A group of 33 authorities of Catholic universities from 25 countries exchanged achievements and challenges related to the practices of solidarity service-learning carried out by their institutions within the framework of the Uniservitate programme, and spoke with the Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça. They did so during the V Global Symposium Uniservitate held in Rome last 7th and 8th November.
On the morning of the second day of this Symposium, which also brought together teachers, students and researchers of service-learning from all over the world, the meeting of the university authorities took place at the headquarters of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. The meeting was also attended by members of the coordination team of Uniservitate – CLAYSS, Porticus and LUMSA University, co-organiser of the Symposium.
Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça gave the rectors and other authorities a message in which he valued service-learning and the work in Uniservitate and made some proposals aimed at strengthening the identity and mission of Catholic universities which he considered ‘special’ because they combine the “knowledge acquisition with service to others”. He pointed out that the service-learning methodology is not only concerned with the didactic aspect of learning but above all puts the human person at the centre and underlined the importance of working in a network because “educating is always a community task”.
Mentioning the participation in this meeting of the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University and professors from Bethlehem University, the prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education affirmed that universities are great laboratories for the construction of peace and that the social friendship of which Pope Francis speaks must begin in educational communities.
He proposed that the words of the Holy Father be taken up in the universities as challenges and be thought of creatively. He pointed out, for example, the Pope’s claim in “Dilexit nos” about the centrality of the heart, and wondered if Catholic universities “Are they places where hearts beat, or are they places without a heart?”; and recalled when Francis said that it is necessary to transform the academic space into a house of the heart and also suggested asking what that means for a university.
In virtue of the Holy Year 2025, which begins with the opening of the Holy Door, the Cardinal proposed to the rectors to value the symbol “door” and to work in the universities around this idea beyond the doors of the cathedrals that in each city offer indulgences. He recalled that Jesus taught that He is the door and affirmed: “The university is also a door”.
He pointed out that the Pope recently called university students “pilgrims of knowledge”, to emphasize the search for and sense of overcoming one’s own limits that characterizes the human condition, and that he invited them to be “social choreographers”, protagonists of change. In this sense, Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça proposed to the rectors to think of “new possible dances, new forms, new paradigms, to organize the world” because “a university would have little use”, he said, if it were simply to train the next generation to perpetuate the present global system of elitism and inequality, in which higher education is the privilege of a happy few. Unless knowledge is embraced as a responsibility, it bears little fruit. Therefore, “the fruitfulness of our university projects is also this capacity to think of new paradigms, new worlds, new solutions, new forms and new choreographies” he said among other concepts.
Mutual enrichment
After the Cardinal’s lecture, the meeting participants shared the steps taken by their universities in the process of institutionalizing service-learning and the pending challenges.
They emphasised that belonging to a network such as Uniservitate allowed them to “go out” into the world, to be enriched by the experience of other actors and to share their own. The exchange and mutual knowledge, they said, facilitates both the strengthening of existing programmes and the possibility of implementing new strategies in service-learning projects and teaching practices.
In this sense, the authorities of the University of Deusto shared the satisfaction of having managed to centralise the service-learning strategies in the area of teaching innovation. In any case, it was indicated as one of the challenges to continue with the development of joint strategies with Uniservitate aimed at motivating professors in the knowledge and practices of service-learning.
Taras Dobko, rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, an institution that had been working with Uniservitate before the war, highlighted the resilience of the students who, he said, found that engaging in meaningful service gave them a valuable sense of purpose in challenging times. As other officials also noted, the rector of the Ukrainian university pointed to building sustainable and lasting relationships with partners through service-learning practices as one of the most important challenges.
The voices coming from Brazil shared that with Uniservitate they were able to give the right name to the experience they had been developing for twenty years and that they are now going through a process of institutionalisation of service-learning based on the curricularisation of university extension activities.
The meeting with the authorities of the institutions participating in Uniservitate was the third since the creation of the Programme. The first one was also held in Rome in 2022, during the II Uniservitate Global Symposium, and the second one was virtual, in March of this year. As on previous occasions, on this occasion many of the participants were grateful for the possibility of mutual enrichment both in the meeting of authorities and in the Symposium sessions in which they were able to share with students who lead service-learning projects, with teachers who promote them and with researchers of the spiritual component of this practice and of the processes of institutionalisation. Views, perspectives and experiences from different corners of the planet and different cultures united by the desire for a better world.