St. Kate’s alumna and staff travel to Rome to accept service learning award

By Ella Tracy

Cover photo credit: Vatican Media

In August 2024, St. Kate’s was awarded the Uniservitate Global Service Learning Award. A team at St. Kate’s had been working on the application for the award since last year, hoping to be 1 of 14 Catholic institutions across the globe to be honored. The team centered the application around Welcoming the Dear Neighbor? (WTDN), a project that St. Kate’s has been heavily involved in since its launch in 2020. 

The Uniservitate Award honors exceptional incorporation of service-learning into curriculum at Catholic universities. There are 2 awardees from each of the 7 regional hubs across the world. In addition to the prestigious honor, representatives from St. Kate’s traveled to Rome for a short week of networking with other recipients at a conference highlighting service-learning at Catholic institutions and an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican. 

The St. Kate’s team consisted of D’ann Urbaniak Lesch, assistant vice president of engaged learning, Kristine West, PhD, Professor of Economics and Victoria Delgado-Palma ‘23. They presented at the conference about the WTDN? project and its institutionalization on campus.  WTDN? was incorporated into select Reflective Woman courses as the class’s service-learning component, or community engaged learning. Service-learning supports student learning outcomes and fulfills a need identified by a community partner. 

From left to right: Kristine West, Victoria Delgado-Palma, D’Ann Urbaniak Lesch. Credit: Urbaniak Lesch

Many St. Kate’s students will remember working with WTDN? by identifying racially restrictive clauses in historic housing deeds in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The work is spearheaded by Mapping Prejudice at the University of Minnesota, which maps the locations of identified racial covenants across a city. St. Kate’s students and faculty have used this data to conduct research on the lasting impacts of racial covenants on interdisciplinary current-day outcomes. 

Delgado-Palma was introduced to WTDN? during her TRW class. She went on to conduct research on economic upward mobility using data from the project throughout her undergrad. She presented at the conference, discussing her experience with WTDN? She also presented a gift on behalf of the St. Kate’s community to the Pope. Delgado-Palma said, “Service-learning was crucial in connecting the course material with real world issues and being able to work directly with the community in spreading awareness of historical happenings that continue to impact our neighborhoods presently.” 

West said that WTDN? was a powerful project to highlight because of how deeply rooted it is in the Catholic social justice mission. “WTDN? was inspired by the charism of the [Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet] to welcome without distinction,” she said. West emphasized that the group was “appreciative of everyone in the St. Kate’s community who has engaged with the project.” She said that “the reason we won was because of the broad base” that WTDN? has at St. Kate’s and the hard work of dozens of participants across campus.