Mission

The Campus Ministry Graduate Assistant program at the University of Dayton, a Catholic and Marianist University, prepares graduate theological students for professional lay ecclesial ministry. Animated by our Marianist charism, formation happens in a collaborative community of learners and practitioners through ministerial skills training, hands-on ministry, theological reflection, and prayerful discernment.

 Program Goals

1. Form a ministerial identity that is rooted in the minister’s faith journey, sense of call, understanding of gifts and graces, relationship to Christ, to the Church, and to God’s people. This identity will include a growing understanding and lived experience of navigating ministerial boundaries, as well as spiritual self-care and living a healthy and whole life.
2. Develop ministers who actively practice theological reflection that is rooted in the Catholic Christian tradition, intellectually honest, attentive to listening to the Holy Spirit in life and ministry, and responds out of this reflection. 
3. Provide ministers with basic ministerial skills that facilitate others’ growth in personal relationship with God as well as their growth in communal practice of faith. These include basic ministry skills that enable campus ministers to provide pastoral care to young adults and to implement the six aspects of campus ministry outlined in Empowered by the Spirit, the USCCB’s Pastoral Letter on Campus Ministry: forming the faith community, appropriating the faith, forming the Christian conscience, educating for justice, facilitating personal development, and developing leaders for the future.
4. Develop confident and humble ministers who appreciate the value of and have the basic skills for peer collaboration with other ministers and colleagues outside the immediate ministry department, for empowering others in ministry, and for ecumenical and interfaith sensitivity. 

Campus Ministry GAs reach these goals through:

• Summer training
• Direct ministry (see Sample Ministerial Portfolios)
• Supervision by a seasoned campus minister
• Individualized assessment and goal setting
• Intentional reflection on experience
• Pastoral skills formation
• Spiritual formation
• Opportunities for Counseling and Spiritual Direction