Two of Whitworth's current funding initiatives have contributed themes that shape our thoughts about community engagement and its relationship to teaching and learning.

The Discerning Vocation: Community, Context and Commitment Project (through the Lilly Foundation) is designed to help students develop a deeper sense of vocation as a way of responding to God's call into ministry and other professions. The program is designed to touch virtually every Whitworth student, staff member and faculty member. Its objectives are:

1) to develop communities of vocational discernment throughout the college using internships and reflective service-learning combined with mentoring in various environments of organizations and residential living environments; 2) to increase the understanding of church, cultural and professional context, understanding the context within which many Whitworth graduates will live and work through programs developed to strengthen the ability of students and laity to work within the church. This objective will also serve to increase appreciation of the complexity of career context through experiential educational opportunities for students, and will offer opportunities to reflect on the world of work and service as well as to increase an awareness of the complexity of cultural circumstance and human need. Beyond the campus, the second objective will explore ways in which to enable a better understanding of the role of the church and participation in church leadership. As an important first step, the college will determine whether graduate-level coursework in religious studies should be offered on campus or whether equipping for church leadership will be more effectively accomplished through non-credit seminars delivered at off-campus locations; and 3) to enrich and clarify theological commitments in the Reformed, evangelical tradition. This will result in a theologically informed view of vocation throughout the community, which focuses on the importance of spiritual, moral and political commitments. This objective is designed to reach each student of the college with thought-provoking concepts that are theologically informed. Involvement with the church and community will serve to enrich thought and conversation about vocational topics both on and off the campus. Moreover, the third objective will build understanding of ethical decision-making models that may be employed by students who seek to live out their vocations thoughtfully.

An additional tool used by faculty, staff and students is A Guide to Theological Reflection on Vocation at Whitworth (PDF), a document written by Dale Soden, Ph.D. This document asks 10 questions of faculty, staff and students to encourage them to consider ways in which their faith and their vocations might be connected.

Through the Murdock Grant, faculty and staff review three important developmental elements that help to sustain beliefs in adulthood when tested by life experience. When combined with service learning, the three concepts close the gap between the college years and the "real world." These three elements are: 1) the formation of a worldview sufficient to meet the challenges facing Christians in a modern world; 2) a mentor whose life allows the student to envision the possibility of living out that worldview; 3) a community of peers whose common life offers a context for those convictions to be embodied. This project helps Whitworth students develop the capacity to connect their core beliefs with their daily behavior. Through the project, students begin to understand the connection between the way they choose to live together in society and the problems that they see around them every day. The goal of the project is to enable Whitworth students (and others, by observation, mentorship and other ways of participating) to live lives reflecting Christian commitment concerning their beliefs (what they believe to be true and right) with their behavior (what they do) through vocation, service to the community and engagement in the public sector.

The three main goals for the project are 1) to develop an institutional culture in which ethical behavior, vocation, civic engagement and responsibility become a part of the campus discourse, asking the question, "What does Whitworth, as a Christian institution, contribute to the discussion about the common good?"; 2) to design and implement a model cohort program focused on issues relating to the connection of one's beliefs to one's behavior; 3) to provide for the development of faculty members' understanding of the connection between their disciplines and the themes of "Lives of Commitment" (justice, civic engagement, ethics, etc.), and to integrate these themes into the cohort program and the institution as a whole.

The life experiences and learning taking place through the Lilly and Murdock grants are helping to shape, transform and calibrate the environment for teaching and learning at Whitworth. The program outcomes of both grants are having an impact on the way our students interact, particularly with the campus environment, strategically combining expanded modes of service learning. The result of the interaction forms networks and collaboration in the community, which can be most helpful and distinct in engaging churches and other faith- and community-based organizations to work alongside the people of Spokane's underserved communities.

While there are other strategic and distinctive characteristics of Whitworth's leadership and its presence in the community, these observations are provided to give an understanding of how the college's activities distinctively distinguish it from other colleges and universities for the next step of community engagement project: the Whitworth Poverty Initiative.

Taken from A Guide to Theological Reflection on Vocation at Whitworth, by Dale Soden, Lives of Commitment, by Lynn Noland, and Whitworth's Strategic Position for the Poverty Initiative: Background Information Briefing, by Peter Dual.

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