Loras Selected for Development Grant from CIC
Loras College has received grant funding of nearly $50,000 through the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE), which allows the College’s faculty and staff to deepen vocational exploration and discernment among undergraduate students.
“This grant provides robust funding to do the work that Loras College already does so well – inviting all members of the campus community to learn about how our individual goals and talents can best serve others in our communities,” said Dr. Erin VanLaningham, Professor of English and member of the grant team. “It allows faculty and staff to deepen our understanding of vocation so that we can better serve students as they make decisions about their own pathways.”
Through the grant, Loras’ new program “Pathway to Participation” aims to deepen and enrich vocation through links to curricular and co-curricular experiences. Building on the institution’s mission and new leadership framework, faculty and staff will gain greater dexterity and fluency with vocational scholarship and tools that will be used in classrooms, campus-wide conversations, and co-curricular settings. The result will be a campus community that understands and demonstrates a commitment to lifelong purpose, self-reflection, and community engagement.
Participants will attend vocation workshops and speaker events aimed at bringing various segments of the campus community together to learn and reflect on how to contribute to others in community life. Loras College features a “vocations” category in its general education curriculum and invites all students, faculty, and staff to consider how to use individual gifts to contribute to the local and global communities. The program will cover a variety of relevant topics to the campus—including teaching vocational exploration, understanding vocation and difference, and advising and mentoring.
NetVUE, an initiative administered by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), is a nationwide network of colleges and universities formed to enrich exploration of vocation among undergraduate students. The NetVUE program development award is for use over two academic years to support activities that strengthen vocational exploration and discernment programming for students.
CIC is an association of more than 700 nonprofit independent colleges and universities, state-based councils of independent colleges, and other higher education affiliates, that works to support college and university leadership, advance institutional excellence, and enhance public understanding of independent higher education’s contributions to society. CIC is the major national organization that focuses on services to leaders of independent colleges and universities and state-based councils. Founded in 1956, CIC is headquartered at One Dupont Circle in Washington, DC.
