CSTM supports student organizations and initiatives that enhance our school community by providing opportunities and funding for students to engage with one another outside of the classroom.
As a CSTM student, you have an opportunity to get involved in the BC community by practicing ministerial leadership with Boston College Campus Ministry. This includes directing a Kairos retreat and facilitating groups such as Christian Life Community and Axios, a weekly group on the intersection of spirituality and sexuality.
Corazón Latinx is a cultural affinity group for Latin@s and Latin American students that supports cultural events and discussions on theology from a Latin American and US Latin@ perspective. Past events have included hosting movie nights and discussions, organizing Spanish worship services, and celebrating Dia de Los Muertos, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and other cultural feast days.
The question is not whether we will live out a public faith but how. This student group is committed to providing the CSTM community with resources for prayer, education, advocacy, and action around issues that impact our global community and that call for a gospel response, especially immigration, climate change, racism, the upcoming election, and justice for the LGBTQ community. The group is committed to facilitating constructive dialogue that can serve as a bridge across various positions on these critical issues as together we search for just and peaceful responses to these contemporary needs. This year, the coalition implemented the CSTM's #CareforCreationLent initiative and co-sponsored the screening of two films from the New Immigrant and Refugee Visions film series.
Gaudete is the CSTM extension of the greater lesbian, gay, bisesxual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) and ally resources at Boston College. We are a welcoming and affirming community of CSTM students, which recognizes the dignity of each person and seeks to enrich acceptance of diverse gender and sexual identities at the CSTM. We provide a space for hope, witness, and dialogue for all students. We celebrate inclusivity through fellowship, discussion, workshops and events sponsorship at the CSTM and beyond.
Signature Initiatives:
The CSTM Interreligious Engagement Group seeks to provide students with information and awareness about the importance of interreligious engagement by providing chances to explore ecumenical and interfaith opportunities at Boston College and in the greater Boston community. Throughout the year, we strive to host interfaith and ecumenical discussion groups, lectures, and "Interfaith Journeys" to visit worship services and sacred spaces around Boston.
Lumen et Vita is the student academic journal of the Clough School of Theology and Ministry (CSTM) at Boston College. We are delighted to publish yearly the research, reflection, and reviews of our peers, from the many diverse areas of theology represented at the school.
Through this publication, we hope to bring this exceptional work to a wider audience. At an initial level, we intend to increase fellow CSTM students’ knowledge of the scholarship being done outside of their own specialty, thereby allowing us here at the CSTM to benefit from the rich variety of our school. At a further level, we hope that it may contribute to the interdisciplinary conversation at Boston College and in the larger academic world, and may demonstrate once more how mutually illuminating the interaction can be between Catholic theology, the academy, and the wider culture.
Another significant benefit of this publication is the opportunity for students to go through the formal process of sharing their work with the theological community. This opportunity is not limited to the publication, as Lumen et Vita also coordinates colloquia and symposia at the CSTM where this opportunity for exchange occurs in other formats.
The Prison Ministry Initiative (PMI) group at BC CSTM provides support for students and other members of the CSTM community involved in prison ministry. Members of our group minister at multiple institutions, including Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Framingham, MA, and Suffolk County House of Correction in South Boston. We have varying degrees of experience, ranging from members who have been ministering for over 10 years to those who are interested in prison ministry but have not had the chance to be involved yet.
Our on-site ministry might include joining inmates for a common Mass, leading communion services, or visiting people in solitary confinement. PMI offers members a chance to reflect together on this ministry. We meet for potluck dinners three times per semester, which includes time for reflection and prayer led by one of our members. We are grateful to be able to create a space for our members to reflect on both the challenges and blessings encountered in prison ministry. New members are always welcome to join.
The Social Organizing Committee (SOC) organizes gatherings on and off-campus for faculty, staff, and students to deepen and enhance the social life of the CSTM. Such gatherings have included apple picking, the Great CSTM Bake Off, the Taste of the CSTM, and rosary making. We work in collaboration with student organization groups, and one of our big projects is to help facilitate Eschaton Week at the end of the spring semester. We put the SOC in social!
Every year, the CSTM alternates between sending a delegation to El Salvador or to the US/Mexico Border. These immersions are an opportunity to deepen and expand students' understanding of the historical, theological, social, political, and emotional dimensions that intimately influence current realities in each location. Throughout the year, the group will have pre-immersion meetings, fundraisers, a post-immersion retreat, and a week-long immersion encounter over spring break. Together, the group journeys on a year-long pilgrimage of encounter, discerning how to live into a faith that does justice.
The Student Forum is a council of representatives from the CSTM student body comprised of elected officers and appointed group coordinators. These student representatives work to enhance and enliven CSTM community life through coordination and funding of student programs; providing a forum for discussions of academic and student life policies, curriculum, community life and formation; and acting as a liaison between CSTM students, administration and faculty.
Signature Initiatives:
The CSTM Women's Group seeks to provide a community for all students, faculty, staff, and alumnae who identify as female. We strive to promote greater inclusivity by uplifting, empowering, and celebrating the voices of women and other globally marginalized persons. Working from a feminist model of leadership, we aspire to create inclusive spaces for dialogue, to facilitate community and collaboration with other CSTM groups, and to foser an equal educational environment.
Signature Initiatives:
The Sports and Spirituality team meets to share in fellowship through games and exercise. In sharing community events, we strive to bring the people of the CSTM closer together. With a new focus on shared liturgies and ministry as well as active recreation, the Sports and Spirituality team intends to heighten the spiritual exercise of exercise.
Past events have included:
The CSTM Theology Arts Collective (C-STAC) seeks to bring various art forms together. Past events have included:
The Office of Graduate Student Life connects graduate students to the vast array of services, support, and opportunities at Boston College.
