As part of their visit to St. Joseph’s College, visiting service volunteers from Tzu Chi University (TCU) made a special trip to SJC Long Island to meet members of the College’s founding order, the Sisters of St. Joseph, at their motherhouse in Brentwood, Long Island.
“When our students were studying at Tzu Chi University two years ago, the TCU faculty showed them all of the special sites in the order’s history, including the famous Jing Si Temple,” said Peter Lin, Ph.D., professor of psychology. “To have our friends from afar go out to SJC Long Island and Brentwood to learn of the College’s founding order, their history and to see how their mission lives on today through their service to the community, was inspiring, both as a visitor and as a long-time member of the SJC community.”
The party from TCU started their day at SJC Long Island, where Wendy Turgeon, Ph.D., professor and chair of philosophy and then-interim executive dean, presented a lecture on fairy tales and social justice. In her lecture, she discussed how seemingly innocent children’s stories addressed serious social justice issues of the period, with valuable lessons that resonate today.
After the lecture and a campus tour, the volunteers headed to the Sisters of St. Joseph motherhouse in Brentwood, where they learned about the history of the College and the order from Virginia Dowd, the archivist for the order in Brentwood. The students toured the complex, seeing the community garden, animals, the massive solar array and the community farm on the premises.
“The Sisters are truly committed to making the world and their community a better place,” said Wen-Chiien Cheng, an aspiring service volunteer from Tzu Chi University. “I appreciated how they share the food grown on their farm with the community and how they are trying to manage and live off their land without using the planet’s resources.”
