Professor of Electrical Engineering · Associate co-Dean for Mission, Culture and Inclusion
SCDI 4025-O · ☎ (408) 554-2394 · azecevic@scu.edu

Aleksandar Zecevic

Global Jesuit Network

Developing new forms of collaboration among Jesuit universities has long been one of my priorities. In 2011, I organized a conference entitled Bridges to Infinity: Humankind, God and the Scientific Enterprise at Santa Clara University, which brought together participants from Jesuit institutions in the United States, India, Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia. The objective of this conference was to examine different ways in which Jesuit universities might collaborate, using science and religion as a common framework. The conference program can be downloaded here.

In his letter to Fr. Michael Engh, the President of Santa Clara University, on May 27, 2011, Fr. Adolfo Nicolás described the significance of the conference in the following way:

Involving Jesuit higher educational institutions in India and three of our universities from South America, the conference led to efforts for a worldwide Jesuit network on this topic. Santa Clara University is to be commended on this follow up to the meeting in Mexico last year, at which I encouraged Jesuit institutions throughout the world “to expand and build more universal, more effective international networks of Jesuit higher education.” This is just the kind of work I had hoped for.

Fr. Adolfo Nicolás
Superior General of the Society of Jesus

My work on building global connections between Jesuit universities continued with a lecture tour of India in June and July of 2013. Over a two week period, I gave talks on science and religion at seven different Jesuit and Catholic institutions in Mumbai, Vijayawada and Kolkata.

The final event on this tour was a keynote presentation at the International Seminar on Science and Religion, which was held at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. The conference program can be downloaded here.

One of the principal achievements of this tour was the establishment of closer ties between Santa Clara University and two elite Jesuit schools in India. As a part of this collaboration, I now teach a “hybrid” version of my course Science, Religion and the Limits of Knowledge at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Over the past few years, St. Xavier’s College Kolkata has devoted a special issue of Goethals News to this class, featuring highlights of student essays. .

Since this class has now been offered at five universities on three continents, it is fair to say that it represents an example of how global collaboration between Jesuit schools can work in practice. Extending this model to other Jesuit institutions has one of my main goals as a member of the Steering Committee of the International Association of Jesuit Engineering Schools (IAJES), to which I was elected in 2018. An important part of my role in this organization involves the task force on Engineering, Ethics and Spirituality, which I have chaired since 2018. This task force was designed to provide a “bridge” between different engineering disciplines, by addressing certain fundamental questions that are common to all of them.