Vision & Purpose

The Foglio Chair of Spirituality in the College of Arts & Letters is designed to perpetuate our core values of inclusiveness, connectivity, and improving the human condition. Michigan State University can think of no one who exemplifies our quest to create citizen leaders more than Father Jake Foglio and is committed to endowing a chair in spirituality.

Man with short gray hair and other balding man in recording studio together
Dean Christopher P. Long and Father Jake Foglio

The purpose of the Foglio Chair in Spirituality is to encourage students, faculty, and community members to understand what it means to be human and how to become more fully human, to lead a meaningful and fulfilling life. Spirituality refers to the quest for and practice of excellence in becoming a human being. Spirituality is holistic, referring to the integration of life as a whole, and to developing a deeper understanding of the meaning and purpose of human life. Spirituality concerns the ultimate values by which we live, beyond merely pragmatic aspects of life, and so spirituality increasingly plays a role in a wide range of fields, including medicine, psychology, athletics, and business. As such, spirituality is inseparably linked to virtue, and to the development of the virtuous professional.  Aristotle observed “virtue is excellence in function.” A virtuous professional functions with dual excellencies: excellence in the art, skill, and knowledge of his or her subject, and the art, skill, and knowledge of the deeper dimensions of human life.

“The spirituality chair will bring new research and scholarship to our commitment to help students understand more deeply what it means to be human and how to enact that humanity in whatever profession they undertake.”​

Dean Christopher P. Long

Father Jake Foglio’s vision of spirituality is not tied to any specific religion or religious tradition. The Foglio Chair is intended to support a faculty member who will articulate and exemplify how a values-based commitment to the flourishing and fulfillment of human potential illuminates and enriches all walks of life. The successful candidate for the Foglio Chair will be expected to develop a plan for utilizing the resources of the Chair to extend this secular vision of spirituality in collaboration and cooperation with other research and educational units in order to more completely realize Michigan State University’s public mission.

Documents and Resources from Father Foglio