John D. Barton is a consultant with the Faith and Learning Initiatives at Baylor University (TX). He holds a BA from Harding University, an MDiv from Harding School of Theology, a graduate certificate in Islamic Studies from the Bayan Islamic Graduate School, and a PhD from Makerere University in Uganda. In addition to holding faculty positions, John previously served as director of the Center for Faith and Learning at Pepperdine University, and provost at Rochester Christian University. His areas of research and teaching include African philosophy, Christian and interreligious studies, and faith and philanthropy. He was the recipient of the 2021 Howard A. White Teaching Award at Pepperdine University, and he authored Better Religion: A Primer for Interreligious Peacebuilding (Baylor, 2022).
In addition to his role at Baylor, John is the assistant director of professional development for NetVUE and co-host of the NetVUE podcast, “Callings: Conversations on College, Career, and a Life Well Lived.”
Areas of expertise: Faculty and staff development, program implementation, campus-wide vocational engagement, vocation and international programs, and religiously diverse engagement.
Sheila Bauer-Gatsos is a professor of English at Dominican University (IL). She also serves as special assistant to the provost for university-wide programs, in which she is responsible for academic oversight and program leadership, curricular initiatives and coordination, and retention and academic success initiatives. She received her BA from Illinois Wesleyan University and earned a MA and PhD in English from Lehigh University. Her most recent publication is a chapter titled “Disciplinary Form: Introduction to Literary Studies,” which appeared in Cultivating Vocation in Literary Studies (2022), edited by Stephanie L. Johnson and Erin VanLaningham. She is also a Peer Reviewer for the Higher Learning Commission.
Sheila has been working with NetVUE for over ten years supporting work on vocational exploration and discernment on her own campus and other campuses. Her recent presentations have focused on vocational discernment in literature; structural initiatives to better serve students at Hispanic-Serving Institutions; and cognitive literary studies. She has overseen several NetVUE grants at Dominican University including a grant on Contemplating Life’s Callings, a Vocation Across the Academy Grant, and a Grant for Reframing the Institutional Saga. Sheila is a NetVUE Faculty Fellow and attended the NetVUE Teaching Vocational Exploration Faculty Seminar in 2017 and NetVUE Leading Vocational Exploration on Campus Seminar in 2024.
Areas of expertise: Advising, integrating vocation in the curriculum, faculty and staff development, program implementation, and transfer students.
Brian Bowman is an assistant professor of communication studies at Campbell University (NC). He earned his M.A. in digital communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He worked for over 20 years in the communication industry, including news and public relations. At Campbell, he received the 2020 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Brian began working in vocation at Campbell when he secured a NetVUE Program Development Grant in 2022. Under this grant, he started a faculty learning community which included 12 faculty members from several disciplines. The community helped faculty add vocational conversations to their courses and strengthened ties across the institution. Campbell University agreed to continue funding the community after the grant concluded. Brian is a NetVUE Faculty Fellow and attended the NetVUE Teaching Vocational Exploration Faculty Seminar in 2021.
Areas of expertise: Faculty and staff professional development, vocational exploration in the curriculum, vocation and AI.
Samantha D. Brown is an associate professor of psychology at Coe College (IA), where she is the faculty co-director of the Center for Creativity, Careers, and Community (C3). She received her BA at Creighton University and Ph.D. at the University of Iowa. Her background is in counseling psychology, with an emphasis in college student mental health.
Samantha’s scholarship intersects with vocation in academics, as her areas of interest focus on the career development of adolescents, career interventions, faculty and staff professional development, and the pedagogy of vocation. Samantha began working with NetVUE through a Program Development Grant in 2021. She is a NetVUE Faculty Fellow and attended the NetVUE Teaching Vocational Exploration Faculty Seminar in 2021. She has contributed to NetVUE’s “Vocation Matters” blog and presented at the 2024 NetVUE Conference. She led a three-day faculty and staff teaching vocation seminar at Coe College, and has presented a workshop about integrating vocation into the curriculum at Bridgewater College and MidAmerican Nazarene University.
Areas of expertise: Faculty and staff development, vocation in the curriculum, career centers and calling, first-year seminar.
Deirdre Egan-Ryan is professor of English and the director of faculty development at St. Norbert College (WI) where her work engages with literary modernism, race, gender, and ethnic studies. Among other publications in literary studies, Egan-Ryan is co-editor of and contributor to Modernist Women Writers and American Social Engagement (2019). She also examines best practices in community-engaged pedagogy, questions of vocation, and their place in mission-based higher education. A teacher at heart, her leadership in community-engaged teaching includes programs, workshops, and learning communities of vocational discernment that help faculty develop community-engaged courses and scholarship.
