University of Pikeville receives grant from Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education

The University of Pikeville has received a three-year $60,000 grant from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education, or NetVue. The grant will fund the university’s Virtues for Vocation project to explore the university’s history, mission, and values to better inform the way the university intends to engage in whole-person education.

According to an article on the University of Pikeville’s website, Amanda Jo Slone, Ph.D., who serves as a professor of English at the university, was quoted as saying of the Virtues for Vocation project, “This project invites us to tell UPIKE’s story with greater clarity and purpose. By examining how virtue and vocation have shaped our past, we can more intentionally articulate what whole-person education means for our students today and for the communities they will serve.”

The project will run from February 2026 through January 2029, and will be an institution-wide initiative to explore the history of the university and its mission and values. The purpose of the exploration is to determine how the past can inform the university’s future as it strives to provide whole-person education to its student body. The project will involve the university’s students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners, who will come together in a collaboration of inquiry and research. University of Pikeville faculty will also participate in conferences throughout the project period that will help create conversations around vocation and values.

Virtues for Vocation aims to produce a report of the collaborative findings of the participants’ research that also describes the university’s plans for whole-person education moving forward. Additionally, the project will produce a document that is available to all as an Open Educational Resource that catalogs the university’s history, as well as reflections and narratives of the campus community.

NetVue provided the funding for this grant with support from Lilly Endowment Inc.

For more information about the University of Pikeville, visit the school’s website.