The Plumb Line Institute (TPLI) exists to shape and train young adults as thoughtful agents of change, contemplation, and hope. Through workshops, retreats, spiritual practice and service immersions — with the collaboration of churches and intentional communities — TPLI creates opportunities for well-informed conversation through the lens of existing sacred traditions and empowers young adults for transformative action.

As the Director of Student Life at Justin Siena High School, I was instrumental in discerning, designing and implementing an on-campus culture shift and branding that resulting in a renewed understanding of school identity and deeper commitment to its mission. This fresh identity was directly connected to the stated mission of the school and a year of conversations, focus groups and data that determined the direction of Justin Siena High School. Additionally, I directed mission-central student and faculty formation through our retreat and immersion programs, developed and facilitated student leadership programming and taught a leadership and justice course with an active service-learning component.

St. Mary's College Office of Mission and Ministry hired me to help them with a departmental re-organization, develop and define their identity, and strengthen their programming in alignment with mission. I was tasked with drawing forth and listening to many members inside the organization describe their work, as they understood it, and getting feedback from outside stakeholders on alignment of programming and staffing with mission. I helped SMC develop a vision for what Mission and Ministry could become through data collection, focus group facilitation and reflection, well-directed large group conversation, intentional interviews with key players, accessible presentation of data in summary, and concrete recommendations for how to make thel vision of the Office of Mission and Ministry a programmatic reality.

I designed and facilitated workshops for youth and adults and facilitated youth service opportunities at parishes in the Diocese of Santa Rosa. During this time, I developed unique and progressive programming that was anchored in gospel orthodoxy and developmentally appropriate for teens. I taught adult education classes and workshops for parents of children receiving sacraments of initiation, and supported the professional development of other lay parish ministers in the diocese with mentoring, workshops, shared programming models.

I worked as a one-to-one aide for a student with Down syndrome in the kindergarten and first grades, providing directed support and developmentally appropriate educational instruction. Connecting with the Down Syndrome Connection of the Bay Area (DSCBA), I attended workshops to better equip myself to serve my student and created a professional development reading list, supported by regular connection with DSCBA, so that I might be well-versed in what is helpful for a student with Down syndrome and what is not.

I created a service and social action clearinghouse that did not previously exist at St. Mary's College, together with the Director of CILSA, Janet Luce. In connection with the Bonner Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey, I built a Bonner Leaders Public Service Scholarship Program at St. Mary's College, where students were selected to serve and learn in an academic cohort on campus and in partnership with a local, Bay Area non-profit organization. Bonner Leaders at SMC received AmeriCorps scholarships for their work and study. Through seminar, retreats and regular mentorship, students connected reflective and academic content to lived experience with marginalized populations and non-profit professionals. The Bonner Leaders then enlivened a culture shift of service and social responsibility on campus. Additionally, I partnered with faculty and staff to enhance existing service-learning and social action initiatives on campus and taught a January Term course on service, action and contemplation with a justice immersion component.

I was an associate campus minister primarily in charge of retreat and formation programing and the spirituality required for sustainable social action in a Christian context. With Paul Crowley SJ of the religious studies department, I co-taught a seminar on the Catholic Imagination and developed prayer modules for the class. I collaborated with staff to provide regular liturgy and liturgical training, faculty-staff reflection and scripture study, service immersion trips, residence hall ministry and many other programs.