Celebrating Our Shared Work | 2025 Professional Development Awards

Ashland University (OH) will expand the language of vocation and life calling on all its campuses, while also developing a cohort of trained staff and faculty members who will serve as key resources in vocation-centric curricular and co-curricular programming across the university. A second cohort will pursue additional professional development specifically related to working with diverse student populations. Collectively, these cohort members will constitute Ashland University’s foundational first step in the development of future university-wide vocation and life-calling initiatives.

Augsburg University (MN) aims to develop a common understanding of vocation that reflects the campus’s diverse learning community. This initiative will build capacity among campus partners to draw students into the discussion of vocation as a central part of the Augsburg experience. It will include special attention to the personal, spiritual, social, and professional aspects of vocation that contribute to a student’s vocational journey, with the eventual goal of integrating a shared language of vocation in every aspect of campus life.

Bethany Lutheran College (MN) will engage faculty members in a year-long initiative to deepen their understanding of vocation within Lutheran theology. A retreat for faculty members will focus on integrating vocational themes into teaching and advising, leading to the creation of a learning community that fosters collaboration and supports a mini-grant initiative for innovative projects. By equipping faculty members to guide students, especially those from underrepresented, low-income, and international backgrounds, this initiative will create a shared institutional vocabulary and lay the foundation for broader integration of vocation across the undergraduate experience.

Bethel University (IN) will create a series of professional development and collaboration opportunities for staff and faculty members designed to build capacity, develop a shared philosophy, and provide cohesive training and resources as they work to better help students reflect on the role vocation plays in their academic and career choices. Participants will include faculty members, student life personnel, and academic success staff, who will work collectively to improve advising, mentoring, and other points of student interaction on campus. Project leaders and participants will also design professional development training for campus colleagues to create sustainable programs for vocational inquiry.

Blackburn College (IL) aims to integrate a shared language and methodology around vocation and student well-being into its advising structures and curriculum. Based in the frameworks of Appreciative Advising and Self-Determination Theory, staff and faculty members will explore how to apply these frameworks to students’ vocational discernment, emphasizing how advisors can guide students in exploring meaningful work, calling, and community collaboration. The project will culminate in a shared institutional vocabulary and training framework that aligns advising, onboarding, and student success with vocational development.

Bridgewater College (VA) seeks to empower faculty members to implement innovative curricular enhancements that elevate vocational exploration within its general education curriculum. Through workshops and other collaborative activities, faculty members will define and refine vocation-centered experiential pathways that enable students to connect their academic, co-curricular, and personal experiences to their emerging understanding of vocation. The project will culminate in enriched senior capstone courses in which students create portfolios demonstrating growth and develop vocation-informed, actionable career plans.

Bryn Mawr College (PA) will deepen faculty members’ understanding of vocation through a three-part series that will explore effective ways of bringing questions of vocation into academic spaces. A capstone event will feature faculty members who will showcase how their disciplines engage with questions about what it means to live one’s life authentically. The project will create a foundation from which to enhance vocational exploration in liberal arts courses and will raise Bryn Mawr’s profile as a place where students are inspired to explore the role of their beliefs, values, and identities in envisioning and pursuing lives of purpose.

Bushnell University (OR) will create a professional development community to support faculty members teaching online undergraduate classes. By collaborating with experts on vocation and an instructional designer, this project aims to embed vocational exploration as a distinctive element of online course development and discussion. The program will offer vocation seminars, individual coaching, and quarterly meetings to refine and support the faculty’s teaching methods.

Calvin University (MI) seeks to develop the institution’s capacity to support non-traditional, adult undergraduate students as they explore and build upon their existing callings and discern their future vocations. A core group of staff and faculty members will identify and discuss literature on adult learning and the teaching of vocational discernment, with the goal of integrating best practices into their curricular and co-curricular offerings for adult students. The core group will also facilitate a workshop for additional staff and faculty members who teach, coach, or advise non-traditional, adult learners to embed these practices throughout the program.

Carthage College (WI) aims to sustain and enhance the work of an existing Carthage program, which equips staff and faculty members with skills to engage in meaningful vocational conversations with students and with one another. Each participant will meet monthly in a small group to discuss big ideas central to vocational discernment and twice a year with a small student cohort to expand the reach of vocational exploration on campus. This project will help staff and faculty members reconnect with their own sense of vocation, promote skillful conversations with students about vocation, and instill a sustainable and self-perpetuating culture of vocation into the campus community.

