by Daniel Chu ’25
About a month ago, Bellarmine hosted a post-Justice Summit assembly, where students and faculty reflected about their experiences and takeaways from the Justice Summit this year and its theme. For Mr. Geronimo Desumala, who planned the event, and Vayun Krishna ‘25, one of the breakout room presenters, the Justice Summit was an opportunity to share about their understanding of mental health and socioeconomic status.
“One Special Day for Faculty, Staff, and Students”
For Mr. Desumala, a Bellarmine alum, planning the Justice Summit drew on both his and others’ experiences. He shared that he was “really proud of Bellarmine,” having drawn on past examples like the summit on human dignity while adding his own spin based on his life and career experience.
Of course, the planning process itself wasn’t easy — it was overwhelming to plan a day’s worth of events for the entire school, so he collaborated with CSP and the Partners in Mission Ministry (PiMM) members to get it done. After being part of the planning committee last year, he came away with ideas of how he wanted things to happen differently. For example, he realized that assemblies can be challenging, leading to this year’s new structure of one morning assembly and a different activity instead of an afternoon assembly. Similarly, according to him, breakout sessions can be hard to plan, which is why he leaned more on outside organizations presenting for the approximately fifty distinct breakout sessions this year.
Furthermore, Mr. Desumala wanted to “flip the script” on what recognition for volunteering and community service looks like. The Caminantes and Servant Leadership award, which will return every year from now on, will recognize people or organizations doing work related to the Justice Summit theme in the local community. Mr. Desumala said that “When we talk about service and justice and advocacy, we set our stories of work or people or organizations that are done physically far from San Jose, and so I really wanted to highlight local work.”
Another key change this year was the multiple PiMM sessions dedicated to gradually introducing the Justice Summit’s theme and preparing students for the day. This format will definitely be repeated next year, giving students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to integrate the theme in and out of the classroom in lessons and extracurriculars alike. With the Mass of the Holy Spirit, keynote assembly speaker in the fall, PiMM sessions, and more, the hope is to repeat the theme constantly to turn it into a framework or lens to view the world. For example, connecting club fundraisers or the freshman Ethics class to the Justice Summit theme offers a valuable way to integrate the theme into many different aspects.
What’s in a Theme?
But how exactly is each year’s theme decided? And why did this year’s theme seem more narrow than before, specifically connecting socioeconomic status and mental health? Well, Mr. Desumala shared that each year’s theme is made up of both major themes and secondary themes. The major theme rotates between socioeconomic justice, gender justice, environmental justice, and racial justice, whereas the secondary themes are mental health, ethics and integrity, accessibility and disability, and violence. PiMM proposed this method of developing the theme because the process can otherwise take a lot of time; this way, students touch on each of the major themes which are “broad enough” to include many important aspects of students’ lives, while the secondary themes can intersect with the major topics and help narrow their focus.
In the future, Mr. Desumala hopes that the major and secondary theme selection process will help the planning committee “be a little more focused in our approach to these things,” making it “intellectually easier” to come up with breakout session ideas. In particular, this will hopefully encourage more intersectional and unique presentation ideas.
This year, the topic focused on socioeconomic justice, which is so broad that it touches all aspects of society, but Mr. Desumala was especially proud of two things. First of all, the Athletes for Justice coaching clinic on adaptive coaching allowed them to work with athletes who need mental or physical accommodations. While the connection to socioeconomic justice might not be apparent, those who need accommodations often come up against barriers or costs to access the same activities that people assume are for everyone.
Second, the Special Olympics breakout session highlighted an opportunity for free participation in activities for athletes and families that need accommodations. Mr. Desumala was proud of drawing that connection because of the importance of making sports and activities easily accessible regardless of socioeconomic status.
He also wanted to focus on the mental health aspect of the topic, mentioning that “understanding socioeconomic justice from a health or wellness perspective really gives students an introduction into empathy.” For example, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which was first introduced in the PiMM sessions, was meant to expand students’ understanding of need. Mr. Desumala explained that students may have an understanding of what it might be like to not have some things like shelter or security for a temporary basis, but he wanted students to expand on that and understand what it might be like for a person or family to not have those things on an indefinite basis. A lot of external providers and agencies also touched on this: for example, the Bill Wilson Center touched on socioeconomic justice and mental health as not just two related processes but as a cyclical process.
What’s in a Breakout Room?
For Bellarmine junior Vayun Krishna ‘25, planning a breakout room with his classmates Ansel Al-Mehdi ‘25 and Rohan Ranjan ‘25 was an opportunity to talk about the issues he was already familiar with. Through their work with the nonprofit Food for the Future, which tackles food insecurity for the unhoused, the Justice Summit was the “perfect time to talk about this.”
Their work on food insecurity tied in closely to socioeconomic justice, making it easy to connect the breakout room to the Justice Summit theme. On the other hand, the mental health aspect was something they hadn’t considered at first. As a result, Krishna shared that “We ended up incorporating mental health and mental illnesses into a lot of our background information on some of the worst impacts of homelessness,” helping them develop a new takeaway about how homelessness disproportionately causes mental health problems.
The actual process of planning the room was also straightforward: they only had to fill out a form explaining the breakout room’s scope, discuss it with CSP, and work on making the presentation fun and informative. That allowed them a lot more independence, giving them freedom to choose their own content and structure, such as a simulation considering the effects of financial burdens and food insecurity on people of different backgrounds. Krishna reflected that “I liked having the process be relatively free”; however, he mentioned that the only change he would have liked to see was better communication between the CSP team and him and his co-presenters. For example, knowing what room they would be presenting in ahead of time would have let them practice and get used to the space. Furthermore, having an example presentation to go off of would have been a strong foundation for them to develop their breakout session, because at times “we weren’t sure of what a Justice Summit room should look like.”
Gathering Close to Home
At first, the Close to Home gatherings had a practical purpose of replacing a second afternoon assembly. However, it also matched Bellarmine’s goals of moving towards doing more advocacy in systems. The planning committee didn’t just want to talk about policies and justice, but to have students literally “use [their] voice[s]” and “talk to each other.”
In coming years, getting students into smaller groups is the hope; the assemblies at the end of the day probably won’t be brought back, but the planning committee also needs to be careful about the theme. Mr. Desumala stated that the theme can be challenging to discuss, which is why he wants to make sure that “not only students are prepared to engage in the topic,” but also that faculty and staff members are able to have meaningful discussions too.
Looking to the Future
Other than the assemblies and day dedicated to the Justice Summit, Mr. Desumala hopes that students will continue to demonstrate what they learned through classwork and discussions, drawing connections between the themes and the content they learn in class. According to him, the Justice Summit isn’t just a day, but a way for us to keep talking about socioeconomic status and mental health all the time.
It’s also a good opportunity for students to talk about the issues that they care about. For example, during the post-Justice Summit assembly, students who went on the Salinas Plunge talked about the farmworkers that they met. After the Salinas Plunge, students came back wanting to do more, which is why the focus of the reflection assembly was shifted to discuss their experiences.
Mr. Desumala hopes that the Justice Summit will continue to be a way for students to be breakout speakers and showcase what they care about, not just in academics, but in life. For example, talking about masculinity and what it means to be a man, or discussing work on stopping climate change are all topics that students can explore and share about through the Justice Summit.