Mission, Vision, and History
Mission
Loyola’s Center for Community, Service, and Justice (CCSJ) connects campus and community for a more just and equitable world, through long and short-term service commitments, community-engaged learning, immersion programs, and student leadership. We are inspired and informed by Loyola’s Jesuit Catholic educational mission and identity for human and ecological flourishing. CCSJ places a shared emphasis on all Loyola campus community members and the pursuit of positive community impact in Loyola’s immediate York Road neighborhoods, Baltimore City, and the world. We are committed to walking with those who are vulnerable and experience marginalization. We are called to a faith that does justice, social and environmental responsibility, and a dynamic integration of academic excellence and reciprocal collaboration with community partners.
Vision
Members of the campus community will engage as agents of social and spiritual transformation in the tradition of Jesuit education as they enter the world beyond campus. CCSJ envisions a community where all students, administrators, faculty and staff foster imagination and courage to integrate their values, beliefs, and knowledge into action through meaningful community engagement. Our work witnesses Loyola’s commitment to solidarity with our neighbors, partners, and natural environment in Baltimore City and throughout the world.
CCSJ Aims:
- Engage Loyola students, administrators, faculty and staff to serve, and work toward a more just and equitable world as we learn from one another.
- Collaborate with partners on York Road and beyond, to secure human rights and establish an intimate connection between human and environmental flourishing.
- Advance racial justice and anti-racism through programs, policies, culture, and operations, in collaboration with community and campus partners.
- Advance integral ecology through programs, policies, culture, and operational excellence consistent with Laudato Si’, in collaboration with community and campus partners.
- Form Ignatian servant leaders for an ever-changing world.
- Animate Loyola’s mission through measuring, highlighting, and communicating our work internally and externally.
History
In 1992, Rev. Timothy Brown, S.J., professor of law and social responsibility, and Erin Swezey, the director of Loyola’s Community Service Office envisioned and co-founded a Center for Values and Service to help students explore social justice issues, offer opportunities to reflect on experiences of service, improve the quality of service experiences, pioneer an academic service-learning program, and build partnerships with community agencies.
In 2006, under the leadership of Sr. Catherine “Missy†Gugerty, SSND, the Center changed its name to the Center for Community, Service, and Justice to more effectively describe the work and focus of social justice education through service.
In 2008, the university’s strategic plan called for “a leadership role in the development of a multi-dimensional plan to improve the quality of life for all persons living, working, and learning in the York Road corridor.†Following substantive listening projects with area residents, Loyola’s York Road Initiative was established.
From 2010-2013, the York Road Initiative grew from a coalition of university partners to a community-based office with staff and a cadre of student, faculty, and resident volunteers.
In 2016, the Center for Community, Service, and Justice and York Road Initiative join, integrate efforts, and deepen the partnership between Loyola’s academic affairs and the needs and assets of local community partners.
In 2021, CCSJ made a small but important change in name to accurately reflect its mission, inclusion of Loyola’s York Road Initiative since 2016, as well as brand CCSJ in line with the national movement toward Centers for Community Engagement, and away from using the non-reciprocal term “community service,†while still maintaining our Jesuit and Catholic commitment to ‘service.’ The new name is the Center for Community, Service, and Justice."
Core Values
Through CCSJ and York Road Initiative programs, policies, operations and culture, we value:
- Anti-racism, as racism affects all other structures of inequity.
- The dignity of all people and our common home by practicing love in action with our neighbors.
- Local community power, wisdom and relationships.
- Collaboration, education and connecting through relationships to promote positive collective social impact.
- Dismantling systems of oppression, transparent and inclusive decision-making processes and the equitable distribution of power and resources.
Commitment to Racial Justice
Inspired by our mission to connect campus and community for a more just and equitable world, Loyola’s Center for Community, Service, and Justice (CCSJ) strives to become an anti-racist organization. We will pursue this commitment by investing in our capacity to think critically about the role race plays in our relationships, programs, and organization and we acknowledge that we will be personally and professionally challenged in this work. Please read our Racial Justice Commitment Statement. Additionally, please join us in utilizing CCSJ’s social justice library, located in our Center at Loyola, anytime. Our online resource page with a link to our , is also available to all.