Ignatian Faculty and Staff Development
The future of Jesuit higher education at Fordham depends upon faculty and staff, drawn from diverse backgrounds, who are responsible for ensuring that Fordham’s mission and the Ignatian values underlying that mission animate faculty research, teaching, mentoring, and service.
The Ignatian Faculty and Staff Development Program aims to ensure that faculty and staff across schools and colleges, departments and programs, centers, institutes, and governing bodies are prepared to assume responsibility for sustaining Fordham’s mission for decades to come.
Deepening our appreciation for the Ignatian identity and mission of Fordham is essential to our thriving as a Jesuit University. In an era when the very value of higher education is called into question, Jesuit universities must draw confidence and strength in our value from the Ignatian spirituality and pedagogical legacy that drives us forward.
- John Cecero, S.J., Vice President for Mission Integration and MinistryOpportunities for Faculty
Ignatian Faculty Development opportunities include:
Seminars aimed at welcoming newly hired faculty, as well as topical seminars for faculty from every stage in their careers. Seminar participants are drawn from across schools and disciplines and are invited to consider issues of critical importance to contemporary intellectual life, including issues of diversity and inclusion, academic freedom and campus free speech, and the place of public engagement in higher education today.
Retreats during which faculty consider two main ideas: first, how their work as researchers, teachers, mentors, and colleagues has enriched their lives and enabled them to enrich the lives of others; and second, and how they might draw on the resources of Fordham’s mission to enhance and expand such enrichment.
Immersion trips that enable faculty to have meaningful engagement with people living on the margins of society. These promote critical examination of the commitment to advancing justice that is a hallmark of Jesuit higher education.
For more information, contact James P. McCartin, Associate Professor of Theology and Ignatian Faculty Fellow at [email protected] or 212-636-7492.
Opportunities for Staff
Ignatian Staff Development includes a number of opportunities geared toward the administrative staff of Fordham. The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities offers a number of opportunities for administrators at Jesuit schools to come together to collaborate and learn from one another, such as the Ignatian Colleagues Program and the Leadership Institute. Right here on campus, the Spellman Hall Jesuit Community sponsors the Arrupe Seminar, where administrators and faculty who may not be familiar with the origins of Jesuit education can learn more about St. Ignatius and his educational philosophy from members of the Fordham Jesuit Community themselves.
If you are interested in participating in one of these programs, please contact John Cecero, S.J., Vice President for Mission Integration and Ministry, at [email protected].