July 25, 2007
Pope Benedict XVI captured the essence of the moment when
speaking with St. John’s administrators
Rev. Jean-Pierre Ruiz, S.T.D., Director of the Master of Arts
in Liberal Studies, and
Sister Margaret John Kelly, D.C., Executive Director of the
Vincentian Center for Church and Society, at the Vatican earlier
this month. The pontiff, commenting on St. John’s University’s
two-year master’s concentration in Global Development and Social
Justice stated, “This is an important work that must continue.”
And continue it has, moving ahead in the second full year of the
program, having built momentum more quickly than anyone could have
imagined. Conceptualized by Dr. Annalisa Saccà, St. John’s
Professor of Italian, and Dr. Riccardo Colasanti, General Secretary
of Caritas of Rome, the successful program accepted 20 new students
to Rome for an orientation hosted by distinguished members of
Caritas of Rome and St. John’s faculty. Unique in its quest for
relationship-building and higher education through distance
learning, the program gathered a number of master’s students from
last year’s inaugural group who were in Rome to meet and
acclimatize their new colleagues to the journey that lies
ahead.
St. John’s University, Caritas of Rome, and the Idente
Foundation provide scholarship funding for students from around the
world, with a special emphasis on students from the world’s least
developed nations. Students in this year’s entering class hail from
countries including Bulgaria, Russia, Palestine, Nigeria, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Philippines, Thailand and
Colombia. Each student is equipped with a notebook computer,
digital camera and all the software that they will need to
participate in the distance learning components of the
program.
“These students are very different in their backgrounds from the
excellent students in the first incoming class that began a year
ago,” Rev. Ruiz admitted. “These students are just as highly
motivated and eager to begin their class work. Sharing their
work and experiences and networking with each other as they met in
person in Rome is an important element of the program. It was a
wonderful part of the orientation process.”
Applications for the program have begun to soar through word of
mouth about its impressive curriculum reaching across continents in
a global show of support. “The response of applications
indicates we are on to something in Global Development and Social
Justice with inquiries well past the prescribed deadline in March.
Our numbers enable the faculty to go the extra mile and interact in
a meaningful way to create a distance learning environment that
benefits everyone,” Rev. Ruiz added.
Excellence in teaching is a high priority for St. John’s and the
University has been proactive in providing faculty with resources
for learning to teach online. Faculty members teaching in the
Global Development and Social Justice concentration are required to
complete a course in distance learning pedagogy that uses the same
online course tools that they will use as they teach their own
students.
The conclusion of the upcoming 2007-2008 academic year will mark
the completion of the concentration in Global Development and
Social Justice by the students who began the program in Rome during
summer 2006 and who have just completed their first year of
distance learning courses. Those who complete the program
successfully will receive their master’s degrees at the 12th
Commencement Exercises in Rome in July 2008.
“I’m really impressed with the movement of this concentration
from our first conversations on the subject to its implementation
as a part of St. John’s University’s curriculum today,” Rev. Ruiz
concluded. “While completing their degrees will be a major
accomplishment for these students, it is only after they complete
their degrees that we’ll be able to assess the real success of the
program, when they go back to their homelands and put what they’ve
learned to use to make a difference in advancing sustainable
development that is rooted in the principles of Catholic social
teaching.”
For more information on the Global Development and Social
Justice Master’s Concentration or the undergraduate Minor in Social
Justice in the Vincentian Tradition, contact: Rev. Jean-Pierre
Ruiz, S.T.D., Director, Master of Arts in Liberal Studies by
calling (718) 990-1393 or e-mailing inquiries to ruizj@stjohns.edu.
Media representatives interested in the program can contact
Dominic Scianna, Director of Media Relations at St. John’s by
calling (718) 990-6185 or by e-mail at sciannad@stjohns.edu.