Centre College (KY) will develop two key initiatives to foster engagement and sustained cross-disciplinary development of materials related to vocational exploration on its campus. The first is a workshop that will introduce staff and faculty members to core practices in vocational discernment thorough a cyclical process of meaning-making that helps students reflect, discern direction, and build purpose-driven lives through intentional engagement. These participants will contribute to the second key initiative, a faculty and staff learning community that will develop and test tools that support advising, teaching, and co-curricular engagement.

Cottey College (MO) will launch a professional development initiative to enhance faculty member engagement with vocational exploration. This program will provide tools to help faculty members guide students in exploring their vocations. Key activities include a book discussion, a full-day workshop, and a new vocation-themed course that promotes self-reflection and career exploration. The initiative aims to deepen the understanding of vocation campus-wide, empowering both faculty members and students to align their academic experiences with long-term career aspirations.

D’Youville University (NY) will develop a community-engaged learning center to integrate service-driven experiential learning into its general education curriculum. The center will partner with local organizations to address systemic inequities in health, education, food security, economic development, housing, and the environment. Grant activities will include workshops and trainings with faculty members and community partners and the development of assessment tools to measure program impact. By providing hands-on community engagement opportunities, the center will enhance student learning, strengthen community partnerships, and develop a sustainable and replicable model.

Divine Word College (IA) aims to deepen its understanding of and shared definition for vocation within the context of an institution that promotes education as the core of missionary vocation. Through a combination of workshops, faculty institutes, and forums focused on understanding vocation within its distinctive institutional context, this initiative will enhance collaboration, align academic and formation programs, and improve student vocational advising.

Drew University (NJ) aims to enhance staff and faculty members’ capacity in vocation-oriented education and to integrate these values into its curriculum through workshops, retreats, and vocational reflection sessions. Activities include deep reflection and mindfulness training, curriculum integration, and community engagement. Microgrants will support faculty members in developing vocation-focused programs. This initiative supports the institution’s shift to a problem-based, character-centered approach to education, equipping students with practical wisdom, adaptability, and commitment to the common good.

Fresno Pacific University (CA) aims to build faculty members’ capacity to foster inclusive vocational exploration and discernment among its diverse student population. Two cohorts of interdisciplinary faculty members will explore their own vocation and factors shaping it, receive training in culturally-responsive pedagogy for vocational exploration, consider factors inhibiting vocational exploration for a diverse student body, and develop pilot course components related to vocation. Following these course pilots and their assessment, participants will share their learnings and insights with faculty colleagues and the broader university community.

Gordon College (MA) will build faculty capacity to support vocational formation and exploration among its students.  Beginning with a summer retreat to assess needs and engage with key readings on vocation, faculty members will meet regularly throughout the year to refine approaches and to address challenges in guiding students’ vocational discernment. The initiative will conclude with a spring faculty workshop, where cohort members will lead discussions with colleagues across disciplines, fostering a shared vocational language and sharing teaching practices on vocation and calling.

Hilbert College (NY) will hold a faculty and staff retreat to facilitate participants’ reflections on their understanding of vocation and its applications to their work and life on campus. Attendees will be immersed in nature, partake in both group and self-reflection, engage in conversations regarding vocational discernment, and share resources and ideas on how to engage students in conversation about vocation. Following the retreat, project leaders will sustain the work through community gatherings, reading groups, and through contributions to the campus’s mission-centered leadership program.

John Brown University (AR) aims to develop a common language among staff and faculty members surrounding vocation and calling by facilitating group discussions and by holding a workshop to synthesize campus knowledge and awareness around these topics. Participants will read and reflect on relevant vocation literature as they consider how to integrate vocation into their work. Equipped with a shared language on vocation, project leaders will begin development of a practical toolkit to support future vocational initiatives on campus.

Loras College (IA) will develop a yearlong professional development opportunity to elevate campus understanding of vocation from an intellectual idea into a habitual practice among students that helps them address the “big questions” of life with intention and integrity. Staff and faculty members will explore experiential discernment practices as tools for vocation to model these practices for students both within and outside the classroom.

