SSLP_2015

September 2015
Dear Friends,
As you may recall, last winter was an extraordinary time on Notre Dame’s campus as thousands assembled to celebrate the life
of Notre Dame president emeritus of Fr. Ted Hesburgh, C.S.C. His enduring legacy to higher education, service to the Church,
and the promotion of justice includes the Center for Social Concerns, which he helped to establish in 1983 at the heart of
Notre Dame’s campus. This past spring, I shared two lesser-known aspects of Fr. Hesburgh’s biography with the 230 students
preparing for the Summer Service Learning Program (SSLP). First, Fr. Hesburgh’s adventures took him around the globe working
alongside presidents and popes alike, but his daily rhythm was noteworthy above all for its routine discipline. Most nights Fr.
Hesburgh worked until 4 am responding to correspondence and reading a new book each night. In this same spirit, I challenged
our SSLP students to commit this summer to a spiritual discipline – such as spending 10 minutes in silence each day, limiting their
use of technology, or praying daily. Secondly, Fr. Hesburgh was a man of obedience able to hear what was asked of him and
to go where needed. He aspired to become a Navy chaplain, but instead his superiors kept him on campus to work among the
many recent veterans arriving for studies at Notre Dame. Although disappointed at first, Fr. Hesburgh soon realized this work
was hugely formative for him and fulfilled some of his deepest desires.
As site supervisors, Notre Dame Club contacts, parents, host families, faculty, and many other supporters of the program, each
of you this summer played a vital role fostering in our students greater habits of disciplined action and selfless obedience. For
this we thank you. We are fortunate to collaborate with each of you as co-educators in forming these young men and women.
Since our beginnings with Fr. Hesburgh’s support, the Center for Social Concerns has developed in size and depth as the
community-based learning and research institute of the University of Notre Dame. We provide educational experiences such
as the Summer Service Learning Program that are inspired by Gospel values and the Catholic social tradition. Our hope is for
students, faculty, staff and alumni to think critically about today’s complex social realities and about their responsibilities as they
face and experience them.
Special thanks are owed to Kathy Andrews and John McMeel who established the James F. Andrews Scholarship Endowment
to honor Kathy’s late husband. Jim’s legacy of drawing out the gifts and talents of young people continues each year as students
enter into new communities across the country. Thanks, too, to the SSLP staff—Andrea Smith Shappell, Felicia Johnson O’Brien,
Ben Wilson, and Emily Garvey—who so capably manage this innovative program. We are also grateful for graduate student
assistants Philip Lomneth, Chris Gattis, and Lillie Romeiser as well as undergraduate student assistants Tessa Laubacher, a twotime
SSLP participant, Owen Tuite, Lauren Pate, and Karin Miranda who bring their own experiences working on the margins of
society as they attend to the many details of the program.
As we meet the students back on campus to hear their stories and process what they have learned, our prayers continue, in
gratitude for all of you, and in hope that together we will help forge the peaceable kingdom and the fulfillment of God’s dreams
of a world made new.
Sincerely yours,
(Rev.) Paul V. Kollman, C.S.C.
Executive Director
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