A member of the inaugural NetVUE seminar on Teaching Vocational Exploration, Deirdre has published journal articles on community-engaged pedagogy and vocation, is a contributor to the edited volume Cultivating Vocation in Literary Studies (2022), and writes for the NetVUE’s “Vocation Matters” blog. Her experiences at NetVUE also include serving as grant and journal article reviewer, helping to lead a Program Development Grant at her institution, as well as webinar panelist for various topics including the integration of vocation into classroom and institutional efforts. She has led presentations on vocation at NetVUE national conferences and helped host a NetVUE regional conference at her home institution. She enjoys the work of helping higher education institutions prepare students for lives of purpose and calling.
Areas of expertise: Faculty and staff development, community engagement, curriculum, storytelling and story-listening as vocation, campus-wide vocational engagement, curricular and cocurricular spaces, vocation as convocation, and grantwriting.
Kiki Kosnick is associate professor of French and chair of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Augustana College (IL). They earned their PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received dual undergraduate degrees in French and physiology. Their recent work on queer and feminist approaches to gender-inclusive poetics and language pedagogy has appeared in Modern & Contemporary France (2019), Teaching Diversity and Inclusion: Examples from a French-Speaking Classroom (2021), and The Modern Language Journal (2023).
Kiki began their vocational discernment as a former first-generation undergraduate student at a large state school. They are a NetVUE Faculty Fellow and participated in NetVUE’s Teaching Vocational Exploration Seminar in 2019 and Leading Vocational Exploration on Campus Seminar in 2025. They also contributed to NetVUE’s “Vocation Matters” blog and co-presented sessions on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) at the 2022 and 2024 NetVUE national conferences.
Areas of expertise: Vocation in the curriculum, DEIB and vocation, faculty and staff development, and advising and vocation.
Devin Manzullo-Thomas is associate professor of American religious history at Messiah University (PA). He also serves as Messiah University’s director of the E. Morris and Leone Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan studies; director of archives; and director of common-content courses. A historian by training, he teaches a wide array of classes in church history, historical theology, religious studies, and peace and conflict studies. His scholarly interests include the history of Christianity in the United States, public memory and commemoration, and material culture. He is the author of Exhibiting Evangelicalism: Commemoration and Religion’s Presence of the Past (University of Massachusetts Press, 2022) and Storyteller: The Life and Ministry of E. Morris Sider (Brethren in Christ Historical Society Press, 2025).
Devin attended the inaugural Enhancing Vocational Exploration faculty seminar in 2025 and has served as a reviewer for NetVUE Grant for Reframing the Institutional Saga. At Messiah University—a founding member of NetVUE—Devin has been involved in leadership of several NetVUE-funded grants, including a Grant for Reframing the Institutional Saga (2021-2023) and a Program Development Grant (2024-2026).
Areas of expertise: Institutional vocation and institutional saga, archives, general education and vocation.
Rich Meagher [pronounced MARR] is professor and chair of political science at Randolph-Macon College (VA). He is a Faculty Fellow for Brandeis University’s Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation (ENACT), a national program engaging undergraduates in state-level legislative change, and he co-authored a book about the program, Enacting Change (Brandeis University Press, 2025). As an expert observer of local and state politics of Richmond, Virginia, he hosts the podcast RVA’s Got Issues for Virginia Public media and has been featured widely in print and multimedia news programs. His 2020 book, Local Politics Matters, argues for the importance of participation in city and county politics.
Rich is a NetVUE Faculty Fellow who has consulted with institutions from Virginia to Morocco, and he co-led a NetVUE team in developing a resource bank for institutional consultations. He is an invited contributor to the fifth volume of the NetVUE Scholarly Resources Project, and his current scholarship focuses on the relationship of vocation to active citizenship. He co-led the panel, “Is This My Calling? Or Just My Major?” at NetVUE’s National Conference in 2024.
Areas of expertise: Capstone classes, vocation in the major, faculty advising, social sciences, civic engagement, vocation and the liberal arts/liberal education.
Julie Donovan Massey brings nearly 30 years of experience in faith-based higher education, most recently as interim vice president for mission & student affairs and as the president’s chief of staff at St. Norbert College (WI). Massey earned an M.Div. from Loyola University Chicago and an Ed.D. in Higher Education from Boston College. Her earliest on-campus roles were in direct ministry with students and colleagues, but over the years, she was called into greater leadership roles. In her tenure at St. Norbert’s, Massey went on to become director of mission & ministry and later the associate vice president for mission & student affairs. Her breadth of experience gives her a deep appreciation for work across campus, faculty and staff opportunities to impact students, and the institutional aspirations and concerns leaders navigate. She has authored or co-authored several journal articles and book chapters, and she co-authored the text Project Holiness: Marriage as Workshop for Everyday Saints (Liturgical Press, 2015).
