Fifteen college and university presidents and fourteen spouses participated in CIC’s winter follow-up seminar for the Presidential Vocation and Institutional Mission program on January 7–8, 2009, following the 2009 Presidents Institute. This was the second meeting of this cohort of participants who had previously met July 13–16, 2008, in Glendorn, Pennsylvania.

The seminar further explored the connections between personal vocation, or “calling,” and the mission of the college or university. Participants described ways in which they applied these concepts in their campus leadership since the summer meeting. They also discussed applications of vocational thinking in their personal lives and steps they had taken to encourage vocational thinking among others on their campuses. Participants prepared for the January seminar by reading a selection from Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah et al., Good to Great and the Social Sectors by Jim Collins, and poems by Frost, Havel, Lowell, Rilke, and Sarton.

Jonathan Brand, president of Doane College (NE) who participated in the program with his wife, Rachelle LaBarge, was initially unsure about what to expect from participating in the year-long program. “We were very interested in the topic and the reading materials,” said Brand. “What we ultimately discovered through conversation and dialogue, made possible by the program, was a subject eminently relevant to everyone—including, students, faculty members, and staff—in a timeless way. The subject of vocation, finding ‘where our deep gladness meets the world’s greatest needs’, should ideally guide everything we do and consider.” Brand also said he and his wife “never expected the additional benefit of developing some new, very meaningful friendships through the program.”

Many participants from this year’s Presidential Vocation and Institutional Mission seminar joined participants from previous years for a second annual breakfast meeting at the 2009 Presidents Institute. More than 40 presidents and presidential spouses attended the breakfast, where they discussed new applications of lessons learned from participation in the seminars. Plans are underway to continue annual reunion gatherings at the Presidents Institute and to foster other means of collaboration.

This spring, participants in the 2008–2009 program will have telephone consultations with their facilitators as the final step in the program. CIC’s Presidential Vocation and Institutional Mission program is funded generously by Lilly Endowment Inc..