In an annual celebration of Jesuit traditions, the university will hold its 12th annual Jesuit Heritage Week from Jan. 29 to Feb. 4.

“It’s a week when we celebrate our roots and engage our Georgetown faculty, students and community in our heritage,” Alma Caballero (SFS ’13), co-chair of the Jesuit Heritage Week Committee, said. “It’s not only for the Catholic community. We try to engage every single faith and student on campus. We break the normal routine and identify with what our university really means.”

Michael Fischer (SFS ’13), the other co-chair of Jesuit Heritage Week and a columnist for The Hoya, believes that the events provide opportunities not only to appreciate the Jesuit tradition but also to give thanks to the Jesuits at Georgetown.

“The Jesuits are a humble group, yet they give so much of their time, talent and lives to make Georgetown the place it is and make us Hoyas who we are,” he wrote in an email.

The week will include a variety of academic, spiritual and service events, beginning with an opening mass in Gaston Hall Sunday evening.

According to Caballero, many of the other planned events were shaped by the desire of members of the student committee to reflect on their own personal faith backgrounds.

Events will range from talks on women’s role in the church and Jesuits in Latin America and Africa to the popular Spike-a-Jesuit volleyball tournament. The week’s festivities will also include a conversation about Jesuit identity with students at the School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

“We interact with our Doha students and bring Jesuit Heritage Week to them, and I think that’s really important and interesting because the majority of those students are not Catholic, yet they’re still celebrating their Jesuit identity,” Caballero said. “It’s an interfaith dialogue.”