March 2024 Newsletter
In this edition:
- President's Message
- Help Shape the JASPA 2025 Summer Institute
- 2024 JASPA Innovation Grants - Applications Open
- JASPA Online Enrichment Webinar
- Student Affairs Professional Development Series
- Available Volunteer Positions
- Save the Dates
President's Message
Dear JASPA Colleagues,
Spring is officially upon us! A HUGE thank you to our colleagues at Seattle University for sharing the season and for being terrific hosts for JASPA's Annual Conference and Awards Banquet. And congratulations to all of our Ignatian Medal winners! Being together with all of you in our shared mission and values always fills my cup.
The changing seasons remind me to take stock -- and as we move steadily toward Commencement -- my mind goes to our students, the profound ways they have grown, and what their development teaches me. Earlier this week, a colleague shared a story about a student's journey. The particulars may be different, but my guess is the contours are very familiar to you:
As a first-year student, a young man entered one of our Jesuit institutions with very particular, ambitious goals. He set about achieving these goals. And in his junior year, he acknowledged that he still wanted what he wanted, but, he admitted, he didn't like the person he was becoming. Oooh. Ouch.
This moment of powerful and meaningful -- albeit painfully disappointing -- realization is where the rubber of our shared values and Ignatian spirituality meets the road of life. This moment and so many others like them are where we are called to do our best work to mentor students and accompany them toward deeper self-knowledge, greater peace, and permission to step into their authentic self -- the self God calls them to be.
In the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius guides us to experience ourselves as God sees us: flawed, yes, but also deeply loved and uniquely gifted to respond to the world's needs. How fortunate for the student in the story that he had someone who could invite him to become curious about the dissonance he was feeling and explore it rather than ignore it. Someone who could guide him as he discerned the difference between his material ambitions and the desires of his heart. Someone who could help him choose the path that led to God's greater glory instead of his own. Someone who could accompany him as he moved -- in the words of a Jesuit I know -- "toward wholeness."
On your campus and for any number of students, you are this Someone. You are the one helping students find lasting joy and peace. This is what is meant by the sixth of the Principles of Good Practice for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities:
Invites and accompanies all students to develop an active and meaningful relationship with God.
As Jesuit institutions, we have a particular way of leaning into Principle Six. Finding the way to God through Ignatian discernment and the Spiritual Exercises is written into the Society of Jesus' Universal Apostolic Preferences. Although student affairs staff are less likely to direct students through the Spiritual Exercises, we do engage students in the process of discernment regularly. What Principle Six (and the UAPs) asks us to do in these moments is to ensure that we are using Ignatian concepts responsibly:
Discernment for what purpose? What are the places of "unfreedom?" Where are the consolations and desolations? What patterns are emerging?
Ignatian discernment leads to God.
Whether God is named or experienced in the context of a faith tradition or not, our hearts and our students' hearts turn toward the elements of knowing God -- right relationship, unconditional love, true peace, wholeness. This is my wish for your students and for all of us -- that in the context of a God who loves us, we may know, and like, who we are becoming.
As always,
Michele
President, JASPA
Senior Vice President for Student Development and Mission
College of the Holy Cross
Help Shape the JASPA 2025 Summer Institute
The JASPA 5-Year Summer Institute is an opportunity for student affairs professionals of all levels to focus on the joy and justice ingrained in our shared community and commitment to Jesuit student affairs and higher education. The Institute will take place June 23-27, 2025 at Loyola University New Orleans. Please take this brief survey and share your thoughts by Tuesday, April 2, 2024:
Take the Survey
5 things to look forward at the JASPA 2025 Summer Institute:
- Reflecting on how Jesuit mission guides our daily work
- Exploring how joy and justice uniquely inform Jesuit student affairs
- Connecting with colleagues across the country
- Engaging in opportunities to share initiatives and successes from your campus
- Appreciating the sights and sounds of New Orleans
2024 JASPA Innovation Grants - Applications Open
Proposals for Innovation Grants will be accepted until all funding is dispersed however priority will be given to proposals received by Monday, April 8, 2024. Decisions will be made and communicated between May and June, and grants will be awarded in the new fiscal year. Applications are now open.
