The Faculty of Social Sciences (FASS) cultivates the study of social reality, in which the human person realizes his or her potential in justice and peace and in view of the integral sustainable development of society as a whole and of its members. In the FASS we analyze and describe the interactions and interconnections among the various human groups and organizations that build up the social order. These social groups determine the cultural, ethical, political and economic life of peoples and communities which then give rise to institutions that are capable of achieving a genuine common good.
In particular, the FASS provides an advanced level of formation in the various statistical, methodological, sociological, psychological, historical, juridical, economic and political disciplines in dialogue with Christian social thought. In its multidisciplinary approach, the Faculty aims to provide students with the theoretical and methodological instruments to analyze, compare and interpret complex social global realities and problems, ranging, for instance, from the world of work, through pastoral care, to the great questions of justice and peace, climate change and migration, and emerging issues such as artificial intelligence, all in relation to Catholic social teaching and social thought.
The special emphasis given to the political, ethical and economic dimension, taking into account the most recent trends and experiences in societies and nations, seeks to enhance the students’ professional and reflexive capacities, so that they may be able to offer their own contribution to policy-making processes, in offering expertise and in diverse leadership positions, always at the service of the common good and the dignity of the person. The students – both religious and lay – on whom these academic degrees are conferred find job postings in public and private institutions, in the profit and nonprofit sectors and in the dioceses of different countries, in economic and social development projects, in political, management and consulting careers, as well as teachers and professors and as specialists in communications.
The FASS forms part of the great Dominican tradition of social ethics. It offers an authentic response to today’s cultural and intellectual tendencies towards the extremes of relativism and fundamentalism. A constant reference to the truth – the indelible mark of the Dominican perspective – is a strong option for a philosophical realism that, at the social level, manifests itself as the ability to lead social change towards the civilization of love, as Christian social thought expects.