Sessions

In this interactive session, participants will learn more about Scriptural Reasoning and how it can provide an opportunity to read and interpret sacred texts in ways that encourage conversation around deep reflective themes. These themes, which often form part of the backdrop for vocational reflection, range across the entire spectrum of human experience—from the sense of catastrophe facing many people, on the one hand, to narratives of divine abundance in creation on the other.

Last summer, the Council of Independent Colleges launched the NetVUE LIVE Project (Longitudinal Investigation of Vocational Exploration). This major study, funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., will follow two cohorts of students as well as faculty members from 39 NetVUE institutions. This is expected to be the largest-ever longitudinal study focusing on outcomes related to calling and vocation. This workshop will present highlights from the initial wave of this research effort—with results from faculty, staff, and student participants—and will invite attendees to consider the implications of the data and to ask questions via interactive, roundtable discussions facilitated by all eight members of the LIVE Project team. 

Join us for this unusual opportunity to be present at a live recording of the NetVUE podcast, Callings: Conversations on College, Career, and a Life Well-Lived. Our hosts will be speaking with Almeda Wright, who will also be offering the closing plenary address at the NetVUE Conference on Saturday. Audience members will have an opportunity to submit their own questions, some of which may help to shape the final edited version of this podcast episode.

NetVUE member campuses are using the NetVUE Conversation Cards in a wide range of venues: in the classroom, in co-curricular programs, and in professional development for staff and faculty members. Join this interactive workshop to explore the variety of uses for the Explore, Engage, Envision, and Encuentra decks of conversation cards. Facilitators will lead activities with the cards and will provide time for participants to share ideas and to brainstorm new uses that can be implemented on their campuses.

Campuses love to celebrate sporting achievements, and they frequently feature varsity athletes in institutional publicity, but many student-athletes live in a silo, finding themselves segregated from nonathletic peers and often less interested in questions about life after college. During this workshop, the leaders of NetVUE’s Purposeful Student-Athlete project will report preliminary findings from their study, share working models, and invite participants to reflect on the benefits and barriers to student-athlete vocational exploration on their campus.

This interactive workshop explores how generative AI is reshaping undergraduate students' approach to vocational exploration and discernment. As students increasingly navigate the tension between developing a philosophy of life and preparing for careers in a rapidly evolving professional landscape, we will examine both the opportunities and challenges AI presents for meaningful work and calling.

How might we re-envision the advising process so that it becomes a genuine opportunity for mentoring students and for encouraging them to explore and discern their vocations? In this interactive session, leaders from three NetVUE institutions will describe the ways that they have sought to strengthen and deepen the advising experience, using it to connect with students about how they understand meaning, purpose, and vocation.

In the wake of the current backlash against equity and inclusion programming, what strategies and tactics are most successful as we seek to advocate for all our students? How can we ensure that our efforts related to vocation and calling are widely available and accessible to all students, so that they reach beyond those who take it for granted as a part of the college experience? In this interactive session, participants will have the opportunity to reflect on these issues and to develop both personal and institutional strategies for student advocacy.

In this session, a contributor to one of the previous NetVUE volumes will interview editor Erin VanLaningham and four of the authors who contributed to the forthcoming fifth volume from the NetVUE Scholarly Resources Project. They will delve into their process of writing, the challenges that their own institutions are facing, and their common goal of looking into the future of higher education with imagination and hope.