Jesuit universities and social works.” She believes it is essential that we “Rebuild our institutional cultures with empathy, accountability, and liberation”  The move towards reconciliation and racial justice “will occur when we address anti-Black racism and racial injustice on our campuses.”¹

The purpose of this talk is to help Ignatian educators and leaders connect their  intent to become an anti-racist university to their impact for reconciliation and justice for the liberation of  Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color (BIPOC) on a Jesuit, Catholic university campus. Guided by the universal apostolic preferences, Dr. Wardell-Ghirarduzzi will discuss archetypical behaviors that can encourage or prevent reconciliation and justice; and will offer a redemptive framework for students, staff, and faculty to actively fight against anti-Black racism within Jesuit higher education in the United States. mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources.  

 Dr. Wardell is an executive leader with over 20 years’ experience in academic affairs, student life, community engagement, and diversity and inclusion, skilled at building organizational infrastructure through strategic initiatives. She is also an associate professor of organizations, communication and leadership at the University of San Francisco.  She has been a leader in developing a creative framework for how a university's mission can be more fully realized as part of the community it resides within for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources.

This event is co-sponsored by The University of Scranton Jesuit Center and a Diversity Initiatives Grant through the Office of Equity and Diversity. Registration is required. RSVP’s requested by February 22 to allow time for preparation of reading material. Please  click here https://forms.gle/sRAnodhj3orWaZN68.   For more information on the program, please contact elizabeth.garcia2@scranton.edu  Registration and zoom questions contact Jennifer.pennington@scranton.edu 

1. Source: Wardell-Ghirarduzzi, M. (Spring 2021). A redemptive call to the altar: Anti-black racism in Jesuit higher education. Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, 59, 3-5.