Welcome and FAQ

Welcome to "Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly"- a blog of student reflections on service immersion opportunities run through the University Ministry office at the University of Detroit Mercy! This blog serves as a record of students' experiences, a way of sharing their thoughts with the larger UDM community, and a place for students to learn from one another as people seeking justice. 

This post is a bit of an FAQ to help guide you through this blog.

What is a service immersion?

Service immersions are key experiences of a transformative Jesuit and Mercy education, rooted in service and social justice. These experiences include opportunities to serve in shelters, soup kitchens, after school projects, urban farms, and many other important community based projects. These experiences also include cultural learning, relationship building, presentations from local community leaders, prayer and reflection. They offer a life-long path for our students to become “men and women with and for others," and we believe that these experiences form student leaders who have critical minds and compassionate hearts.

What kind of service immersion opportunities are represented here?

Some of the kinds of service immersions our students participate in are one-day immersions in the city of Detroit, weekly commitments to tutoring/working with young people, or to week-long immersion trips throughout the United States. 

Service Immersion Days

Service immersion days are a monthly chance to engage with the Detroit community through the lens of a particular social justice concern.  Instead of traveling to distant location to immersion in a new community, local service immersion experiences invite students to grow in solidarity and relationship with the city of Detroit. Local daylong service immersion experiences are a key way for students to grow in their understanding of Jesuit and Mercy values, which is rooted in service and social justice.  Our daylong experiences are structured around various social justice issues such as food justice, sustainability, women’s issues, and racism. We engage with local non-profits, community leaders, and organizations to deepen our understanding of these issues and how they impact our neighborhoods.  

Service in the City Tutoring

The tutoring program connects Detroit Mercy students with La Casa Guadalupana, Loyola High School, and Brilliant Detroit. Detroit Mercy students tutor, in person, on a weekly basis at one of these three educational organizations. Detroit Mercy students are asked to make a semester-long commitment to tutoring once a week for approximately one hour and to attend at least one orientation, two educational reflection meetings, and one end-of-semester reflection event. Reflection meetings are offered monthly to engage students in the process of unpacking their experience of tutoring and immersing in one of the two local Detroit communities, listening and learning from each other's insights, challenges and joys as well as engaging in dialogue around key systemic and social justice issues encountered during their time at their site. 

Service Immersion Trips

University Ministry immersion trips provide experiences of direct service rooted in relationship. They offer students the opportunity to work for the common good, encounter new realities, and reflect on their experiences in the context of a diverse community. The service immersion trips are offered annually over winter break and spring break, and occasionally in May (after classes have concluded). Trips are led by University staff or faculty and often include a student leader. At this time, participation in our trips is only available to current Detroit Mercy students.

What are the values that form all of our immersion experiences?

• Simplicity – Allows us to reconnect with what is essential, value relationships over things, and hear the voices of others, our inner-selves, and of God. We will live simply during this experience.
• Social Justice – Investigating and striving to correct the root causes of an injustice by asking why injustices occur and how we can do things to change unjust systems.
• Solidarity – Our humanity depends on everyone else’s humanity. We are all connected and have a common responsibility for one another.
• Spirituality – We will spend time engaging with our experiences wholeheartedly, reflecting together, and allowing silence in and listening to where God is guiding us. We will share prayer together and do evening theological reflection together.