The Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE), a Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), recently awarded a $50,000 grant to Elizabethtown College.
The grant will help build programs within the campus community related to reflective learning and purposeful life work that pertains to the different disciplines and departments the College has to offer.
“We live now in this world where we are 24/7/365, gone all the time. When is it that people stop and think? When is it that we reflect?” asked Chaplain Tracy Sadd. The purpose of this CIC network is to support colleges holding programs for students to think about what it means to have a calling, and to promote spirituality and religion.
Lilly Endowment Inc., a private philanthropic foundation, is the main supporter of this grant, which will be used between January 2013 and January 2015. The foundation wanted to pay for programs, at the broadest level, inviting people to think about a deeper meaning, the attributes of an ethical leader and reflective decision–making.
One of the most anticipated programs for Etown’s campus is a summer retreat for faculty and staff to ponder their own sense of vocation and purposeful life work.
A previous visit by four Etown College faculty members to Gustavus Adolphus College, a small institution in Minnesota, allowed the College to become familiar with a similar program to the one Etown is currently developing for Etown students and faculty members in the summer of 2013.
It also gave the faculty a better understanding of how to get the most of their newly awarded grant. This retreat is scheduled to occur over the course of two summers. It will present staff members the opportunity to reflect on their own sense of life calling within their discipline and determine the characteristics of an ethical leader, using this knowledge to serve the world and, in turn, construct a better place to live.
Chaplain Sadd explained the College hopes to have a group of faculty and staff members who agree to attend the summer retreat, become purposeful life mentors. This will give an opportunity for students from any major the option to visit various purposeful life mentors with the idea in mind of more availability for students around the campus.
Elizabethtown College has recognized current program options on campus are rather slim for sophomores and the faculty have been working together to create a special retreat specifically for a voluntary group from the sophomore class in January of 2014. This retreat or workshop has the purpose of aiding students in declaring the most desirable direction to proceed with their education and how they plan to discover the best fit field of study for themselves.
“The sophomore year is a time, we know through research, when students are open to pondering big questions of meaning and purpose,” said Chaplain Sadd. She explained how the school intends to utilize a chunk of this money to pilot, with roughly forty students, a sophomore year experience dealing with questions students may have concerning the College’s “Educate for Service” motto in response to their major.
The proposal concerning this grant contains small amounts of money intended for the different departments of the College to use to their benefit. Chaplain Sadd explained a website in the process of being created plans to display lists of resources for purposeful life work and ethical leadership within the different fields involving the assistance of faculty.
There are components of the proposal being evaluated about specific vocational practices within the various departments of the College, but the idea of vocation is also going to be practiced on a general level, with additional contributions going to other parts of the campus.
Chaplain Sadd hopes for the students who are willing to participate in the new programs to stay curious, be open-minded, and give the college feedback on techniques working well and ones less effective. “If there is any faculty, staff, or students who are particularly interested in these kinds of things,” said Chaplain Sadd, “there are tons of opportunities to help shape and impact what happens.” Doing work meaningful to the self, but making sure it also has a positive and enriching impact on the global community are the intentions of these vocational programs.
Elizabethtown’s mission statement says, “The College’s educational program fosters an understanding of education for a life of purpose based on a holistic model of student development that integrates career development; reflection on vocation, meaning and life; and a commitment to civic engagement.” In this way, the College hopes to prepare each student for the working world by valuing their individual moral beliefs and their commitments as a graduate of Elizabethtown College.
With this grant, Chaplain Sadd, along with many other faculty and staff, plan to build onto the College’s ideology of ethical integrity for students to carry with them and pass onto others. “We are contributing to a larger body of knowledge that will hopefully make not only Etown better,” said Chaplain Sadd, “but higher education across America better.”