Faculty Travel Immersion Seminars

RSCJ Pilgrimage

The 2025 Harpst Center Travel Immersion Seminar journeyed to France to explore the medieval origins of the Western university and the spiritual, political, cultural, and religious developments that contextualized the 1800 formation of the Society of the Sacred Heart in Paris. The seminar’s richness and relevance to our community at USD has led to the creation of a new, regular experiential offering from the Harpst Center: The RSCJ Pilgrimage.

The Witness of Black Catholics in the U.S. South: Past and Present

This seminar reflected on the gift of Black Catholics to the Church and society. Participants visited churches, museums and other significant sites in Baltimore, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Selma, Montgomery, Bay St. Louis, and New Orleans.

The Roots of the Immigration Crisis from a Catholic Perspective

This seminar explored the current crisis by grounding the discussion in the historical record. Participants began in New York City and examined the massive influx of European immigrants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The trip ended in San Diego and reviewed the Latino immigrant experience, the oldest and newest immigrants.

Asian Church Rising: Chinese Catholic Culture - Past Achievements, Present Concerns and Future Challenges

This seminar examined the cultural divides in Chinese Catholicism from both the historical vantage point and the contemporary. Participants visited the cities of Xi’an, Shijiazhuang and Beijing exploring Catholic China as well as some of the major cultural sites including the Terra Cotta Warriors and the Great Wall.

The Holy Land: Art, Architecture, Engineering and Politics

The Second Vatican Council’s Nostra Aetate, "On the Church’s Relation to Non-Christian Religions," was used as a lens to view the interaction of the three faiths. Time was spent on contemporary issues as well, some involving architecture.

The Rise of the Global South: Catholic Social Teaching Along the Trail of Martyrs

This seminar explored current developments by visiting the sites of five groups of modern martyrs whose lives and commitment reflect the new stance of the Church and its precarity: Bishop Juan Gerardi and Father Stanley Rother in Guatemala, Archbishop Oscar Romero, the four women missionaries — Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel and Maura Clarke — and the Jesuit professors and their housekeepers at UCA.

Catholic Diplomacy and Peacemaking in a Time of Endless War

In this seminar to Rome and Assisi, faculty explored what the Catholic tradition has to say to the world, a world of seemingly endless war, and about peacemaking. This seminar explored the practical and theoretical tools the Catholic Church has used and can use to engage international conflict as well as local conflict.

Exploring Celtic Christianity in the Land of Saints and Scholars

The group explored Ireland's history, archaeology, landscape and architecture, as well as its cultural, social and intellectual traditions from pre-Christian times onwards. In particular, they learned how the spiritual and religious life of the island is intertwined with its landscape in a multitude of ways.

The Meeting of Cultures: Encountering Difference and Diversity

The program was divided between academic sessions consisting of lectures, analysis and discussions, and immersion visits to different organizations, offices and historical and cultural sites linked to the overall theme.

Sustainability, Eco-Theology and Eco-Justice

Faculty participants considered these resources, examined the principles of Catholic social teaching and their relevance to the natural environment and applied reconstructed concepts to environmental problems and solutions underway in the Dominican Republic

Catholic Health Care and Health Care Ethics

Catholic perspectives on a variety of topics including human genome project, justice and health care resources, were explored, with stimulating conversation spilling over into meal times.