College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University
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To Till and to Keep: Following the Ethical Imperative to Care for Creation Through Gender Exploration and Expression
Get PDFIn light of the recent USCCB document regarding \u27the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,\u27 this essay explores an alternative, transgender-affirming ethical framework drawn from Pope Francis\u27s Laudato si’. Within this framework, gender-affirming care is presented as fulfilling the call to care for creation through exploration and cultivation of the self
Generational Shift: Millennials and Gen Z Driving Ethical Supply Chains in Corporate America
Get PDFThis paper explores how millennials and Generation Z are driving a shift towards ethical supply chains in corporate America. Drawing on examples like Nike and Boohoo, it investigates the influence of these younger generations on consumer trends, emphasizing their preference for products aligned with values such as sustainability and ethically produced products. The paper outlines challenges faced by companies in adopting ethical practices, offers a step-by-step guide for implementing ethical supply chains, and highlights the significance of certifications like Fair Trade and B-Corp in fostering consumer trust and brand reputation. The paper asserts that millennials and Generation Z have reshaped consumer expectations, compelling companies to prioritize ethical sourcing. It underscores the importance of continuous adaptation to meet evolving consumer demands and advocates for a corporate ethos grounded in sustainability and social responsibility
Understanding Unconventional Beauty through Nature and Handmade Photography
Get PDFMass media has notoriously censored certain bodies, warping public views of what is acceptable versus what needs fixing. My work is motivated by body image and embracing aspects of unconventional beauty, such as cellulite, stretch marks, and fat rolls that are underrepresented yet oh-so-common. I believe the male gaze and advertising have instilled harmful misconceptions that there’s a right way to have a body; I aim to neutralize internalized shame and provoke curiosity about where our ideas of beauty stem from.
Using 19th-century methods like film and cyanotype, I capture the serenity between body and nature. Handmade photography rewards with serendipitous exposures and watermarks—I welcome these raw qualities to evoke truth, as inspired by Sally Mann’s “Angels of Uncertainty” and how she favors spontaneous impurities from analog media. After developing and scanning, I digitally collage self-portraits with nature to create internalized landscapes that mimic human form. To exhibit my complex journey toward self-appreciation, I contrast the emotive intensity of black and white film with gentler qualities from mixed-media cyanotypes. For instance, my piece Willowing playfully stitches twine and reflective threads to form a budding tree silhouette, alluding to personal growth and resilience.
In portraying the body, woodland elements like trees are crucial, for they spotlight “imperfectly perfect” resemblances (e.g. skin folds and branches, stretchmarks and bark textures, belly buttons and tree hollows). Such work is self-referential from my experience as a fat woman and longing to find worthiness in my vessel of flesh after years of societal and self-scrutiny. I perceive nature as a shameless escape, for its hills and plants lack judging eyes but rather extend graceful energies. In my exploration of unconventional beauty, the body and nature serve as a paradox: Why does admiration for nature’s physical quirks come easily yet is sparse for our individualized differences
Data Analysis Project for Preferred Credit Inc.
Get PDFThis project focuses on transforming real data within PCI\u27s operations into valuable insights through an approach of coding, data cleaning, and visualization. By leveraging advanced techniques, the project aims to uncover key trends and create visually compelling representations to aid decision-making within the company. The outcome will allow PCI stakeholders the ability to extract valuable insights, optimize processes, and drive initiatives for growth and competitive advantage in the finance industry
SJU Class of 2024 Commencement Celebration
No full textMay 11, 2024 The One Hundred Sixty-Seventh Year Abbey & University Church Saint John\u27s University Paul Williams, a 1984 Saint John’s University graduate and president and CEO of Project for Pride in Living, Inc., delivered the Saint John’s University commencement address at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 11 in Saint John\u27s Abbey and University Church.
Williams addressed the 2024 Saint John’s graduating class of 355 undergraduate men and 38 School of Theology and Seminary graduates.
Jackson May, a summa cum laude graduating economics and history double major from Monticello, Minnesota was the student commencement speaker.
Project for Pride in Living, Inc., (PPL) is one of Minnesota’s premier multi-service community development organizations. A St. Paul native, Williams brings an extensive background in affordable housing, economic development, education and diversity, equity, and inclusion to PPL. PPL provides affordable housing to over 3,500 individuals and families on a nightly basis and delivers employment training and education to close to 8,000 individuals annually.