Each year, JASPA awards a limited number of grants for the purpose of applying current research to address pressing issues in Jesuit student affairs. While proposals for all projects and programs that address the goals and values of JASPA are welcome, special emphasis will be placed on those that are focused on efforts promoting diversity and inclusion. $10,000 will be available to fund these initiatives each year.
Interested in serving on the Innovation Grants committee? Each year, several JASPA members volunteer to serve on the Innovation Grants committee to review the applications that have been submitted for the current funding cycle. Serving on this committee is a terrific way to learn more about the work going on at other institutions and it is a rewarding experience to meet and engage with JASPA colleagues. Reviewers will read through all applications and make recommendations for funding to the JASPA Executive Board. The time commitment includes two to three weeks to review the submissions and attending a meeting to discuss the reviews and agree on a final recommendation. The review process takes place during April and May.
Please contact Patrick Rogers at progers@holycross.edu (JASPA Innovation Grants Chair, College of the Holy Cross) if you have any questions or if you are interested in serving on a committee to review grant applications.
JASPA Online Enrichment Webinar
JASPA Online Enrichment Webinar:
Jesu-what?! An Introduction to Today's Jesuit Mission
Wednesday, April 3, 2024, 3:00-4:30 pm EST
Zoom link to follow
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.
Student Affairs Professional Development Series
Are you looking for a creative, no cost way to expand professional development opportunities for graduate students and student affairs personnel at your institution?
The Boston College Division of Student Affairs has created a monthly virtual professional development program leveraging the expertise of our colleagues in the field designed to provide an "inside" look at some of the major issues confronting student affairs professionals today. This program features case studies and conversations facilitated by senior leaders in student affairs.
This is a great opportunity for both new and seasoned professionals. All are welcome and encouraged to join! The sessions are in the form of a one-hour webinar monthly at 12:00pm EST. Come join us!
Upcoming Sessions
Dr. Jason Campbell-Foster - Boston University
Beyond the Books: What They Don’t Teach You in Graduate School
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Dr. Marcella Runell - Mount Holyoke College
Work/Life Integration
May 2024
Past Sessions
Dr. Shawna Cooper Whitehead - Boston College
Jesuit, Catholic Mission & Student Affairs
Dr. Sheilah Horton - Wellesley College
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know: Setting a Professional Development Plan for New Professionals
Dr. Pauline Dobrowski - Stonehill College
Resilience & Professional Change
Dr. Renique Kersh - University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Speaking the Language: Navigating Collaboration Between Student & Academic
Affairs
Dr. Deb Cady Melzer - Loyola University Maryland
New Semester, New Joys! Finding Meaning & Purpose in Your Work
Dr. Michele Murray - College of the Holy Cross
Small, Yet Complex: The Benefits & Challenges of Working at a Liberal Arts College
Dr. Alicia A Bourque - Loyola University New Orleans
Navigating Crisis Management: Student Protests, Politics & Safety
Register for our upcoming sessions!
We strongly encourage you to share this invitation with graduate students, student affairs professionals and anyone who might be interested in student affairs. All are welcome!
If you have any questions, please contact Joe Du Pont at dupontjo@bc.edu (Associate Vice President of Career Services and Integrated Learning, Boston College).
We look forward to seeing you soon!
Available Volunteer Positions
If you are interested in volunteering with JASPA, we have a few positions available:
- Vice President for Online Enrichment
- Online Enrichment Chair
- Innovation Grants Vice Chair
Please contact Tedd Vanadilok at tvanadilok@scu.edu (JASPA Vice President for Technology and Communication, Santa Clara University) if you are interested in any of these volunteer roles and you will get connected with the appropriate JASPA Vice President to further discuss.
Save the Dates
2024 Ignatian Q Conference
April 18-21, 2024
@ Saint Louis University
2024 National Jesuit Student Leadership Conference
July 16-20, 2024
@ John Carroll University
2025 JASPA 5-Year Institute
June 23-27, 2025
@ Loyola University New Orleans
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