Social justice topics are extremely important to the Cabrini University community. From the moment that students step onto Cabrini’s campus they are surrounded with numerous hands-on opportunities and classes that relate to various social justice issues starting from freshman year until graduation day four years later.
Each year, Cabrini recognizes Mother Cabrini’s feast day by celebrating Cabrini Day. Cabrini Day provides students with the opportunity to share their research on different social justice issues. The school closes various departments and cancels day classes so that the Cabrini community can come together and advocate for change.
One of the main goals of Cabrini Day is for students to spread awareness for their various social justice projects. Cabrini Day is a day for the entire Cabrini This is really special because students are able to share their knowledge of different issues that are not often talked about to their peers, professors, and families. At Cabrini Day there are presentations, posters, speakers, and even simulations that guests can walk through.
Cabrini Day is a day dedicated to teaching, advocating, and reflecting. It is a day for the Cabrini community to come together and realize what the true mission of the university.
These opportunities are taught in almost every class. Cabrini even has a core requirement class called Engagements with the Common Good, or ECG, that students take for three semesters. These courses reinforce students’ writing, speaking and critical thinking, but they honestly do much more than that. Instead of reading out of a textbook each day, students get a first-hand look at the most pressing issues going on within our world.
Social justice is truly the core of Cabrini University’s mission. Students are able to choose different topics to focus on such as lobbying in Washington D.C. to congressmen and congresswomen on topics such as climate change and the American immigration system, reconstructing homes with non-profits, or learning about subjects like domestic violence and addiction.
However, engaging in the common good is not just reserved to those specific classes. Being a student at Cabrini means connecting each major with different social justice issues. The faculty at Cabrini does their best to try and open their students’ eyes on how to be an engaged citizen outside of Cabrini’s classrooms. Many college students do not always know what is going on outside of their own little worlds, but by learning from Mother Cabrini’s mission, the Education of the Heart, students are able to live their lives with others in mind.
Cabrini also provides opportunities to practice what they preach in the classroom by having different centers on campus that revolve around social justice issues. These centers include, but are not limited, to the Center for Children of Trauma and Domestic Violence; the Center on Immigration; the Center for Urban Education, Equity and Improvement; and the Center for Global Learning.
These specific centers, along with the others, give Cabrini a platform for their specific community to put the time and energy into helping those particular causes. They also allow the university to follow Mother Cabrini’s mission. Along with the different centers on campus, there are a variety of student-run clubs and organizations that practice this same mission. A few of these organizations are the Black Student Union, Pura Vida, CRS Ambassadors, the Muslim Student Association, and Campus Ministry. Cabrini offers its students a multitude of ways to learn about and advocate for social justice outside of the classroom as well.
