Peace Pushers (NJSLC Series, No.1)
This blog post is the first in a series written by Georgetown participants in the National Jesuit Student Leadership Conference (NJSLC), which was held at Regis University in Denver, Colorado in July 2016. The NJSLC is a five day conference for all 28 Jesuit universities in the U.S. and brings student leaders together to develop ideas, explore student issues and build stronger leadership skills to better serve their institutions in the Jesuit tradition.
The NJSLC 2017 will be held at Georgetown University next summer.
A community is nothing without its members. Each role and aspect forms an essential piece of a much larger entity capable of accomplishing magnificent feats. The greatest of these feats is the pursuit of peace: a sense of understanding and partnership within and between communities. I was exposed to the pieces of our community of Jesuit universities this July at Regis University. I can without a doubt say that the driven work of each student leader that attended NJSLC 2016 pushes our institutions and our communities towards the goal of peace. Whether addressing the social implications of the words we speak or confronting difficult histories of slavery and prejudice, the student leaders showed me the importance of pursuing our passions and broadening our horizons. The friendly faces and outgoing leaders that I met during my time at NJSLC 2016 made me hopeful for the future of Georgetown University and all of the other Jesuit universities throughout the country. With an expanded network of friends and resources now spread across the nation, myself and my fellow Hoyas have the capabilities of finding solutions to the most pressing of social justice issues that affect our university, our community and our country.
With the idea of peace in mind, we look to NJSLC 2017 to build upon the pursuits of our partners in the Jesuit educational community. It is safe to say that diligent, constant work towards the goal of peace is now more necessary than ever. We need students to assume the role of peaceful warriors that relentlessly pursue peace through service, scholarship, and activism. We need the members of community to join together as a voice that speaks out against the injustices of inequality and prejudice. We need the pieces of the Jesuit educational community to solve the puzzling issues found on all of our campuses. In that endeavor, it will be the role of Georgetown University and the NJSLC 2017 Planning Committee to bring the pieces, the projects, and the passions of our community together. We must provide the student leaders at Jesuit institutions of higher education with the resources to be able pursue their burning desires. It will be our goal to empower student leaders through the sharing of their experiences and the promotion of understanding, so that they may leave Georgetown University to ardently continue their progress towards peace. We shall join together the pieces of our community, so that our student leaders go from NJSLC 2017 and set the world on fire.
Written by Benjamin Baldwin, F’19