The cost of this event for those at NetVUE member institutions is $50 or $100 per person, depending on whether lodging is required. (The non-member rate is $100 or $400, also dependent on whether lodging is required.)
Please register no later than
September 12, 2025
This NetVUE regional gathering will explore institutional vocation and purpose in the changing landscape of U.S. higher education. How does a liberal arts institution discern, embody, and live out its calling? How does an institution articulate and communicate its vocation, and how does it infuse and embed that sense of vocation across the academy?
The discourse on vocation often identifies two realms: the inner world of the individual (consisting of characteristics involved in the exploration, discovery, and embodiment of one’s authentic self), and the outer contextual realm. This outer realm is the space into which we are called, within which we live out our vocations, and where we seek to understand and confront the systemic realities, which may either promote or undermine the common good. The relationship between the inner world of the individual and the outer realm of the community is fleshed out in the specific stories that people tell, which help them craft and communicate meaning.
Building on David Cunningham’s assertion that “Colleges have Callings, Too,” this regional gathering examines how institutions excavate, understand, grapple with, and embody their institutional callings. It will explore what Darby Ray refers to as both the “self-work” of internal vocational reflection and the “world-work” of community engagement. It will also explore how an institution chooses to articulate and live out its vocation in practice.
Bushnell University brings relevant experience to this conversation, having engaged with institutional vocation through a NetVUE Grant for Reframing the Institutional Saga, as well as a presidential initiative exploring the creation of beloved community on campus. In addition, in partnership with NetVUE and with the help of other NetVUE grants, the institution has worked to plant and to embed vocational exploration throughout its curricular and co-curricular programs. During this regional gathering, Bushnell staff will share some of these experiences—not as definitive models, but as conversation starters that might inspire and generate approaches that will be relevant to and useful for other NetVUE member institutions.
Because Bushnell University is located at some distance from most NetVUE member institutions, limited travel assistance will be available to those institutions sending two or more persons to this event, as well as to participants from NetVUE member organizations. More information on this regional gathering will be available soon; meanwhile, please save the date for this important gathering.
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