Lourdes University (OH) aims to create a campus-wide approach to vocation rooted in the institution’s mission and identity as a Catholic, Franciscan university. Through a common reading initiative, group discussions, expert trainings, and departmental subgroups, this program will support staff and faculty members in incorporating values-based vocational exploration into advising and a first-year experience course. Participants will also cultivate an awareness of Lourdes University values and determine best practices to incorporate them into their daily work.

Marian University (IN) aims to enhance faculty members’ ability to guide students in discerning their vocational callings through a structured, year-long faculty seminar. This initiative will create a dedicated space for faculty members to engage in theological reflection, interdisciplinary dialogue, and the study of best practices to enhance knowledge, skills, capacity, and expertise. Participants will serve as campus leaders in vocational exploration, influencing curriculum, student advising, and co-curricular initiatives. Their insights and contributions will help embed vocational discernment into the broader academic culture, ensuring integration into formal coursework and informal student interactions.

Millikin University (IL) will pursue a multifaceted approach to vocational development on campus that develops a shared philosophy of vocation, builds staff and faculty member capacity to apply this philosophy to pressing global needs, and fosters deliberate attention to the vocational exploration and development within a framework attuned to inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, and belonging. Grant activities will include workshops and retreats, with the end goal of developing an understanding of vocation that lays the groundwork for future development.

Nazareth University (NY) aims to develop a shared understanding of calling, common good, and vocation grounded in the charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph. This project will advance a multifaith and culturally responsive understanding of vocational discernment, while also uniting efforts from centers for community engagement, career connection, experiential learning, international education, and internships. The initiative will also develop an intentional curriculum that enables students to engage in community initiatives while exploring their identity and purpose.

Ohio Wesleyan University (OH) will build upon the institution’s newly transformed general education program to support faculty work that connects liberal arts concepts to student vocational self-exploration and articulates how the curriculum’s core competencies apply to career exploration. The project will provide time and space for faculty members to develop strategies that invite students to explore how their vocational aspirations connect to the core competencies, and to the development of transferable liberal arts skills.

Pacific Union College (CA) will develop an experiential learning program that reflects the institution’s strategic priority of career-focused education and invites staff and faculty members to engage students in questions of meaning, service, and vocation. This project will empower academic and staff departments to create hands-on learning experiences that help students explore their sense of calling through the lens of the liberal arts. Staff and faculty members will participate in a series of professional development activities that will enhance their understanding of vocation and create capacity for embedding vocational ideas across campus.

Saint Michael’s College (VT) will invite staff and faculty members from across campus to read, discuss, and reflect on a variety of texts to consider how a common language and understanding of vocation is integral to its mission and shared work with students in the context of formal advising and informal mentoring roles. The group will explore and share their own experience of vocation and consider ways to support students in their growth and understanding of vocation as part of their educational journey.

Saint Vincent College (PA) will initiate conversations among students, staff, and faculty members regarding the vocational character of lay pastoral ministry. A focus group of staff and faculty members will review literature on the vocation of lay pastoral ministry and then work collectively to envision how Saint Vincent College might better support it. The group will also host two workshops for interested students, staff, and faculty members to gain additional perspective on this topic. Collectively, these efforts will inform the development of a lay pastoral ministry undergraduate program at the institution. 

Sewanee: The University of the South (TN) will expand capacity for vocational exploration and reflection within advising conversations and academic curriculum. Informed by readings and discussions and with guidance from a guest speaker steeped in the literature and effective practices, faculty members will envision and create new or redesigned courses and resources for advising and mentoring that encourage student engagement with questions of vocation and purpose.

Simpson College (IA) will design and deliver faculty development opportunities oriented towards integrating vocational content into first-year writing instruction. Faculty members will receive training to design and teach a new writing-intensive course that encourages students to explore identity, purpose, and career paths. Led by faculty members and staff, the project includes summer retreats, professional development workshops, and a structured curriculum to support students—particularly first-generation, underrepresented, and low-income students—through reflective writing.

Stonehill College (MA) aims to develop a shared language for and understanding of vocation and vocational exploration grounded in the Holy Cross tradition. Through a series of workshops and retreats, participants will formalize, strengthen, and build interest and excitement around defining what it means to “Lead with Hope.” A desired outcome of this project is the development of learning outcomes for vocational reflection, exploration, and discernment that reflect the unique mission of the College and the charism of the Congregation of Holy Cross.

