“Our schools are a magnificent platform for listening to and serving today’s youth, helping them dream of a new world that is more reconciled, more peaceful and in harmony with creation, one they have to build themselves.” (Artuo Sosa, SJ, Rio de Janeiro, 2017)
The Global Identifier #7 challenges our Jesuit Schools to become places where new generations can recognize their common humanity even in the difference of religious, cultural, and social experiences. It's an invitation to become persons for and with others in our contemporary global context as disciples of Jesus, the true person for others. It's more than just multiculturalism (recognizing the diversity), it's building a universal humanity with local roots. It's an exchange that enriches all and builds a common space where differences are respected and honored. It's an invitation to recognize God working in all humanity and in all creation.
This will lead to build a true universality with local flavors and real people. “Universality experienced in this way becomes a way of promoting justice, fraternity and peace.” (A Living Tradition, #234) Interculturality is the other face of global citizenship where we invite students to embrace their responsibility for the global common good and acknowledge our increasing interdependence and connection.
Jesuit Schools are Committed to Interculturality

Pope Francis recently advanced Matteo Ricci, a 16th century Jesuit missionary to China, on the pathway to sainthood. In making the announcement, Pope Francis described Ricci as "a man of encounters, who went beyond being a foreigner and became a citizen of the world."
In this webinar,  "The Priority of the Other in a 'Selfie' Society," Nicolas Standaert, S.J., Sinologist and faculty member at the Catholic University of Leuven, discusses the value Ricci and the Jesuits placed on interculturality in their missionary efforts. He also proposes how this same commitment to interculturality holds tremendous value for Jesuit schools today. Fr. Standaert's webinar is part of a larger series sponsored by the Jesuit Global Network of Schools that focuses on the Global Identifiers outlined in A Living Tradition, of which the seventh identifier is "Jesuit schools are committed to interculturality."
Sacramentality and Interculturality

It may seem daunting to teach Sacraments at a school whose student population is only 50% Catholic. However, at Brebeuf Jesuit, with our Ignatian focus on Finding God in All Things and our students’ commitment to being Open to Growth, God is tangible in our classroom experience. That’s what Sacramentality is all about – encountering the mystery of God in a real way through people, things, and experiences. 
 
By exploring the connection each Sacrament has to the shared human experience, students of all faith backgrounds are able to connect in a profoundly personal way to these rituals of the Catholic Church. Our Protestant students share memories of their Baptism experiences, while many non-religious students compare starting high school to the idea of new beginnings. While Catholic students write about their own Confirmation, our Jewish students share how deeply meaningful their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs are in their faith lives. When we discuss how Catholics believe the Eucharist nourishes us at Mass, all students reflect on how they have developed new ways to sustain their emotional and spiritual lives in the face of a global pandemic. Teaching about Sacraments is effortlessly life-giving. In doing so, we each connect to one another and with our beautifully diverse humanity.
Intercultural Communication: JSN's 2023 Summer Master Class

After last summer’s successful inaugural Master Class on the IPP, the JSN is thrilled to launch our 2023 Summer Master Class on the topic of Ignatian Intercultural Communication. In collaboration with our partners at Educate Magis, this is our second offering of this innovative summer professional development opportunity for JSN educators. 
 
Intercultural Communication is a skill that's becoming an important part of the teaching and learning experience of contemporary JSN schools, particularly as our students become increasingly diverse. If we want to engage our students in meaningful ways, we must learn to communicate effectively within and across the variety of cultures they represent. The course content is timely and relevant, and the learning will be of interest to all leadership, faculty and staff across the Provinces who are called to support students in our schools.
 
The Master Class is entirely virtual, both asynchronous – where participants may work at their own pace – and synchronous – where the cohort will connect across the JSN to facilitate deepened conversation, understanding, and learning. This is an opportunity to dive deeper into this meaningful and important learning, and to further promote our collective mission of forming Ignatian Educators as Reflective Practitioners. 
 
This 2023 Master Class offering was explored in our recent JSN Virtual Ignatian Inquiry Session. View the Educate Magis' content slides from the presentation here.
The Global Dimension of Jesuit Schools as a Way to Practice Intercultural Communication

Intercultural Communication is a skill that's becoming increasingly important in the wake of political and religious divides in many parts of the world. Fr. General speaks about the importance of interculturality and it's listed as one of the 10 Global Identifiers in A Living Tradition. This Global Identifier offers several examples of what constitutes interculturality from a Jesuit standpoint: “The worldwide Society of Jesus recognizes that inculturation and interreligious dialogue are essential components of its mission to promote faith and justice” (GC 34). [60]. Regarding our schools' ways of proceeding, A Living Tradition states, “Our schools must be places where efforts toward solidarity and partnerships with all people of good will are encouraged and enacted. Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians, together with their social life and culture.” (Nostra Aetate). [61]
The great news is that the nature of our Jesuits schools is intrinsically linked to a tradition of global companionship, global understanding, justice and collaboration. This global dimension is one of the key aspects that makes Jesuit Education unique and appealing to new generations.
 
