Ohio Northern University has been awarded a Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE) Program Development grant from the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) in the amount of $50,000 to deepen the intellectual and theological exploration of vocation among undergraduate students on campus. 

David MacDonald, University chaplain, will lead the project, which is titled “Creating a Common Language of Vocation.” A Vocational Study Team (VST) also will be established, made up of representatives from ONU’s offices of Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Polar Careers as well as the University’s five colleges.

"This grant will help us to identify the ways that we are already talking about vocation within our university community, and will allow us the opportunity to deepen that conversation and make it more meaningful to our students,” MacDonald said. “In turn, that will help our students to be better prepared for the future, as they ask deep questions about their purpose and mission in life."

The goal is to create new resources for faculty development, student leadership development, and assessment. The project period begins May 2015 and runs through April 30, 2017.

The team will study and develop the common language of vocation for the campus and publish a white paper on the subject. This white paper will then be used as the basis for a series of mini-grants that will be awarded to those within the campus community who are engaging in cross-disciplinary explorations of vocation.

  NetVUE grants are made possible thanks to a generous grant to CIC by Lilly Endowment Inc.