The Katherine Terry Dooley ’28 Endowment, a fund initiated by the family of a Saint Mary’s College graduate who felt passionately about justice issues, supports social justice-themed projects proposed by the College’s students, philosophy professor Adrienne Lyles-Chockley said.
“The Dooley Fund was created to support innovative projects by Saint Mary’s students that address issues of peace and justice and involve the broader campus community,” Lyles-Chockley said. “[It] aims to encourage and support women in developing their intellectual vigor, promoting the essential dignity of each human and cultivating their social responsibility.”
The grants enable students with a passion for social justice to develop responses to social problems, Lyles-Chockley said.
“We are looking for projects that are able to clearly articulate social injustice and provide thoughtful, original ideas for combating injustice,” she said. “Students are encouraged to reflect on the systemic causes of injustice and be able to clearly articulate project ideas designed to promote social justice.”
In the past, the fund has initiated the development of community projects in South Bend, including a creative writing workshop with the homeless and the development of campus programs focused on inequalities in local education systems, Lyles-Chockley said.
“Social justice is a normative concept and ideal that includes fairness, equity, responsibility and integrity. … It is also very closely related to human rights, human dignity and social welfare,” she said. “The Dooley [Grant program] aims to empower students to explore these concepts and to incorporate awareness and action in the wider community.”
The College’s Justice Education program funds the grant and aims to use spiritual, moral and intellectual contexts when analyzing social problems, Lyles-Chockley said.
“The mission of the Justice Education Program is to empower Saint Mary’s students to make the world a more just and peaceful place,” she said. “By teaching students to think in systemic and comprehensive ways, the program enables students to understand, analyze and reflect on the experiences of the marginalized and disenfranchised.”
Empowerment is also a theme of the Dooley Grant program. It allows students to become more aware of issues in the community while developing means to address the injustices, Lyles-Chockley said.
“The Dooley Grant program gives students an opportunity to explore their social justice-related interests and deepen their engagement in the community,” she said. “It also gives students a means for examining the root causes of social problems and developing their own responses to those problems.”
