Santa Clara University

CRS Partnership

SCU and Catholic Relief Services partnership will benefit students and faculty

 

Ken Hackett, C.E.O. of Catholic Relief Services, SCU President Paul Locatelli, S.J., and Bishop Patrick McGrath

When SCU welcomed Catholic Relief Services (CRS) president Ken Hackett to campus May 4 to sign a memorandum of understanding [.PDF] between the two organizations, it formalized the collaboration initiated approximately 18 months ago between the University and the official international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community.

“We are very excited to have Santa Clarain partnership with CRS. What has become clear to us is how well our respective missions and values are aligned—namely, our commitment to faith, justice, and solidarity based on Catholic social teaching,” said SCU President Paul Locatelli, S.J.

The Catholic Bishops of the United States founded CRS in 1943 as an international relief and development group. Now with a local presence in over 90 countries worldwide, the agency strives not only to help the poor and disadvantaged globally, but also to educate Americans about their moral responsibility to remove the causes of poverty and to promote social justice worldwide.

A number of program areas provide opportunities for collaboration between the two organizations, Locatelli said. These include:

• Student volunteer and service-based learning opportunities
• Faculty and student research opportunities
• Links to SCU Centers of Distinction
• Guest speaker opportunities
• Liaison to Campus Ministry

“The partnership is already enhancing existing service-based learning endeavors while enabling new connections to be forged as well,” said Michael Colyer, assistant director of the Pedro Arrupe, S.J Center for Community-based Learning. Three SCU students who were already scheduled to teach English in Peru this summer will have the assistance of staff members of the local Peruvian CRS office to help give them perspective and connections in the country, Colyer said.

“CRS has so much experience and so much knowledge around the world,” said Colyer, who is drawing on CRS’s connections and efforts in Ecuador to set up a new trip to the country for 14 students in September. He will use CRS’s extensive educational materials before and after the trip, as well as work with Ecuadorian CRS personnel during the journey “to allow students to see the world with new eyes,” he said.

Although not all service-learning opportunities will be in conjunction with CRS, said Catherine Wolff, outgoing director of the Arrupe Center, working with the agency “will expand some of our programs. It won’t change them, but it will enrich them.” The common goals of CRS and SCU mean “we are all speaking the same language,” Wolff said. Neither organization wants international service-based learning opportunities “to be sociological tourism. What we want is for people to be startled out of their customary way of looking at things. Our hope is that when they come back, they will become leaven in the community for change in whatever way their talents lead them.”

CRS and the Arrupe Center are cooperating in a domestic project as well, sponsoring a joint internship in HIV/AIDS ministry at SCU. Intern Ruth Stanton, a junior psychology major, will attend a national AIDS conference in Chicago in July with CRS, then work to develop AIDS awareness and prevention programs for SCU as well as surrounding communities in conjunction with the Arrupe Center, using resources in the Santa Clara area.

According to CRS-West partnerships officer Joe Symkowick, the relief organization is hoping information garnered from the project will help the agency tailor their approach to their mission in the United States. “If our task at CRS is to make U.S. Catholics more aware of the poor in the world, is there any particular way to do that?” Symkowick wondered. Symkowick also sees the collaboration as a real opportunity for creativity. “For us, it fulfills our need for the kind of talent the university has,” he said. “They are the theory; we are the practice. The theory puts forth new ideas, the practice puts them in action.”