More than 20 Christendom College students, along with faculty and staff, made the trek from Front Royal, Virginia, to Indiana last month to attend the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture Fall Conference. This year marked the tenth time Christendom students have attended the annual event, which provides them with the valuable opportunity to engage with leading scholars on the philosophical, political, and theological ideas shaping the modern world.
Christendom students have opportunities to attend conferences throughout the academic year, taking what they learn in the classroom out into the broader academic world. The annual conference at Notre Dame, which this year focused on the theme of living tradition, is one of the most popular in the country, drawing some of the most renowned academics in the world together to discuss issues of ethics and culture with fellow academics and college students.
The more than twenty Christendom students who attended, along with political science and economics faculty members Dr. Bracy Bersnak, Dr. Jakub Voboril, and Dr. James Bergida, saw the conference as an incredible opportunity to be immersed in the academic world beyond Christendom.
“Attending this conference was impactful to me as a Christendom student because I was able to meet students from other colleges and connect with them,” said senior Alex Girata. “It showed me that there is a whole world of academia in which I can actively participate.”
Over the three-day conference, students attended a wide range of lectures and breakout sessions featuring speakers such as Philippe Villeneuve, chief architect for Notre-Dame de Paris; Zena Hitz, award-winning author; and Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas. More than 100 scholars and artists participated in the conference, which examined how “the phenomenon of living tradition—whether dogmatic, religious, literary, artistic, legal, interpretive, or otherwise, up to and including the customs, embodied practices, and habits of everyday life—serves to bridge past and future.”
Fellow Christendom student Margaret Swerda said her education prepared her to engage meaningfully with the conference’s themes and speakers.
“The conference allowed me to think of the new topics I was exposed to through the lens of Christendom education,” Swerda explained. “For example, I was able to take away more from a talk on Natural Law because I had read St. Thomas Aquinas on Natural Law at Christendom. At the same time, the talk I attended approached Natural Law from a different point of view and so opened a new avenue of thought for me.”
Christendom students regularly attend conferences and lectures throughout the academic year, gaining valuable insights and building professional connections. For those who traveled this year, including to the Notre Dame conference, engaging with leading thinkers not only deepened their education but also strengthened their commitment to “restore all things in Christ” both during their time at Christendom and following graduation.