Prior to PPL, Williams served as St. Paul’s deputy mayor, where he spearheaded affordable housing and community development investments for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). Serving first as Twin Cities LISC’s executive director, and then for five years as LISC’s national senior vice president for field strategies. Prior to his work at LISC, Williams served as a grant maker with the Minneapolis and Saint Paul community foundations, as well as vice president of allocations for the United Way of St. Paul.
Williams is active on numerous community boards, business-led Itasca Project, and the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs Dean’s Advisory Council. Williams holds a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School and a B.A. in government from SJU
Godfrey Diekmann Center Graduate Symposium 2024: Jonathan Tan Lecture “Doing Liturgy Intersectionally: Opportunities and Implications”
No full textWhat is the relationship betvveen liturgy and ecclesiology? How does the way we worship shape the way we are church, and vice versa? How do ongoing issues like race reconciliation, migration, cultural diversity, and other hot button issues confronting the church shape the way we worship and in turn, our worship shapes the way we address these issues? How do we address issues of agency and representation, challenges of power dynamics, cultural dominance, and ethnocentrism in our liturgies? Th_e powerful and moving images of diverse and pluralistic communities gathering around the baptismal font for baptism, and the altar table to break bread and share a cup is powerful witness to the fact that liturgy is about the gathering of the many and their intersecting experiences into one church sharing one baptism, one bread and cup. This lecture explores the opportunities and implications for doing liturgy at the intersection of diverse languages, ethnicities and cultures, generational shifts and border crossings, hybridities and multiple belongings, as well as the marginalizing experiences of being migrant, poor, different, and invisible in society and church. It considers how intersectional liturgizing enables us to move away from an us/them duality towards a \u27\u27both/and mutuality which facilitates a hospitable and welcoming environment, as well as fosters mutuality and interdependence, reconciliation and koinonia, friendship and collaboration, where every is able to listen to, and experience each other\u27s stories, experiences, traditions, dreams, and hopes in solidarity and empathy. It discusses how intersectional liturgizing is also a new way of being church -building a truly intersectional church in the fullness of diversity arid plurality, hybridities and multiple belongings, differences yet united by one baptism and one bread and cup, such that everyone is welcomed and no one is marginalized, excluded, or left behind. Jonathan Y. Tan is The Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor of Catholic Studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, as well as Organist and Director of Music at The Church of Our Saviour, a bilingual and intercultural urban Episcopal parish in the Mount Auburn neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio with a significant indigenous Mayan Guatemalan and Honduran majority. He holds a Ph.D. in theology and culture from The Catholic University of America in Washington1 DC, a M.A. in liturgical studies from the Graduate Theological Union/ Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and a LLB. (Honours) from the National University of Singapore Law School. Previously, he taught at Australian Catholic University in Sydney, Australia, Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and The Catholic University of America. Jonathan works at the intersection of World Christianity, Global Catholicism, Liturgical Studies, and Liturgical Music. He is the author of Introducing Asian American Theologies (Orbis Books, 2008), which was funded by the Louisville Institute\u27s First Book Grant for Scholars of Color, 2005 and remains the principal one-volume survey of Asian American Christian theologies. His second book, Christian Mission among the Peoples of Asia (Orbis Books, 2014) has been named by the International Bulletin of Missionary Research as one of 15 outstanding books of 2014 for mission studies. His most recent book, The Federation of Asian Bishops\u27 Conferences {FABC): Bearing Witness to the Gospel and the Reign of God in Asia (Fortress Press, 2021) is a definitive study of the contributions of the Federation of Asian Bishops\u27 Conferences (F ABC) to an emerging contemporary Asian Catholic way of being church and doing theology. Jonathan is also the lead editor of World Christianity: Perspectives and Insights (Orbis Books, 2016), which has been named by the International Bulletin of Mission Research as one of the 10 outstanding books of 2016 for mission studies, and co-editor of Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), which remains the principal work on Christian theologizing on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. In the field of liturgical studies, Jonathan\u27s essay, Beyond Sacrosanctum Concilium: The Future of Liturgical Renewal in the Asian Catholic Church, Studia Liturgica, 44 (2014) remains the principal study of the impact and implications of Vatican II\u27s Constitution on the Liturgy in Asia. His recent essay, The Church\u27s Liturgical Music is Countercultural, in Living the Church\u27s Song: Propositions for an Ecumenical Theology of Liturgical Music (GIA, 2023) examines the complex relationship behveen culture and liturgical music. He makes the case for liturgical traditioning in his 2012 essay, Asian American Catholics and Contemporary Liturgical Migrations: From Tradition-Maintenance to Traditioning in Liturgy in Migration: From the Upper Room to Cyberspace, ed. Teresa Berger (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2012)
