April 2024 Newsletter

In this edition:

• President's Message
• JASPA Pipeline Stewarship
• JASPA Online Enrichment Webinar
• Save the Dates

President's Message

Spring Greetings, JASPA!

Aside from being the date our taxes are due, April 15th is also the annual running of the Boston Marathon. As ever, athletes from all over the world -- speaking different languages and having different life experiences -- gathered with a common purpose. Whatever individual differences exist between the runners pale in the very powerful visual of thousands of people aiming for the same goal: to power up Heartbreak Hill and finally cross the finish line.

As I've contemplated this month's Principle of Good Practice, images of the Marathon keep coming to mind. The 7th Principle is about dialogue -- and although the two concepts of dialogue and marathons don't fit neatly together at first blush -- the simile has persisted for me.

Specifically, the 7th of the Principles of Good Practice for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities is to:

Facilitate relationship-building, dialogue, and the pursuit of common ground among individuals and communities with differing world views, contributing in the work for a more just world.

Now you might ask, "How is this principle like a marathon?" And with apologies to our marathoners from someone who can barely complete a 5K, let me tell you what I'm thinking.

First as with marathons, where race day is the culmination of months of preparation and skill-building -- dialogue, too -- requires skills that take lots of practice to master. Generous listening, clear communication, and patience are habits that require intentionality and commitment to develop.

Second, marathoners aren't born, they're made: any marathon training program begins with small steps -- brisk walking for the previously sedentary -- of incremental increases in time and distance. This is also how relationships build: one step at a time. Just as marathoners don't run 26.2 on their first day of training, people with different worldviews or ideological perspectives can't have productive engagement about their differences if they haven't taken the step to say hello and find out what they have in common.

Third, marathoning -- from what I'm told -- is best done together. It's an individual sport, yes, but the proliferation of running clubs in the past decade also nods to the proverb: "if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." If we are seeking a hope-filled world that bends toward justice, this is work we have to do together.

If we think about Principle 7 in terms of training for a marathon, perhaps we can resist the temptation (and pressure) of finding quick fixes for what ails our campus communities, our nation, and our world. If we liken work as educators and as those who accompany young people toward a hope-filled future to that of a would-be marathoner, we can see our goals for justice and dialogue through the incremental steps of relationship and community building. 

More importantly, we can teach our students that finding common ground and sharing in the common good is a process -- a marathon and not a sprint -- and we can help them develop the skills they need to stay in it for the long haul. 

Here's to the distance runners -- literal and figurative.

Michele

President, JASPA
Senior Vice President for Student Development and Mission
College of the Holy Cross
 

JASPA Pipeline Stewardship

At the 2024 JASPA Conference in Seattle, we held two sessions to capture ideas on how to create a “pipeline” beginning with our undergraduate students and student leaders, recent alumni, and our current campus professionals both at the beginning of their careers to mid-level. Our conversation was robust through the sharing of what is happening on our campuses as well as ideas to create interest in our graduate preparation programs and career work within the Jesuit context. Much of our dialogue also centered on supporting and retaining professionals already working/leading on our campuses.

We invite your contributions and ideas via the survey link or QR code below. Additionally, we would like to find out about graduate preparation programs in student affairs or educational leadership on your campus.

We will convene a virtual conversation in May to continue this pipeline stewardship dialogue. If you complete the survey, we will send an invitation to you. Thank you for your input and interest!

If you have questions, please contact Erin Swezey (Associate Teaching Faculty, Program Director, Student Development Administration at Seattle University and JASPA Vice President for Pipeline Stewardship) at swezey@seattleu.edu.

Survey link:
https://seattleux.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8GoEX3CCHxe4pr8

Feel free to share this survey with campus colleagues:

Pipeline Stewardship Context/History:

In November 2023, JASPA leadership launched a new initiative enhancing the “pipeline” between our Jesuit campuses and AJCU graduate preparation programs. As we begin 2024, we will put a call out for Pipeline Stewardship committee members, primarily seeking AJCU graduate faculty members and career engagement professionals, to establish this standing committee. Our purpose and responsibilities include:

• Helping undergraduates at AJCU institutions to consider the professional field of student affairs;
• Marketing AJCU graduate preparation programs to our undergraduate students, recent alumni, and professional staff who may be interested in the field of student affairs;
• Creating a system for JASPA members to advertise internship opportunities and employment postings to our graduate students at AJCU institutions; and
• Developing opportunities for dialogue between or AJCU preparation program faculty and SSAO leaders to enhance partnerships, communication, and feedback.
   

JASPA Online Enrichment Webinar

JASPA Online Enrichment Webinar:
Jesu-what?! An Introduction to Today's Jesuit Mission 
Wednesday, April 24, 2024, 3:00-4:30 pm EST
(see Zoom link below to participate)

Presented by: Timothy O’Brien, S.J., Associate Vice President for Mission, College of the Holy Cross

This webinar will offer an introduction (or a refresher!) for JASPA professionals wishing to know more about the foundations and contemporary vision of Jesuit education. What does it mean for our AJCU institutions to be part of this educational tradition, and how might it shape how we understand our individual contributions through student affairs work to their mission?

In this session, we will see that Ignatius Loyola and the early Jesuits never planned to start schools, but quickly learned that their spiritual vision fully aligned with the pursuit of academic excellence and the desire to help form responsible citizens and leaders. This session sketches how Ignatius’s spiritual vision came to shape both how and why Jesuits founded schools, and will ask us to ponder our own education in the light of its key themes.

Our presenter, Timothy O'Brien, S.J., currently serves as Associate Vice President for Mission at the College of the Holy Cross. He recently earned a doctoral degree in the history of spirituality and religious life from Facultés Loyola Paris (formerly Centre Sèvres), the Jesuit faculties of Paris. A historian of Christian spirituality -- especially the Jesuit and Ignatian traditions -- he is a specialist in the religious culture of the early modern Iberian world. Fr. O’Brien holds additional graduate degrees in history and the history of Christianity from the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago Divinity School.

The webinar will be held via the following zoom link:
https://scu.zoom.us/j/98513796394?pwd=eExxQkQzNkVWMmhES1A0L2FaeFM1Zz09
 

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