A few years ago, Educate Magis worked with Admissions Directors at Brophy Prep, Fordham Prep, and Regis Jesuit, to create the infographic “Our Global Dimension” as a way of capturing this global dimension. Today, we would like to offer faculty and staff the updated version of this customizable infographic. We encourage using this great resource, along with the Interactive Global Map of Jesuit Schools, to find connections with other educators in Jesuit schools, working together to bring their students a global vision and sense of global citizenship.
Men and Women With and For Others: An Exciting Future for Loyola High School Montreal
 
After 127 years, Loyola High School in Montreal will welcome its first coeducation cohort in September 2023. This historic and exciting change is the fruit of many years of discernment in our community. Welcoming both boys and girls into the Loyola family answers the call of the Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus and allows more young people the opportunity to experience a Jesuit Catholic education in Montreal.
Grounded in faith and the Jesuit way of proceeding, the opportunity for both boys and girls in the community to grow in academics, character, and spiritual formation, the arts, athletics, and leadership allow young people to understand that their role in this world is to be for and with others. 
The individuals who make up the Loyola community are the ones who bring our traditions to life, and they have been central to the ongoing reflection and planning in preparation for our first coed cohort this September. Faculty working groups continue to meet and plan around school spaces, professional development, student formation, pedagogy and athletics, the arts, and extracurricular programming.
Our current students have also been involved in large and small group information and sharing sessions to discuss and offer feedback regarding our exciting future. The students continue to give us many ideas and insights, asking great questions. Many of our alumni with sons and daughters are excited about the opportunity to continue the tradition of a Jesuit education in their family.
We're hopeful and excited about this new chapter in Loyola’s history and welcome any inquiries you may have about our move to coeducation.
Equity Walk Offers Lens into Representation within St. Paul's High School

I was recently presented an assignment for some university coursework where we were tasked with completing an equity walk of our schools. This equity walk could be of the school’s neighborhood, the interior spaces of the school, or a deep dive into the school’s demographics. Equity walks are often completed by the administration of a school, but this assignment provided me, as a faculty member, the opportunity to step outside of my “normal” and view the school with a critical lens. It in many ways felt Jesuit. Walk, question, reflect.
 
The process for me included two parts, both a qualitative and quantitative action. In the qualitative portion, I walked the inside of the school critically reflecting on the physical spaces of the school. This included the permanent artwork installations (including decorative, religious, and student artwork), athletics and extra-curricular posters and classroom displays. The constant question was, “Do all our students see themselves represented in this space?" In the quantitative portion, I compared the demographics data of the student population to our city’s population and the faculty and staff. An extremely useful resource during this quantitative process was JSN’s annual report, which includes demographic data on both the faculty and students.
 
Although the process left me with more questions than answers, my equity walk experience helped me to see the school with fresh eyes and initiated some great conversations with my fellow faculty members, especially as we begin a strategic planning process. How can we better implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action? How can we create a school where all students see themselves in both the physical space and the faculty? Again, no immediate answers but an opportunity for us to begin to make the school a space where all our students feel they truly belong.
Additional Interculturality Resources
We invite you to download the following items – the Integrated Holistic Perspective Infographic and an Interculturality Zoom background – for your use in the classroom and beyond!
FROM OUR PARTNERS
JRS Advocacy Day and Syria Earthquake Support
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA's Advocacy Day
Advocacy Day is here. Join JRS/USA on Tuesday, March 28 for our annual event to encourage members of Congress to take action on behalf refugees and asylum seekers. We will learn about issues faced by forcibly displaced people and encourage policymakers to provide critical humanitarian assistance to refugees overseas as well as welcome refugees and asylum seekers within our own borders. Planning to attend? Register here. Still thinking about it? Read about JRS’s 2022 Advocacy Day.
Support for the earthquake in Syria
On February 6, a massive earthquake hit Syria, causing unprecedented destruction. JRS Syria reported significant damage in Aleppo and the situation remains critical. In the coming weeks, access to food, clean water, and basic necessities will be essential. In the meantime, as my colleagues in Syria continue to assess needs, we are raising funds to support the work of JRS Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) and its response. As Pope Francis said, ‘Now is the time for compassion and for solidarity’.
Who do You Want to Be? A Lenten Initiative for Schools
The General Curia, in collaboration with Educate Magis, invites teachers, retreat leaders, and youth ministers to engage the valuable resource, "Who Do You Want to Be: A Video Series to Light Your Path” as a way to accompany your students during Lent.
This four-part video series, designed during the Ignatian Year, highlights the Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus, and provides detailed and adaptable lesson plans that invite students to imagine themselves differently, asking themselves what kind of persons they really want to be. 
“These videos,” says Father Arturo Sosa, SJ, the General Superior of the Society of Jesus, “explain the process of personal transformation involved in meeting Jesus,” one that makes us “able to dream together and see all things new.” 

It's an excellent resource for a formative Lenten retreat or classroom experience. The videos series and pedagogical materials are available in French, English, and Spanish and can be accessed through educatemagis.org or whotobe.org.
If You Build It, He Will Come
In December 2022, Bob Reiser, S.J., Kristen Smith, and Catharine Steffens, members of the Jesuit Schools Network of North America team, met with the staff of Educate Magis at their offices in Galway. Educate Magis plays an important role in advancing the goals of the JSN’s 2022-25 Strategic Plan, and so the two groups met over the course of two days to identify specific areas of collaboration and to develop innovative responses to them.

In the course of their meetings, the group identified three important areas – staff formation courses, virtual collaboration facilities, and a JSN blog space – as specific opportunities for collaboration. Over the three-year lifespan of the JSN Strategic Plan, programs and resources sponsored by Educate Magis will be integrated into initiatives contained therein. These include the JSN summer Master Class, Ignatian Global Scholars, Ignatian Global Engagement Mentors, Global Dimensions Inventory, Hemispheres newsletter, Ignatian Colleagues Gatherings, Cohort Connections, the Evolving Leaders Institute, and so much more.
CLOSING PRAYER