Elizabethtown College receives grant from NetVUE

Dec. 11, 2012 -- The Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE), a Council of Independent Colleges program, has awarded Elizabethtown College a $50,000 program development grant to be used in a two-year period beginning January 2013 and ending January 2015. The grant, which is supported by Lilly Endowment Inc., was developed to provide colleges and universities with funds to foster the intellectual and theological exploration of vocation in their campus communities. Elizabethtown intends to use the grant to create programs that deepen faculty, staff and student understanding of the College’s Educate for Service motto related to purposeful life work and ethical leadership across disciplines and departments.

Elizabethtown already has begun to develop some of the programs that will receive funding through the grant. Among them is a summer retreat for faculty members, in which participants have an opportunity to think about their life’s work, and how engaging in reflection can make them better mentors. The idea was developed by a visit to another college that funded a similar program through a separate Lilly grant.

In addition to faculty retreats, the College will begin to hold a retreat for students in the fall of their sophomore year. Participants will include first-generation college students and those who have not declared a major. Elizabethtown selected this project in response to the national concern that the sophomore year often contains less program options than those provided for first-year, junior and senior students. Sophomores tend to be open to thinking about and planning for their purposeful life work.

“The College welcomes the opportunity to provide its students, staff and faculty the chance to explore what purposeful work means to them,” said Tracy Sadd, chaplain at Elizabethtown College. “The campus is excited to expand our knowledge about ethical leadership to create more effective mentors now and strong leaders for the future.”