In the News
Professor Santas Selected for NetVUE Faculty Fellows Seminar
Muskingum University Professor of Biology Amy Santas has been selected to attend NetVUE’s June 2024 Faculty Fellows Seminar “Leading Vocational Exploration on Campus.”
The experience will prepare conference participants, who were chosen through a competitive process, to design and lead training for their peers on best practices for incorporating meaning and purpose exercises into the classroom.
“The 2024 NetVUE Faculty Fellows Conference and the follow-up training on campus will expand our current initiatives around meaning and purpose,” Dr. Santas said. “I’m excited that we can build upon our ongoing work by involving even more faculty members who can offer this in their classroom.
“Classes that typically enroll second-year students are particularly important for these exercises, as students are beginning to know their interests, strengths, and what energizes them. It is a great way to help them determine whether their intended major and career is in alignment with who they are and what they value.”
During the 2024-2025 academic year, Dr. Santas will implement a training process at Muskingum through conversations and readings with a group of interested faculty members. Following a dedicated faculty training experience in summer 2025, participants will have developed and be ready to organically integrate expanded meaning and purpose exercises into their teaching for fall 2025.
Since an initial NetVUE grant in 2017, Dr. Santas has helped lead Muskingum’s intentional initiatives in helping students discover purpose and meaning. “Many faculty have long incorporated this mindset into their teaching,” she said. “With NetVUE’s support, we have integrated the practice into holistic advising for curricular and co-curricular experiences and are now working to intentionally expand it campus wide into instruction.”
In October 2023, seven Muskingum faculty and staff members attended NetVUE’s Vocational Exploration in the Classroom conference. The group included Assistant Professor of Biology Stephanie Allen, Associate Professor of Nursing Terra Armstead, Associate Professor of Religion Melissa Conroy, Associate Professor of Business Laura Geiger, Associate Professor of English Kekoa Kaluhiokalani, Assistant Professor of Economics Arjun Sondhi, and Chaplain Derek Wadlington.
NetVUE, the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education, is a nationwide network of 300 universities, supported as a program of the Council of Independent Colleges and by the Lilly Endowment, Inc.
