Thomas More announced Tuesday that the university is creating a professional learning community with the intent to inform how classes are structured and taught to best serve students and prepare them for a successful future.
The learning community, which will include eight faculty and staff and a team of four leaders, is possible thanks to a grant from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education, or NetVUE.
“This project will enable our faculty and staff to enhance their knowledge and skills needed to guide our students in understanding their place in the world and their responsibility to others,” Thomas More University President Joseph L. Chillo said.
NetVUE is a nationwide network of universities formed to improve vocation among undergraduate students. Thomas More is a Roman Catholic university and therefore they are inspired by Catholic intellectual tradition, or vocation.
According to the university helping students find their purpose is an aspect of their mission. Vocation in a broad sense means to encourage, challenge, and support students of all faiths develop their skills and talents while finding their place in the world.
This grant funding is an extension of that work and allows intentional integration of vocation and calling into university programs.
The professional learning community begins this month and will meet 15 times throughout the academic year, incorporating an aspect of vocation, community, and student success into course programming to be implemented in the 2023-24 academic year.
Thomas More University has initiatives underway as part of their 2021-26 strategic plan, “Lighting the Way,” including revising the core curriculum, restructuring advising, and developing a more robust first-year student experience.
“The professional development funded through the NetVUE grant will move forward initiatives from our strategic plan, ‘Lighting the Way,’ through shifting and sustaining the ways that our mission is lived out on campus,” Chillo said.
