Ignatian Mission Formation Program
The Ignatian Mission Formation Program at Gonzaga University (IMFP) gathers faculty from all areas of the University in all career stages. IMFP provides space to build community while introducing the foundations of Jesuit higher education, Ignatian spirituality, and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, placing particular emphasis on how these relate to faculty and their role at Gonzaga.
1. Develop basic literacy on key topics related to Gonzaga’s Catholic, Jesuit and humanistic identity.
2. Identify alignment between program topics and one’s faculty work (discipline, teaching, scholarship, advising, mentoring, and service).
3. Build cross-campus community (with cohorts of participants and invited facilitators).
4. Utilize reflective practices of noticing, particularly the Examen.
5. Articulate Gonzaga’s mission in one’s own words.
6. Bring one’s values (inclusive of religious identity, spirituality, and/or orienting worldview) into dialogue with the Jesuit, Catholic, and humanistic tradition.
7. Participate in the NE Immersion, part of Gonzaga’s place-based initiative.
Moved IMFP from fall to spring semester to better serve new faculty, giving them a chance to get established in Spokane and start teaching before diving into mission. Participants love panels of peers who share how to incorporate the mission into their work. The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm and mission-aligned research and teaching units are excellent avenues for engaging campus partners.
Most engagement has come from faculty who teach the core curriculum, so the Office of Mission Engagement is expanding efforts to recruit participants from other colleges across campus, highlighting the centrality of mission engagement in the review, promotion, and tenure process.
After each program, the Office collects qualitative feedback on session topics and presenters via Qualtrics. Staff are in the process of refining how to best measure effectiveness.