Light refreshments and cold drinks will be served.

AGENDA 

6:45 p.m. Arrival 

7:00 p.m. Welcome & Listening Circle Practice

9:00 p.m. Conclusion

Participants are asked to register. This is important to ensure we have enough circle keepers to serve the whole group. Please click here to register

Dr. Mary Hess is a distinguished scholar, author, and senior faculty member who joined the Luther Seminary faculty in July of 2000, specializing in the intersection of religious education, media culture, and digital technology. Dr. Hess earned her Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Yale University in 1985, followed by a Master of Theological Studies (M.T.S.) from Harvard University in 1992. She completed her doctoral studies in 1998 at Boston College, receiving a Ph.D. in Religion and Education. Her research and pedagogy focus primarily on the shifting paradigms of pedagogical practices within theological environments, particularly regarding how emerging media and communication technologies reshape religious formation, identity, and community practices. Mary’s most recent book is “Becoming a White Antiracist” written collaboratively with Dr. Stephen Brookfield. 

Participants can expect, first of all, to listen to others in the group and, second, to share their own truth as they experience it. To maintain this supportive environment, listening circles rely on a few foundational agreements. In our partnership, we use a physical talking piece. It is passed around the circle; only the person holding the talking piece may speak, while everyone else practices active, presence-driven listening. Participants are typically guided to speak from personal experience (using "I" statements), keep their sharing concise, and maintain strict confidentiality regarding what is shared. This predictable structure allows people to lower their guards, listen openly, and speak with genuine vulnerability.

Listening circles intentionally slow down the pace of communication, shifting the group dynamic from reactive debate to human connection. 

St. Catherine University and CSJ St. Paul Community Land Acknowledgement Statement 

We begin with honor and respect for the land and for the first people of this land. 

We are on the ancestral homelands of the Dakȟóta People.  We desire to honor and respect the first people and recognize their caring for our common home.  Other sovereign American Indian nations including the Anishinaabe also have a long history with these sacred lands: past, present, and future.   We, both personally and institutionally, continue to have a deepening awareness of our complicity, of the complex history of colonialism, genocide and broken treaties.  We seek to understand the troubled acquisition of this land by unjust U.S. Government practices including the stealing of these lands and the forced removal from the birth place of the Dakȟóta people without any compensation to the American Indian communities.  We acknowledge the past, current, and future impacts of this history on our relationship with our American Indian sisters and brothers.   

In our commitment to social justice and the “love of dear neighbor without distinction,” we are called to acknowledge and to deepen our understanding of our participation in interlocking systems of oppression. We seek to journey farther together to respond boldly in working toward dismantling these systems.   

We, St. Catherine University and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and Consociates, know that these words are inadequate, imperfect and must extend beyond this verbal acknowledgement.  This is only our beginning of a much larger journey of listening, learning, building relationships and advocating for and with American Indian nations for a more just world for all.  

What is a land acknowledgement?