The College of Wooster (OH) will support training and curriculum development for faculty members who serve in mentorship roles for students early in their college experience. Participants will receive training, develop curricular tools, and identify opportunities to immerse first- and second-year students in mentoring experiences as part of a cohort program. As a result, students will build meaningful connections with the campus community, actively engage with new resources, and explore their values, vocations, and career paths.

The University of Scranton (PA) will develop an Ignatian pedagogy workshop that invites faculty members from across the curriculum to design new or revise existing courses for its newly adopted core curriculum. Special emphasis will be placed on the core capstone course, which is intended to guide students more intentionally and consistently towards vocational exploration and discernment as students reflect on their transformation throughout their Catholic, Jesuit education. Participants in the workshop will be mentored through course design and development, the curricular proposal process, and course delivery and assessment.

Thomas University (GA) will establish and educate a faculty learning community to mentor campus partners in integrating vocational discernment across disciplines, with a focus on serving sophomore-level students. Participants will engage with key vocational readings, attend online and in-person workshops, and form communities of practice. This project will establish lasting institutional capacity for vocational exploration through faculty development, cross-departmental collaboration, and evidence-based assessment practices.

The University of Indianapolis (IN) will implement a year-long series of workshops designed to support new and existing undergraduate vocation initiatives. Building on a successful faculty development program already on campus, a newly formed faculty fellows program will connect participants to each other, to their professional responsibilities, and to the university’s mission. Participants will build and execute their own vocation implementation plan, preparing them to mentor other staff and faculty members interested in building vocational initiatives into their work.

The University of Providence (MT) will launch a mission-centric professional development program for staff and faculty members designed to explore Catholic higher education, the charism of the Sisters of Providence, and vocational formation. Topics will include teaching beyond the classroom, fostering belonging, building inclusive dialogue, and reflecting on Catholic social teaching’s role in vocation. This project will empower participants to integrate these principles into their work, and to envision a future in which vocational formation is even more central to the university’s mission and identity.

The University of Saint Joseph (CT) will create a faculty development program to enhance support for student vocational exploration. Through interactive workshops and follow-up engagement activities, faculty members will develop sustainable strategies for fostering inclusive learning environments, managing burnout, and addressing campus conflicts through restorative justice. This initiative supports students called to serve in religious, social service, and health care disciplines as well as those in business, humanities, education, and STEM disciplines, ensuring that students are well-prepared to contribute to the common good in their chosen fields.

The University of the Incarnate Word (TX) aims to enhance vocational self-examination and interdisciplinary curiosity among first-year students through its learning community model that blends STEM and humanities courses. The project will include a five-day summer workshop, a campus visit and consultation with a guest expert, and monthly seminars for selected faculty members to design and implement vocational reflection exercises that will be pilot-tested in these learning communities.

Virginia Wesleyan University (VA) aims to enhance career and vocational development for undergraduate students by equipping staff and faculty members to have more enriching conversations surrounding discernment and vocation. Participants will follow a curriculum focused on vocational exploration and guided reflection from a liberal arts educational perspective. Informed by NetVUE resources, this project will foster understanding about how to integrate career and vocational connections into curriculum, program development, and mentoring.

Wake Forest University (NC) will enhance vocational discernment efforts on campus by integrating leadership, character, and integrity to unify the campus approach and embed these values into undergraduate vocational journeys. This project reflects Wake Forest’s commitment to equipping undergraduates with the mindset, tools, and experience to discern their callings, lead lives of meaning and impact, and develop as leaders of character, integrity, and courage.

Washington Adventist University (MD) will facilitate a three-day faculty retreat focused on vocational exploration and discernment. Through this retreat, participants will develop the framework for new academic credentials that will transform degree programs by fostering ongoing vocational engagement and by helping students integrate academic learning with purposeful career pathways. The retreat will begin with a guest speaker and facilitator discussing vocation and discernment, followed by breakout sessions to create meaningful pathways for student engagement.

Wheaton College (IL) aims to map the current ecology of vocational discernment at the institution and provide a unifying framework to orient the many ways vocation is discussed on campus. This project will feature a collaborative workshop for key staff and faculty members interacting with the first-year student experience, followed by a two-part workshop series and an exploratory vocation fellows pilot program. Participants will gain skills to facilitate robust vocational discernment conversations with students in their respective spaces and will form connections to one another as they explore their own vocations.