A Word from the Dean

Each year, the Bellarmine forum allows us as an intellectual community to engage one another and the wider public, in and beyond Los Angeles, in serious and sustained conversation about the profound questions of human existence. The Forum promotes the mission of Loyola Marymount University as a Catholic university grounded in the liberal arts and committed to academic excellence and transformative education.

The ninth annual Bellarmine Forum on the theme of vulnerability offers a splendid window into examining the human condition, our individual and collective physical, spiritual, and social insecurities, our constant and unsettling susceptibility to the instabilities of change and external pressures, and our enduring and often misconceived yearnings for perfection and control. The Forum is an important opportunity for us to reflect on how we respond individually and in solidarity with others to the vulnerabilities each of us faces.

My heartfelt thanks go to William Fulco, SJ and Roberto Dell’Oro, the organizers of this year’s Forum. Their dedication manifests a profound commitment to the values our University holds dear: the encouragement of learning, education of the whole person, the service of faith and the promotion of justice.