About the GRC
What is the Gender Relations Center?
The Gender Relations Center (GRC) promotes moral formation consistent with Catholic identity, mission and values. As an office in Student Affairs, the GRC designs and implements programs about healthy relationships, gender and sexuality consistent with the Catholic character of the University. It creates dialogue on campus by collaborating with student clubs, other departments at Notre Dame and community organizations in South Bend. It is the first and only office of its kind within collegiate student affairs nationwide.
Why is the Gender Relations Center unique?
Initially, the office was loosely modeled after women’s centers and rape crisis centers from other top 20 universities, but none of these schools had the ideal model for Notre Dame to emulate. The Notre Dame community needed a center, rooted in Catholic tradition, for both women and men with varied socio-political ideologies and religious practices. In particular, the GRC is unique because it is concerned with the integrated development of students, especially their moral formation.
What does gender relations mean?
Gender relations refers to how men and women interact and communicate with members of the other sex and people of a different sexual orientation. The GRC promotes healthy gender relations by raising awareness, fostering dialogue and providing education on campus.
What is moral formation?
Moral formation is the process of educating and shaping one’s conscience (with Sacred Scripture, authoritative teachings of the Church and the practice of the virtues) as a means to develop proper attitudes, good judgment and responsible behavior in community.
What is gender?
Gender refers to the socially-constructed roles of women and men in their relationships, as well as the meanings associated with particular roles, while sex refers to biological characteristics that define human beings as female or male.
What is sexuality?
Sexuality refers to an intimate aspect of identity through which human beings experience an understanding of self and connectedness to others, the world and God.