In April 2024, Miller Center was invited to present our work to the Jesuit School of Theology (JST) Advisory Board. The goal of the presentation was to showcase how the Miller Center Lewis Family Fellowship’s support of impact entrepreneurship and Santa Clara University students inherently aligns with the values of the JST.
Miller Center’s Student Fellowship & the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm
In preparation for this presentation, I studied the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP). For those less familiar with Jesuit concepts, the IPP is a teaching model that emphasizes holistic learning through five key components: context, experience, reflection, action, and evaluation.
The goal of this model is to encourage intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development in students. In other words, to encourage learning not just purely in the academic sense but through real-world experiences, which in turn, ignites a student’s personal and social transformation. Miller Center’s student fellowship very much embodies this type of learning.
The framework of this fellowship lies in Participatory Action Research (PAR), where we pair SCU undergraduate students with Miller Center enterprise partners to co-create projects that enhance the enterprise’s impact within their communities. Our fellowship is an immersive nine-month commitment consisting of two quarters of coursework and a summer of in-country research with the host enterprise and its customers. What is unique about our fellowship and the curriculum we’ve developed is that this experience isn’t just a chance to travel abroad but rather an intentional approach to enrich the whole person, which ultimately informs the student’s vocational discernment and spiritual development. And when saying spiritual development, we do not limit this to one definitive religious concept but rather each individual’s own definition of spirituality.
Generation Z & their Search for Meaning
According to Daniel Cox’s paper, Generation Z and the Future of Faith in America, nearly 35% of young people identify as “religiously unaffiliated” and hold conflicted views about religion. And yet, these same young people, particularly Gen Zers, are actively searching for meaning to inform their lives. What this means is that there is an undeniable desire to find purpose and a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves that serves the common good.
Cultural Humility, Reflection, and Active Spirituality
What is great about the Miller Center Fellowship is that before sending the students out on their summer research, we take time to focus on research skills, ethics, and cultural humility. A big part of teaching cultural humility is encouraging students to question their own previously held beliefs and biases. This challenges students to broaden their perspectives and worldviews in ways that may be uncomfortable but are an integral part of their transformational learning experience.
This fully comes into play when the students work alongside their host enterprise. I have had the delightful experience of witnessing this sort of “aha” moment, accompanying various pairs of fellows in their country placements all over the globe over the years. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing a student humbled as they learn alongside their enterprise partner and its community, collaboratively developing solutions rather than imposing their own. And that “aha” moment always happens, whether the fellowship placement is in India, Mexico, Kenya, or Rwanda.
When the fellows return to campus, they spend the Fall quarter refining their research and reflecting. Like the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm framework, reflection is a key component of the fellowship’s holistic learning approach. This builds the student’s discernment capabilities and their ability to step out of the self and make connections between what they’ve learned in the classroom and what they’ve experienced over the summer. Our fellowship curriculum is designed to foster mindfulness, encouraging students to embody values that can be applied in their daily lives. Ultimately this cultivates a deeper sense of purpose and supports their journey of vocational discernment.
Mindfulness is how I think about active spirituality. Miller Center’s fellowship is about connecting students’ hearts with their minds and helping them reflect on how they can live a life that is not only meaningful to them but also contributes to the common good.
Plans for the 2025 Fellowship
Shortly after presenting to the JST Advisory Board, my responsibilities expanded to include overseeing the Miller Center Lewis Family Fellowship and other SCU campus engagement activities. It’s been an honor and a privilege to continue to build upon the programs we offer to Santa Clara students, which were established by my amazing predecessors, Keith Warner and Jennifer Merritt Faria. Keith was the visionary who launched Miller Center’s first fellowship in 2012, followed by Jen in 2022, who was instrumental in scaling the Center’s academic work across the SCU campus.
I’m so excited about our plans for the 2025 Miller Center Fellowship. This year our students will work alongside Miller Center enterprise partners in India, Rwanda, and Mexico with Husk Power, Fair Climate Fund India, NooraHealth, Inkomoko, Jibu, Tala, Grupo PROMESA, and Sistema.bio. I’m also thrilled to collaborate with Professors Leslie Gray and Stephen Carroll on the fellowship curriculum, both of whom are masters in helping students integrate academic learning with real-world experiences.
My hope for 2025 is to continue to build on the tremendous work that Keith created and Jen scaled, all to further support students in finding their purpose by integrating active spirituality into their vocational discernment.
As Keith and Jen wrote, it’s about showing how Santa Clara students can connect their “head and heart; past, present, and future; the personal and professional; care for self and care for the common good.”
Miller Center’s Fellowship is not just about helping students decide on a career path or a job but rather thinking more holistically about how to grow as a whole person. And I can’t wait to support the 2025 Miller Center Fellows as they embark on this transformative journey.
Photo Descriptions:
- 2024 Alumni Fellowship Panel and Reception with Keith Warner, Jen Merritt, Stephen Carol, Linda Gentry, Anthony Sampson, and Karen Runde at Santa Clara University
- 2023 Good Nature Agro Fellows, Liam McBride, Isabela Ramirez, and Katherine Duff with Customer in Zambia
- 2022 Someone Somewhere Fellows, Lily Evans-Riera and Lexi Gomez with Karen Runde in Mexico
