“Another reason is that teaching a variety of students is invigorating and instructive for faculty,” Fallon adds. He understands his teaching at the Homeless Center as an expression of these commitments. “We have a strong undergraduate sense of service here, which is tied here to Catholic social teaching and the preferential option for the poor,” Fallon notes. That has been particularly interesting for texts like the Odyssey…There is a strong sense of homelessness and searching in the Odyssey… Their experiences are in some ways more easily connectable to the texts than the experiences our traditional undergraduates have had.”įallon believes that engagement with marginalized and low-income communities is important for all universities, especially wealthy private Catholic universities like Notre Dame. “The students who we have at the Homeless Center have all sort of washed up on the shore after a tempestuous period. “The Homeless Center classes have life experiences which are entirely unlike the life experiences of our undergrads,” Fallon explains. “There is a strong sense of homelessness and searching in the *Odyssey*” We have found that we have had students at the Homeless Center who are every bit as up to the challenge of reading and discussing intelligently highly complex texts.”Īs in on-campus seminars, participation involves both discussing the text as an object of study and connecting the texts to lived experience. “We're used to having very, very smart students, our undergraduates especially. “Notre Dame is highly selective,” Fallon continues. “Again and again, we have had the experience of students both surprised and delighted and growing in self-confidence because they can read these texts with comprehension and can talk about them with interested peers and professors.” “Often we have students who have no experience reading classic texts at all,” Fallon says. With this group, Fallon reports considerable progress. Students come from a range of educational backgrounds: some have earned college degrees, others have taken some college courses some have diplomas or GEDs, and some possess 12th-grade reading skills but do not yet have GEDs. Image courtesy of the World Masterpieces Seminar. We have found that students report growing in self-confidence and in the sense of belonging to a larger intellectual community.” Residents of the South Bend Center for the Homeless participate in the University of Notre Dame World Masterpieces Seminar, reading and discussing of great works of literature. “We believe that students who are empowered by reading classic texts will gain more of a voice and confidence to address issues in the public.
Not in terms of right or left, but in terms of enfranchising people to join the public conversation,” Fallon notes. “We have a strong belief that humanities are important politically speaking. The project is driven by the conviction that the humanities effect positive change. “The leaders see themselves not as lecturers or those who give the meaning of texts under discussion, but as those who read the text more carefully and more often and those who are more experienced as readers.” “We require students to do the reading and to be active participants in class discussion, which is the way we run Great Books seminars on campus,” co-founder Stephen Fallon explains. They are operated as interactive undergraduate seminars, a format which helps build enthusiasm among participants.
To enable parents to participate, Notre Dame undergraduates provide free on-site childcare.Ĭlasses are built around readings drawn from the on-campus Great Books curriculum, including Sophocles' Antigone and selections from the Odyssey, Paradise Lost, and Dialogues of Plato. Image courtesy of the World Masterpieces Seminar.Įnrollment is open to all the Center’s homeless residents.
60521 *First Level*Ģ0 South Main Street Liberty, Indiana 47353īody Bar MD // Skin Deep Aesthetics SalonĨ00 S.Residents of the South Bend Center for the Homeless participate in the University of Notre Dame World Masterpieces Seminar, reading and discussing of great works of literature. Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyomingġ675 Cumberland Parkway Southeast suite 410ġ350 Scenic Highway N.