Webinar Opportunity
Vocation and College Athletics: Supporting Student-Athletes in Connecting Sports and Life
Join us for a conversation about promoting vocational exploration in our work with student-athletes. Our panelists (pictured here, clockwise from top left) will be Stephanie Ahlfeldt of Concordia College (MN), Angie Morenz of Blackburn College (IL), and Marcus Wagner of University of Mary (ND). This dynamic team will discuss strategies to foster a richer connection between vocational inquiry and the lives of student-athletes. The panelists will share practical advice about how to develop our capacities to connect to campus resources in this area and to work more holistically with this student population. Rachel Pickett, NetVUE webinar coordinator (pictured here on the bottom-right), will host the webinar, and we invite you to discover ways to integrate facets of both student life and academic affairs into our mentoring and support of student-athletes.
We will gather on Thursday, September 19th, at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (3:00 p.m. CST, 2:00 p.m. MST, and 1:00 p.m. PST). The webinar is open to anyone at a NetVUE member institution at no cost, but registration is required.
Please share this information with your colleagues. We hope that you will consider using the webinar as a springboard for further campus conversations that are tailored to your own context.
NetVUE Professional Development
2025 NetVUE Faculty Seminar: Teaching Vocational Exploration
NetVUE Regional Gathering
King University: Storytelling and Vocation
Join us this fall for a regional gathering at King University in Bristol, Tennessee, on Wednesday through Friday, October 23–25. We’ll focus the role of educators as storytellers—in the classroom, in advising, in student development, in religious programming, or in athletics. We often share our own vocation stories, teach with stories, engage in the larger stories of our institutions, and cast a vision for the stories to come. NetVUE events and publications have pointed frequently to the interweaving of vocation and storytelling. Whether in our own stories, our sacred texts, or our art and music, there is always a before and after to calling; in other words, vocation is a story-shaped reality.
This NetVUE regional gathering seeks to offer a space for educators to engage a wide array of professional storytellers—writers, podcasters, journalists, playwrights, singers, filmmakers, actors, and others—as they consider together how storytelling can help students in their work of vocational reflection and discernment. Guiding questions for the event include:
- What stories can we tell to help students clarify their callings?
- How might our own storytelling call our students to reflection and action?
- When can we best call on our students to tell their own stories?
- Why and how do different kinds of story, in different media, call us?
- Where are our stories grounded, and how does place affect our storytelling?
This gathering will pay particular attention to Appalachia in the context of these broader questions. In the mountains of this region, storytelling and vocation share a long history; this location offers rich soil in which educators can cultivate new approaches to guiding their students as they discern their many callings in life. For further details, click here.
The cost of this event for those at NetVUE member institutions is only $100 per person , inclusive of two nights’ lodging at the height of the fall-color season. Please register no later than September 23, 2024; to do so, click here.
NetVUE Regional Gathering
Texas Lutheran University: Equity-Based Initiatives to Support Vocational Discernment
Registration is now open for this regional gathering hosted by Texas Lutheran University. It will take place November 14–16, 2024, which will focus on how vocational discernment can be supported through equity-based practices. According to 2022 data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), diversity in college enrollment has increased with each decade. On college campuses, the period from 1980 to 2022 witnessed an increase in the representation of all racial/ethnic groups—except for white students. White students made up 81% of the undergraduate population in 1980, but only 54% in 2020. LatinX student representation increased an astonishing 408% in the past four decades, and the Black student population grew from 9% to 13%. How can colleges make use of vocation-related practices to create an atmosphere that welcomes diverse college students? How might educators and institutions cultivate a sense of belonging and validate student experiences through asset-based planning?
This NetVUE regional gathering seeks to deepen the role of vocation and calling among culturally diverse student populations by engaging in courageous conversations and by drawing on the wisdom of thought leaders who have a track record of success and innovation. Our opening speaker on Thursday evening will address the strategic partnership of education policy as it relates to private, independent colleges and universities. Panels of NetVUE college presidents will delve into specific challenges and opportunities for creating a sense of belonging, inclusivity, and justice for Hispanic/LatinX students and for Black students. Other speakers will explore the latest research on student success and engagement impacting students of color, and breakout sessions will explore these themes and offer practical strategies for institutions to implement equity-based initiatives for vocation and calling across a diverse student community. Complete information on this NetVUE regional gathering is available on the Texas Lutheran University website.
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 $250, which includes lodging.) Please register no later than October 15, 2024. Click here to register.
NetVUE Opportunities
The Big Read: Join the conversation about vocation this year!
Each year, NetVUE sponsors the Big Read to support member institutions as they engage with a common reading on vocation. During the 2024–2025 academic year, staff and faculty members at NetVUE institutions are invited to read together Called Beyond Our Selves: Vocation and the Common Good, published by Oxford University Press in early 2024. This volume emphasizes the interconnectedness of individual life and communal life, suggesting that—in this meeting place between self and others—we are called beyond our selves. The contributors propose that when people prioritize the well-being of all, their notions of success and purpose are elevated. This shift challenges our typical approaches to vocation, as well as our thinking about what is common and what is good. Throughout the volume, the authors offer pedagogies, models, and practices that will help those of us who work in higher education to orient vocation toward the well-being of the community. To find out more about how your institution can receive free copies of the book and participate, visit the Big Read website.
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