This past summer, Conversations brought together a group of students from across the AJCU network on Zoom and asked them how their Jesuit education gives them hope. As a supplement to our students’ edited responses in our Spring 2021 issue, Conversations is pleased to publish the entire transcript of the interview below:
What about your Jesuit education gives you hope?
Sumbul Siddiqui: I'm in my second year at the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago, doing a dual degree in medicine and public health.
So, I found out I was undocumented during my last year of high school, in Georgia, where I grew up since age four. And finding this out made me feel hopeless because, at that time, I couldn't apply for federal aid for college, couldn't even attend a public university. That really hurt. After being admitted to a private college as an international student, and after DACA started in 2012, I could maintain a driver's license, didn't have to worry about getting deported, could get a work permit.
But when the time came to apply to medical school, none would accept me. It was against their policy. I eventually searched “medical student and DACA,” and Stritch Medical School popped up--the first, the only school then that I could apply to.
And now here, it's so different, because I can be myself. They tell you that they know you worked hard to get here, that they were rigorous in the application process, that you’re meant to be here. So, despite everything, I’ve grown a lot in my confidence.
I'm also given this platform at Loyola to talk about my status, to encourage my peers, to call on them as citizens to support better policies. Developing that kind of mutual relationship is really what I see as the meaning of being a person for others. It's not just words here, it’s words and actions. They actually do what they say they do, and that gives me hope.
Sumbul Siddiqui (second from the left), an MD/MPH student at the Stritch School of Medicine and the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health at Loyola University Chicago, is among five prominent figures in Atlanta, Georgia’s immigrant community who is featured in a mural painted by Yehimi Cambron. Born in Saudi Arabia, Siddiqui has called Atlanta home since the age of four. Since 2017, she has been active in efforts to support Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), speaking at numerous rallies and sharing her stories as an undocumented immigrant. Photo courtesy of the Samuel Cardinal Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago.
Caroline Maltese: I study cell molecular biology, with minors in chemistry and philosophy, at John Carroll University.
I went to Catholic schools my whole life, but Jesuit education made me dive much deeper into things I’d always done. I loved service in high school, even grade school, because it made me very happy. But when I got to John Carroll, I was like, Whoa, this is a bigger thing than I thought. And what gives me hope is seeing people accept that service has a deeper meaning, not just helping out every once in a while and feeling - That was a great day! It’s not as easy as just working at a food drive and then feeling good about yourself.
I get hope from my peers, mentors, teachers because their passion for service that makes them uncomfortable. Service is actually not always happy. You expose yourself to things that might make you feel really bad, which gets you thinking.
Our service learning program allows peer leaders to facilitate really awesome discussions and reflections about the social justice issues we’re witnessing and experiencing at service sites--hard issues like racism, sexism, gentrification in Cleveland. And learning to talk about them, you can really see change in how people define service and develop a passion about working for and with others. That is my source of hope, this shift from doing service for you to doing service for and with others--really caring for them.
Britt Axelson: I'm from the College of the Holy Cross where I am a theater design major and an environmental studies minor.
I was nervous starting out here because as a queer person at a Catholic school, I thought, I don't know how this is going to work out. But it's been lovely. And it’s interesting because these have been the most difficult couple years for the Holy Cross community--hard things to deal with. But every time, the administration, specifically the Chaplains’ Office, has been there with so much love and support.
And I have this very tricky relationship with religion, seeing how it’s hurt people I care about. But then I've also seen it be really beautiful and do the things it's meant to do--help people, teach us how to love. So, I've seen religion at its best at Holy Cross. And that gives me so much hope because, as a queer person, you hear so much negative stuff. You hear, Catholic and gay--how does that go together? But we're given a space where we can specifically develop our spirituality, and this amazing support when bad things happen.
Also, I see so many young people stressed out about what to do with their lives. And Jesuit discernment helps here, learning to listen to yourself. It's not just, what are you good at? But it’s, what do you feel called to do? What do you really want with your life?
This is so important because everyone can do a job. But learning how to listen to yourself and figure out what you are called to in your life--that's the biggest thing that people need to live hopeful lives.