Godfrey Diekmann Center Graduate Symposium 2024: A Question of Lex Orandi: Musical Authority in the Baltimore Mar Thoma Community
No full textScott Cooper is Professor of World Languages at Anne Arundel Community College (Arnold, MD) and Visiting Professor of Spanish at St. Mary\u27s Seminary and University (Baltimore, MD). In addition to his prior academic work in language and literature, he received a Master of Arts in Theology and a Master of Arts in Church Ministries from St. Mary\u27s Ecumenical Institute. He ls a PhD candidate in instructional leadership at Notre- Dame of Maryland University, where he is completing a dissertation on bilingual education in Baltimore\u27s nineteenth century parochial and public schools
Guns, Bombs, and Pollution: Unraveling the Nexus between Warfare, Terrorism, and Ecological Devastation in Iraq
Get PDFIraq\u27s environment has experienced significant pollution and degradation, earning it the dubious distinction of being one of the most polluted and degraded regions globally, according to the Globe Pollution Review. The past three decades of armed conflict have exacted a heavy toll on the country, resulting in widespread human suffering, including countless fatalities, injuries, and a massive displacement of people. Amidst this death and destruction, the ecosystem has also endured severe damage, and its decline carries long-lasting implications.
The environmental crisis in Iraq has been worsened by the presence of extremist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) and various militia groups. These groups have compounded the damage already caused by the protracted conflict in the country. Everywhere ISIS has operated, significant environmental degradation has occurred, posing severe health risks to the local population.
A qualitative approach, including a review of relevant literature and analysis of case studies, will be used to explore the environmental consequences of armed conflicts, militia activities, and oil industry operations in Iraq. The study will also examine the long-term health risks associated with environmental degradation caused by intense urban combat.
The study reveals that a combination of factors, including bomb remnants, extremist group activities, and oil industry pollution, has led to Iraq\u27s environmental devastation. As a result of the conflict, oil and gas facilities have transformed into significant sources of health and environmental hazards. Furthermore, urban combat involving airstrikes, VBIEDs, and artillery has created long-lasting ecological and health hazards due to the destruction of industrial sites and critical infrastructures in densely populated areas.
This research paper highlights the intricate relationship between war, terrorism, and the environment in Iraq. It sheds light on the destructive effects of armed conflict on the ecosystem and emphasizes the urgent need for comprehensive environmental remediation efforts. Through a comprehensive analysis of available literature, this research explores the direct and indirect ecological consequences of armed conflicts and acts of terrorism in Iraq. Addressing the pollution and ecological devastation will not only contribute to the well-being of the Iraqi people but also foster long-term stability and sustainable development in the country
Organising Civil Resistance - Understanding the Effects and Dynamics of Organisational Structures on the Outcome of Civil Resistance Campaigns
Get PDFThe use of nonviolent tactics has become the most common way to achieve change. The field of civil resistance has been predominantly focussed on the dynamics related to the outcome, however, surprisingly little or no attention has been given to organisational structures that shape these dynamics. This paper will try to fill this research gap by combining insights from organisational science, social movement studies, and civil resistance literature. The research question that is posed is: What is the effect of the organisational structure on the outcome of civil resistance campaigns? Research from organisational sciences argues that organisational structures, forms of action, and type of goals mutually influence each other in a dynamic and on-going process. Drawn from prior research, a theoretical typology is introduced with different types of structures that affect critical factors that influence the outcome of civil resistance campaigns: mass mobilisation, loyalty shifts, tactical diversity, and resilience. The study showed that organisational structures affect the outcome of civil resistance campaigns in several ways. However, the main findings that were expected to be found did not yield significant evidence, as such the formulated hypothesis can ultimately be rejected. The results of the quantitative analysis show that the odds of success are 2.16 times larger in campaigns with formal organisational structures compared to informal structures, and the odds of success are 28.0 times larger in cases with centralised structures compared to clustered structures. Overall, centralised structures have the highest odds of success. This new insight has practical implications on how civil resistance campaigns should organise to achieve change and provides fertile ground for exciting new research and the answering of newly arisen questions