Center for Ignatian Belonging
Welcome to the Center for Ignatian Belonging
The mission of the Center for Ignatian Belonging (CIB) is to create more opportunities for sustained, intentional encounters among Xavier faculty and staff.
By intentional encounters, we mean purposefully creating spaces and experiences in which faculty and staff across differences can get to know one another more deeply, listen to and learn from one another, build trust and develop supporting relationships that might not otherwise emerge through ordinary university life. These encounters will not require us to erase our differences or agree with one another on every issue. Instead, they will invite us to become better at being in relationships across differences.
This is at the heart of what we mean by Ignatian Belonging: helping people find a place at the table, while helping all of us learn how to remain in relationship once we are there.
Why Intentional Encounters Matter
Xavier is more than an educational institution. It is a community of people who bring different religious traditions, racial and cultural identities, political perspectives, life experiences and understandings of the greater good. Xavier's Jesuit and Catholic identity and the plurality of its faculty and staff can be the source of a genuinely inclusive campus community, anchored in shared values and sustained by mutual concerns. However, shared values and mutual concerns do not guarantee that we will have opportunities to truly get to know one another, build trust with each other, or learn from one another. The rhythms of university life can also keep us from creating these opportunities outside our own offices, departments and professional circles. Through sustained intentional encounters, we can break down silos, strengthen relationships across differences, encourage collaboration and constructive dialogue, and create the relational conditions necessary for Ignatian Belonging to flourish among Xavier’s faculty and staff.
What we do
Through intentional encounters, the CIB helps faculty and staff:
- Get to know one another
- Listen more intentionally to one another
- Learn from one another’s experiences and perspectives
- Build trust and meaningful relationships with one another
- Find common ground and work together across difference
Affinity Groups
Affinity Groups offered through The Center for Ignatian Belonging provide university-wide leadership to support the development and success of our employees.