For more than a decade, Massey directed vocation efforts on her campus as part of the Lilly Endowment’s “Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation” grants. Shortly after the NetVUE’s founding she began working as a consultant, and she continues to enjoy the opportunity to work with campuses as they develop or refine their vocation efforts. She oversaw two regional gatherings on her campus—one during the PTEV initiative and the other as part of NetVUE’s offerings. She currently sits on NetVUE’s Advisory Council as well as the editorial board of the NetVUE’s new journal, Studies in Vocation and Calling. In 2025, Massey co-led NetVUE’s inaugural Staff Seminar on Vocation, and she is excited to reprise this role in the summer of 2026.
Areas of expertise: Faculty and staff development, student programs, co-curricular experiences and student affairs, vocation and faith, and Catholic higher education.
Rebecca Pruitt is an associate professor of education and director of early childhood education at Lewis University (IL). She received a BA from Oklahoma Baptist University, and earned an MA and PhD from Oklahoma State University. Rebecca’s scholarly work centers on education program evaluation, focusing on undergraduate vocation and constructivist pedagogy within teacher preparation. She directs the Vocation Institute, a cohort of faculty and staff currently engaged in supporting the campus-wide integration of vocation.
Rebecca is a NetVUE Faculty Fellow and was a member of the 2017 cohort of the Teaching Vocational Exploration Seminar. She has led several NetVUE grant programs at her institution as well as a NetVUE Big Read program. She participated in the NetVUE writing colloquy and contributed to NetVUE‘s “Vocation Matters” blog. She is a frequent speaker and presenter at NetVUE conferences.
Areas of expertise: Campus-wide integration efforts, vocation in major courses, 3rd-4th year vocation, advising, faculty mentoring.
Caryn D. Riswold is the Mike and Marge McCoy Family Distinguished Chair in Lutheran Heritage and Mission and professor of religion at Wartburg College (IA). Previously, she taught theology and gender and women’s studies at Illinois College and Valparaiso College. There, she was a postdoctoral teaching fellow in the Lilly Fellows Program, on whose National Network Board she has served two terms. She also serves on the Faculty Working Group on Lutheran Higher Education for the Network of ELCA Colleges and Universities, where she builds on the work that she does at Wartburg College to empower campus constituents at all levels to understand, engage, and live into the institution’s mission and identity. She earned her Ph.D. and Th.M. at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, her M.A. at the Claremont School of Theology, and her undergraduate degree at Augustana University in her childhood hometown of Sioux Falls, SD. Caryn is the author of four books, the most recent of which is ReEngaging ELCA Social Teaching on Abortion (Fortress Press, 2024).
Among other things, Caryn writes and speaks about pedagogy, equity, and vocation in undergraduate education. As a member of the first cohort of the NetVUE Scholarly Resources Project, she wrote in At This Time and In This Place about the liberative and humanizing dimensions of vocation for faculty and staff. She has also written for NetVUE’s “Vocation Matters” blog and serves as a peer reviewer for Studies in Vocation and Calling. She has presented at NetVUE national conferences and regional workshops and engaged in NetVUE consulting work with a variety of institutions.
Areas of expertise: inclusion and belonging, discerning on AI and vocation, faculty and staff development, vocation in institutional mission and identity.
Ryan J. White serves as associate dean for leadership development and applied learning and director of first-year seminars at Hope College (MI). He received an Ed.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Southern California and a M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary. At Hope, Ryan serves as principal facilitator for the “Lead with Hope” leadership education initiatives through the Center for Leadership. In this role, he guides mid-to-senior level executives in discovering their leadership signature and authentic strengths through retreats, workshops, and coaching engagements. Ryan also leads Hope’s First-Year Seminar program, recruiting, training, and supervising 40-45 faculty annually. Previously, he directed the Center for Vocational Reflection at Augustana College.
Ryan brings both scholarly expertise and practical wisdom to his work in vocational formation. His scholarly work focuses on identity development, vocational discernment, and leadership development, exploring how individuals understand and exercise their unique gifts and purpose. He has developed numerous innovative curricular initiatives at Hope including “The Second Seminar: Designing A Life That Matters” course, Hope’s Summer Bridge Program, and the ongoing “Vocational Exploration and Career Transitions” faculty course grants for disciplinary course redesigns to incorporate vocation and career. At Augustana College, he managed a Lilly Foundation “Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation” grant and helped oversee the $1.1 million annual Augie Choice experiential learning initiative. Ryan is an experienced NetVUE conference presenter and consultant, and he hosted the 2025 NetVUE Regional Gathering “Integrating Vocation in the Academic Disciplines” at Hope College.
Areas of expertise: Leadership development, vocational reflection retreats, vocation in curriculum, first-year experience and transition programs, advising, applied learning, faculty and staff development, identity and career decision-making.
Contact Information
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