Abigail Seipel: I graduated from Rockhurst University in 2019, studying exercise science and Spanish, and now I’m in a physical therapy graduate program in Colorado.
What gives me hope is that, since I’ve suffered from imposter syndrome, a very severe self-questioning and uncertainty--having had a Jesuit education makes me feel capable of doing something. Even if I don’t always think I have all the right tools, or if I’m just feeling insecure, knowing that, because I’ve been taught and influenced by so many good people and exposed to so many valuable ideas and perspectives, I actually do have so many of those tools already. All of my professors, all of those experiences in our social justice group, in leading retreats, and performing liturgical music--they’ve all prepared me, and I have them to remember and continue to use them.
Also, one of the biggest things I learned was the importance of stillness and just being. It’s something I really struggle with, because I like to do things, accomplish things. But just being--that's something I really have to be conscious of.
I’m someone, whenever I do something, I go all in, and so even though I didn't know anything about Jesuit tradition coming in, I've really bought into its values about a complete education of the whole person. I feel like I have taken these values on as a way of life.
And they're not just values anymore. By the end of my time at Rockhurst, they actually became a part of me. And so that's what really gives me hope--just knowing how much I have grown in those values, that I have the capacity to continue to grow, just continuing to learn what living those values looks like for me. That's hopeful.
Rosalyn Tangi Vargas: I graduated from Loyola Marymount University, and after years in retail management, I recently started an online graduate program in Organizational Leadership at Gonzaga University.
My hope comes from how Jesuit education has helped me to serve others. At LMU, there were many Greek organizations, but just as many service groups. So, service was really in the fabric.
But the theme of hope really comes in during the long break between my undergraduate years and graduate school. At work, I was always trying to serve others, put them before my success. But service was mostly an afterthought for other leaders there. And what I learned from that is, there's a difference between talking about service and leadership, versus choosing to lead through supporting others. In terms of hope, it was a real battle for me to see those who did not choose to serve others when, internally, all I wanted to do was serve and support my team.
So, when I started at Gonzaga, what gave me hope was that service is a core value, not just a trend or a slogan in Jesuit education. And that, even if you’re surrounded by people who don’t believe in service, you can serve anyway. Just being in this environment of service at LMU and Gonzaga, there’s so much hope.
Freedom Richardson: I am from Loyola University in New Orleans, a political science major with a minor in criminology and justice, and I’m student government president.
With all that’s been going on in this country, it has been incredibly challenging to find hope. And so I rely very heavily on the contributions of my peers here. I’m Baptist, but I think the Jesuit principles are just so universal, and I think they influence every aspect of our campus life — from class discussions on. I actually started college at another school, but when I got here, I found that it had what I’d hoped for, and that was a diversity of thought. I wanted to challenge my values, beliefs, experiences, my prejudices.
Freedom Richardson (right) and Jessamyn Reichman share their vision during a Student Government Association debate at Loyola University New Orleans. Since transferring to Loyola New Orleans, Richardson has been challenged and edified by the Loyola community’s commitment to solidarity and diversity of thought. Photo courtesy of Cristian Orellana from The Maroon, the student newspaper of Loyola University New Orleans.
But beyond that, I’ve learned we’re much more about solidarity than other places--that it’s not just a word that we hear when we’re recruiting. We genuinely target engagement with the hardest hit communities, being really intentional so we make an impact--not just in areas hit by crime and lack of opportunity, but also by Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing aftermath.
Also, we’re in the center of one of New Orleans’s most affluent areas, and yet our programming takes us to these black and brown museums run by local artists and activists, drawing on their own art and their native New Orleanian status. And because we're positioned in a comfortable area, you end up talking about gentrification and white flight, and you see just how they relate to the lack of opportunity, the desperation that permeates our city.
We are trying to make up for that in the community organizations we partner with, the legal aid we provide, the food pantry that feeds our own students. The hope comes in really understanding that each of these is just part of a larger problem that we are responsible for solving together.
William Critchley-Menor, S.J.: I just finished my undergraduate degree at St. Louis University, and I'm staying here for a master’s in American studies.
