On October 17-18, the Lumen Christi Institute convened the third annual meeting of the In Lumine Network (ILN) at the University of Chicago. Funded by the John Templeton Foundation, the conference brought together representatives from the 13 member institutes of the ILN to compare best practices and learn from experts on the theme of “Virtue, Moral Formation, and the University.” A culmination of years of work, the conference highlighted the Lumen Christi Institute’s ongoing commitment to two key goals: first, improving its effectiveness at forming the next generation of leaders and second, supporting the professional development of its staff who bring Catholic programs to the secular university.
The conference was planned jointly with experts from Baylor University and featured academic research from a multi-year study including ecumenical Christian study centers as well as Catholic institutes like Lumen Christi. The study, also funded by the John Templeton Foundation, was led by Sarah Schnitker, associate professor of psychology at Baylor University, and Perry Glanzer, professor of educational foundations and resident scholar with the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. The study focused on how Christian institutes support the formation of virtue in university students.
The academic research itself was a longitudinal study collecting quantitative data and qualitative interviews. Additionally, Lumen Christi and other institutes took part in a community of practice, a structured forum to share strategies. Lumen Christi’s team participated in biweekly calls over a period of two years and attended two major conferences on the topic, including organizing the second meeting in collaboration with the ILN network meeting. The results of the study revealed that institutes like Lumen Christi make a demonstrable impact on the moral formation of students who participate in their activities.
Participating in the Baylor study led to improvements at Lumen Christi in organizational development and program evaluation. It also introduced the LCI team to philosophical and social scientific perspectives on the cultivation of virtue. Michael Le Chevallier, Senior Associate Director of the Lumen Christi Institute shared, “Our programming team has deep and varied expertise in the Catholic intellectual tradition. None of us, however, have PhDs in non-profit management. It was great to get an expert’s view on the life-cycles of programs and varied techniques for program evaluation, while also building community (and commiserating!) with other leaders from Christian study centers engaging in similar work on their own campuses. Additionally, we directly benefited from learning about how social scientists today talk about (and measure) virtues, allowing us to bring our own Catholic tradition into dialogue with contemporary scholarship.”
Participation in the study also provided other benefits to LCI programs. Sarah Schnitker, one of the Baylor principal investigators, joined the LCI teaching team for its 2024 Templeton funded summer seminar on Eudaimonia: Philosophical, Theological, and Psychological Perspectives. Another member of the research team, Karen Melton, made a presentation on program assessment to LCI’s monthly professional development sessions, ensuring that these insights could be shared with all ILN institute members. It also shaped the content of LCI’s campus program, leading to two non-credit courses, one on the study of virtue in the ancient and modern periods, and another on vice, taught by Candace Vogler (University of Chicago).
The conference included over 50 leaders from colleges and universities across the country, with representatives from Anselm House at the University of Minnesota, Chesterton House at Cornell University, and the Beatrice Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, among others. A highlight of the conference was a public panel discussion featuring John Boyer (University of Chicago), Sarah Schnitker (Baylor University), and Jonathan Brant (Wycliff Hall, Oxford University) on Virtue, Moral Formation, and the University.