A renewed Plunge into Boston

Sydney O’Malley ’26 speaks with unhoused person while walking streets of downtown Boston on rounds with Dr. Jim O’Connell ’70. (Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame)

Outside the doorways of Boston’s office towers, where rough sleepers seek refuge from the winter gale, the Institute for Social Concerns brought ten Mendoza College of Business students to confront a cold reality.

They were moving with the street teams of the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program, guided by Dr. Jim O’Connell ’70, to provide medical attention, food, and basic supplies. O’Connell modeled for the students how he seeks out individuals in his nightly rounds, knowing where they will be and what they will need, and providing the warmth of relationship in addition to medical care. There Sydney O’Malley (BBA ’26) mirrored this approach as she described meeting Anisha, who was seven months pregnant.

“We didn’t speak about her pregnancy or her homelessness,” Sydney said. “We just had a conversation about life. It made me realize how we are failing people like her every day.” It was a brief but indelible encounter: one of many such interactions over the three-day immersive experience of the McNeill Winter Plunge, a program of the Institute for Social Concerns curated specifically for students in the Mendoza College of Business.

A targeted approach

Named for the late Rev. Don McNeill, C.S.C.—the founding director of the Institute for Social Concerns—the program is designed as an interruption to a student’s undergraduate trajectory, making them briefly but acutely aware of the challenges faced by unhoused people. The one-credit course and its fully funded immersive experience held January 5–8 brought selected students together with nonprofit leaders, service providers, corporate executives, community partners, and individuals experiencing homelessness.

The Plunge continues the institute’s decades-long legacy of winter break immersive programming, now with a reimagined focus to achieve specialized goals. For business students, these few days before the spring semester fit in an often-packed educational journey of expected internships and networking. The program is designed to provide a lasting foundation for students’ future vocations, fostering a personal awareness of homelessness, exploring the structural forces driving poverty, and applying Catholic social teaching to leadership strategy.

“An authentic encounter with poverty and homelessness can profoundly shape a person and become a formative moment,” said Suzanne Shanahan, the Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director of the Institute for Social Concerns. “This course is designed to instill memories that will endure and become fertile foundations for developing character and for creating solutions to challenges in our communities.”

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