By Maciej Piwowarczyk
Meet Me at the Mission: Vincentian Heritage Initiative is a program within DePaul’s Division of Mission and Ministry. Meet Me at the Mission is an opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to integrate the Vincentian Mission into their lives and join the global Vincentian family that they might only have dipped their toes into so far. The program is student-run and overseen by Joyana Dvorak, who is a shining example of Vincentian personalism and professionalism. We host events, workshops, and trainings that focus on four distinct Vincentian pillars: Leadership, Service and Systemic Change, History and Living Legacy, and Spirituality. Each event is focused on one of these pillars and students have more and more opportunities to get involved as they earn more pillars. After earning three pillars students are eligible to apply for the Vincentian Heritage Tour to France. If students complete all four pillars they earn a certificate and a special cord at graduation to publicly recognize them as a Vincentian leader. Students can hope to gain an intimate knowledge of Vincent, Louise, the Vincentian Mission, and everyone and every other idea involved with Vincentianism through our events. We also offer customized workshops to invite student organizations to integrate Vincentian values and ideas into their own lives.
Meet Me at the Mission is crucial to DePaul because many of the same problems that Vincent and Louise confronted in 17th-century France still affect our world today, which means that their work is not finished yet. That work falls on us, though. I have seen the importance of incorporating Vincentian values into my own leadership roles as an Orientation Leader, Chicago Quarter Mentor, and Honors Student Government President. I believe that I have succeeded in these roles because I incorporated Vincentian personalism and professionalism into them. Without Meet Me at the Mission at DePaul, I would have never been able to interact so intimately with these Vincentian identities that are now so important to me.
So many opportunities to interact with perhaps the greatest difference between DePaul and other universities would be missed without Meet Me at the Mission at DePaul. In short, DePaul and everyone involved with the institution can be more Vincentian through our programming by becoming more knowledgeable about what it means to be Vincentian in the first place and then creating real and tangible ways to incorporate that knowledge into our everyday lives and our leadership. Want to learn more? Like the DePaul Meet Me at the Mission Facebook page or visit mission.depaul.edu.
