Exciting Programs for Students from University Ministry and the Siena Center

University Ministry welcomes people of all religious traditions and cultures to explore and enliven their spirituality and faith. Rooted in the Catholic Dominican tradition, University Ministry provides an atmosphere of hospitality and offers a variety of programs and services through which students explore faith and spirituality, develop relationships, and experience service and justice as vital components of a meaningful, faithful life.

Students are invited to enrich their Dominican experience by participating in University Ministry programs, liturgies, social justice and service opportunities, interfaith dialog, and ongoing conversation about faith in their lives and in the world.
Here's a look at some of the ways your students will be invited to get involved this fall:

• Sunday Evening Mass - 7:00 p.m.
  All are invited to worship as a Dominican community each Sunday evening at 7:00 p.m. in Rosary Chapel. Student leadership opportunities include roles as a member of the Liturgical Choir, Lector, Eucharistic Minister, Greeter, Sacristan, or Instrumentalist. Daily Mass is also celebrated at 5:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, in Rosary Chapel, and on Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. in the Priory Campus Chapel.
• NEW Long-Weekend Alternative Break Trips (October 22-24)
  Two new, local service immersion trips will be offered, inviting students to explore a social justice issue by speaking with local experts and advocates, visiting sites in and around Chicago, performing hands-on service, and reflecting with others. The themes for this fall's trips will be "Exploring Immigration" and "Healthy Food, Healthy Communities."
• Faith Sharing Groups
  Through the group Breaking Open, students gather weekly to reflect on where God is active in their lives. Student leaders incorporate music, Scripture, and discussion, while students build a supportive, encouraging faith community. Also new this year: single-gender groups, facilitated by trained staff, faculty, and Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters, will help students explore life direction and discern the movement of the Spirit in their lives.
• Retreats
  All students are encouraged to take time away from busy college life to reflect, rest, and be renewed. The popular Kairos retreat takes place each February, and student leaders will work to develop an additional retreat experience for the Fall. Campus Ministry staff and Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters also facilitate a Busy Student Retreat each semester, encouraging students to engage in daily Scripture reflection and a one-on-one meeting with a Spiritual Companion as they participate in a week-long "retreat" right on campus.
• Interfaith Reflection Series (IFRS)
  These monthly gatherings will help build awareness of and appreciation for the many different religious traditions of the world. Discussion and time for Q&A will be part of each gathering. The IFRS will be just one of several campus-wide initiatives in the coming year that will help the Dominican community participate in Interfaith dialogue.

Introducing the Fall Siena Center Program Schedule

Why did you and your son or daughter choose Dominican University? What makes this place so special, and such a terrific environment in which to spend these critical years of life? Behind Dominican's relationship-centered community and mission to pursue truth, give compassionate service and participate in the creation of a just and humane world is our Catholic identity. The Catholic, Dominican traditions of this university give us the roots out of which our mission flourishes. But how do we water the roots?

Welcome to the St. Catherine of Siena Center! Established in 2003, the Siena Center is a key component in achieving Dominican University's aspiration to become a premier Catholic university. We are about bringing scholarship and faith together to address the critical issues of contemporary life. And our programs this year are especially suited to you-the parents of our cherished students. This year, we will be looking at how our faith tradition not only survives, but thrived From Generation to Generation. Tradition is not merely recollection of the past, it is a way of living toward the future. So, how might it grow, develop and retain continuity-across history and within a single person's lifetime? Drawing on the expertise of parents and theologians, educators and sociologists, religious leaders and cultural critics the 2010-2011 Siena Center season examines the meaning of faith moving from generation to generation. We hope you will be able to join us. For tickets or more information go to www.siena.dom.edu or call 708-714-9105.

Finding Sacred Space in Cyberspace
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 / 7:00 p.m. / Priory Auditorium
Cathleen Falsani is an award-winning religion columnist and contributing editor at Sojourners Magazine. Like many folks who skew more toward Generation X than Generation Z, Falsani began her foray onto Facebook as an exercise in ennui abatement.  But the death of a college friend created a communion of twenty souls all over the world who share their lives, hopes, fears, struggles, and joys together in cyberspace.  She tells a story of an absolutely authentic, transformative phenomenon that has truly enlivened her faith and asks, "Might the Spirit of God abide in the electrons that float through cyberspace?" Her latest book, The Thread: Rediscovering Faith and Friendship on Facebook will be released in the summer 2010.

Caritas et Veritas Lecture
Thursday, September 30, 2010 / 6:00 p.m. / Lund Auditorium
Timothy Radcliffe, OP is the former Master of the Dominican Order. He currently lives at Blackfriars, Oxford, and lectures internationally. His most recent books are What is the Point of Being a Christian? and Why Go To Church? In this lecture, which will close Dominican University's Caritas et Veritas Symposium, Radcliffe will address the relationship of love and truth, and their meaning for the 21st century. Can there be truth without love, or love without truth?

What Was Handed On To Me - Passing the Faith from One Generation to the Next
Tuesday, October 12, 2010 / 7:00 p.m. / Priory Auditorium
Melissa Musick Nussbaum and Anna Keating, a mother-daughter team, are both religious educators and widely published essayists on spirituality. In a time when "delegate" and "outsourcing" are common verbs, there are still some things that can only be done by hand, handed from one person to another.  As St. Paul writes to the church at Corinth, "For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received...."  It is human work on a human scale, giving over what can only be modeled, not compelled, taught, and not directed from a distance.  Parenting and faith formation have that in common; they are labors, done by hand and in person.

Mazzuchelli Lecture
Dominican by Adoption:  Growing in a Life of Service
Tuesday, November 2, 2010 / 5:00 p.m. / Martin Recital Hall
William Lies, CSC, PhD is director of the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame, and a fellow of both the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Focusing on the role of service-learning in Dominican higher education, this talk will honor Samuel Mazzuchelli and all that he brought to life. It will be rooted in Catholic social teaching and all that implies for our discernment of and formation in our respective vocations... and for lifelong service in the Church and the world.

Advent Lecture
Is God's Reign of Peace Really Possible?
Thursday, December 2, 2010 / 7:00 p.m. / Priory Auditorium
Dianne Bergant, CSA, PhD is professor of Biblical Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. The Isaian passages read during the Sundays of Advent contain a flavor of anticipation. God initiates a prophetic proclamation of hope for a people in dire straits, suffering some form of deprivation, and discouraged with life. God promises such people a new era of peace and harmony.