Professional formation is the sustained development and expression of self in relationship to:

Identity — social, cultural, religious and spiritual identities and how these are contextually drawn upon and lived out in relationships of power, privilege, and difference

Vocation — one’s intentional and reflexive being and doing in the world

Community — the people, places, and spaces with which vocation is expressed and embodied

 As such, the Office of Professional Formation encourages through its curricula, programs, and partnerships the following learning outcomes:

• Cultivate capacities for, and engage in, practical-prophetic leadership in community, including demonstration of intellectual knowledge, emotional and spiritual awareness, situational skills and wisdom, relational and intercultural adeptness, and prophetic voice and action toward community transformation, care, justice, and peace;
• Practice integrative reflection (or knowing-in-action) in community by drawing upon one’s context in conversation with lived experience, social and cultural identities, structural and relational dynamics, and spiritual/religious traditions/values;
• Engage in vocational discernment and grounding practices to support increased understanding of one’s being and doing in community; and
• Develop shared commitments to—and sustain active participation in—a peer community of trust for mutual personal and professional formation.