Core Celebrates Many Positives Amid Challenging Year  

Dr. Ksenija Puskaric offers tutoring to Core students.

This year we included an influx of important readings related to DEI in both Core I and Core II. In Core I these include Msgr. Fahy's 1970 inaugural address at Seton Hall; several Islamic texts from which faculty can choose, including the Quran; James Baldwin's "Down at the Cross," to name a few of several important additions. For Core II, we added excerpts from St. Oscar Romero's The Violence of Love, as well as Phyllis Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America" and "Letter to Rev. Samson Occum" (1774) ; and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), as well as others. We also held our second Romero-King week to commemorate the deaths of the two great human rights activists and martyrs, St. Oscar Romero and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with two virtual on-the-green events on March 24 and March 31, and films related to their lives available for the period between the dates of their deaths (March 24 and April 4), though we ended the event on March 31 because of Holy Week and Easter. We also exhibited, through the courtesy of Campus Ministry, an icon of "the New Martrys" from the Church of Sant' Bartolomeo in Rome, thanks to the Sant' Egidio community, and depicting both St. Oscar Romero and Dr. King together among these recent martyrs for faith and social justice.

Dr. Roger Alfani presented to the U. S. State Department.

Faculty Updates:

We also initiated the Scholars' Forum in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, where faculty presented on their recent scholarship that linked to CIT with eleven interesting and inspiring presentations. We also had our first of what we hope will be other inter-religious dialogue events, with our Earth Day at Seton Hall celebration on April 22, with a panel representing the four faiths from which we have readings in the Core (Hindu, Jewish, Christian and Muslim). It was a wonderful panel with Dr. Amar Dev Amar, Dr. Angela Weisl, Dr. Ki Joo Choi, and Dr. Youssef Yacoubi as presenters, and Dr. Anthony Sciglitano moderating the panel.

We also are offering faculty tutoring online with Dr. Ksenija Puskaric available Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays from 8:00-1:00. Her e-mail isksenija.puskaric@shu.edu. Dr. Puskaric is a Core Fellow, and she has years of experience teaching Core I and II, as well as in CAST. Her specialty is philosophy, but she is well-versed in the entire Core.

Also, one of our adjunct faculty, Dr. Roger Alfani, was asked to speak at the U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, on April 15, 2021 on religious peacebuilding. It was a conversation drawing from his book (on which he was the first presenter in our Scholars' Forum series), Religious Peace-Building in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the role of religion and religious actors in Sub-Saharan Africa (in the Great Lakes region of Africa in particular).

And, finally, another of our adjunct faculty, Dr. Rich Fritzky published a book recently, Unfading Light: the Sustaining Insight and Inspiration of Abraham Lincoln. He also did a separate presentation sponsored by the Core, which I wrote about in more detail in February.

All of these exciting things (and I could name others) occurred during this difficult year, and it is an inspiration that our faculty continue to be so productive and passionate about their scholarship and teaching, and our students continue to persevere and succeed in their classes. As Dr. King said (and as we placed on the poster for our Romero-King events): "Only in the darkness can you see the stars."

Categories: Education, Nation and World