What gives me hope is the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. My own first encounter with the Jesuit tradition was as a 19-year old in the Jesuit novitiate, doing the Spiritual Exercises, before I came to SLU. And what I found was a great avenue toward God and an encounter with the God who changes people's lives, changes how they look at others.
So, when I think about hope, it’s not service or social justice or academics--any of those good things that we do, because I also see these good things at most other institutions.
But I think of a Mass every November for people in our campus community and their loved ones who’ve died. That gives me hope, because, what is more hopeful than a community coming together to grieve, to name their pain, to say we believe in something beyond our grief, we're going to move beyond our grief? I find that very, very intentional care for the soul extraordinarily beautiful, something I do not see elsewhere.
And I also think about stillness, breath, slowing down. We hear the word magis all the time. And I think so often that word is exploited to mean we're going to do more or greater things than others, and that's not what it means. It’s about bringing into all that we do a question about love, about things that move us in the heart, not just the head, that move us toward God. Young people in our generation sometimes forget to ask that question, but I think Jesuit universities do. And that gives me a lot of hope. A lot of hope.
William “Billy” Critchley-Menor, S.J. (right), a graduate student of American Studies at Saint Louis University, is all smiles with Sister Mary Immanuela Pineiro, F.S.G.M., and Anthony Hayden, S.J. For Critchley-Menor, “it is good to be friends with others who are seeking to make present the love of Jesus Christ on earth and walk with them in wondering at and pursuing that in a concrete way.” Photo courtesy of Saint Louis University.
Who at your Jesuit institution gives you hope?
Rosalyn Tangi Vargas: Ellen Ensher, who teaches management at LMU, because she believed in me as an undergraduate and has mentored me ever since. To have a professor tell you that they see potential in you, that makes a difference.
Also, Michael Carey of Gonzaga’s Organizational Leadership program, for building his course around applying the Spiritual Exercises--not just to reflect on us, but also to reflect on how we can make change for others.
Caroline Maltese: Blake Yoho in our Center for Service and Social Action, someone I can go to with all of my uncertainty, is one of the people that gives me hope. I feel like when you're talking about social justice, you're just supposed to get it, and I really didn’t. But he's allowed me to speak freely, to talk things through. He's pushed me, but there's a comfort level. And those are the people you really value, who don’t give you exactly what you want to hear.
Freedom Richardson: Two shout outs. Andrew Denney, a criminology and justice professor who boldly challenges students regarding white privilege. I’m eternally grateful for him.
And I'm grateful for a former campus support worker in my dorm, Jackie. Two years after finding another job elsewhere, she still checks on us. One morning, she was having her coffee, and she says to me, “That girl you with, not for you.” She cares about the whole person and doesn't get paid for that.
Sumbul Siddiqui: Mark Kuczewski, a professor who’s one of our biggest supporters as DACA students, has created an environment of support and safety and figures out where mentors are. He always says, “Hey, you're medical students, you have to study, and we will be the ones fighting for you, we’ll have your back-even if the Supreme Court terminates DACA.”
William Critchley-Menor, S.J.: The SLU alumni I've encountered at the Catholic Worker community in St. Louis give me hope. They live heroic lives of voluntary poverty, analyzing their own privileges, trying to live a nonviolent, peaceful, loving life that's poured out in not only giving service to others, but in dwelling with them. That’s incredibly powerful.
Britt Axelson: I’d like to highlight our Chaplains’ Office and our Counseling Center. They are the people I think of when I think of my cheerleaders here. They're just there for me, an actual support system, and I really appreciate and love them all, very much.
Abigail Seipel: Our president, Father Thomas Curran, S.J.--an incredible man who gets to know students, sits down with them in the cafeteria, remembers things about them. He once showed me how important it is to be present. I was on a freshman retreat, really stressed about a biology test and all my homework. And Father Curran sat down next to me, asked how I was doing. I told him. And he was like, Just be present this weekend. All of that will still be there when you get back. But for now, just be all here. I’ve carried that with me ever since.
The cover photo (above) is featured courtesy of Regis University.