Dear Students,
Welcome to all of you who are new to Dominican University, and welcome back to all of you who are returning after summer break.
This new academic year, like all new year’s, is full of promise and potential—the promise of new knowledge and ideas, of new activities, and of new and deepening relationships. The university provides so many ways that you can develop those potentials, so many ways that you can be enriched.
As you walked into the main entrance of Lewis Hall, you might have noticed the four words written on the wall high above you–study, prayer, community, and service. These are the four “pillars,” not only of Dominican University, but of all Dominican institutions. They are the focus of all Dominican life and all that happens here.
First and foremost, Dominican is a place to enrich your mind with new knowledge and ideas. Of course this enrichment happens when you engage wholeheartedly in your course work. But it also happens in so many other places. It happens during the many lectures and workshops sponsored by academic departments, by campus organizations, and by Student Success and Engagement. New ideas present themselves during programs sponsored by the Siena Center and during the Caritas Veritas Symposium. Study abroad, internships, and engaging in research guided by a faculty member are experiences that enhance your knowledge. These are only a few of the many and varied opportunities for study at DU.
Dominican also provides many opportunities for service—within and outside the campus community. For example, you can volunteer to tutor other students or to serve as reader or Eucharistic minister or choir member at Mass. Also, many courses have a community-based learning component that provides an opportunity to serve those in the Chicagoland community. University ministry offers countless opportunities for service off campus—Service in the Streets and alternative spring break trips, to name just two. And in this election year, volunteering to work for local candidates or to help in the election process might interest you.
University ministry, not surprisingly, offers many opportunities for prayer. You can pray with the community at Mass or privately in chapel or in the interfaith prayer room. Other prayer services, like celebrations for the Day of the Dead, the feast of Our Lady of Guadelupe, Lessons and Carols, or Taize Prayer, occur during the academic year. Walking the labyrinth is a contemplative practice that dates back to medieval times. Off campus retreats are opportunities for you to deepen your relationship with God and with your fellow students or to develop your leadership skills.
Finally, community can happen in so many places on campus that it is almost impossible to name them all. True community exists among people who share values and ideas, who both support and challenge one another, and who ultimately help us become our “better selves.” So community can take place in classrooms, in athletics, in honor societies, in clubs and organizations, and in the many student activities available throughout the year. Community can happen in theatre and dance productions, in the Village, in the McGreal Center, in the University Ministry Center, in the office of The Dominican Star. Community even happens in informal discussions in faculty offices, in conversations in the residence halls, in hallways, and anywhere that two or more people gather.
As you continue your journey here at DU this year, I am confident that you will find ways to “live” the Dominican pillars of study, service, prayer, and community. And in so doing, you will live Dominican University’s mission of pursuing truth, giving compassionate service, and creating a more just and humane world on campus and beyond.
