College chaplains and mission officers play an important role at many NetVUE institutions. Whether those institutions are faith-based, denominationally aligned, or wholly secular, they all recognize the importance of attending to the spiritual and religious lives of their students, and to the existential questions that undergraduates so often face. In addition, colleagues in these roles have recently been asked to take on a wide range of other duties, ranging from student mental health intervention to addressing external constituencies about the college’s mission and vision. A group of chaplains and mission officers from NetVUE institutions have spent the last six months examining these evolving higher education roles in order to explore what kinds of programs and services might best support them and their institutions. In this interactive session, members of this project’s steering committee will describe what the group is learning through their readings, inquiries, and conversations. Participants in this session will have the opportunity to react to some of the tentative results of their project, and to offer additional input on how NetVUE might best serve chaplains and mission officers, as well as the institutions that support them.
Brian A.F. Beckstrom, Associate Vice President for Mission, Valparaiso University (IN)
Kristen Glass Perez, University Chaplain, George Washington University (DC)
Kendra Joyner-Miller, Chaplain and Director of the Lilly Center for Vocation and Values, Catawba College (NC)
Daniel G. Meyers, NetVUE Chaplaincy Initiative and Online Community Coordinator