College Affiliate Program
Overview
The College Affiliate Program is a four-year program for St. Norbert Abbey, hosted at St. Norbert College (www.snc.edu). It allows recent high school graduates an opportunity to receive a traditional four-year college education at St. Norbert College – living on campus and completing a bachelor’s degree while also discerning a Norbertine vocation. Men who apply to the program are discerning a call to religious life within the Norbertine Order and are of good moral character. A candidate desires to serve Christ and the Church, has a life of prayer, and performs well academically.
For more information about the College Affiliate Program or the Norbertine Community of St. Norbert Abbey, please contact Vocation Director Fr. Johnathan Turba, O. Praem., at vocations@norbertines.org or 920-337-4333.
What does ‘College Affiliate’ mean?
The term affiliate means someone who is connected to a larger religious body (in this case, the Norbertine Community at St. Norbert Abbey) without having full membership. This program is different from entering the novitiate of a religious order. Novices have typically completed their undergraduate studies before entering religious life. The College Affiliate Program is a step before considering the novitiate. It is earlier in the stage of discernment, aimed at supporting young men who are interested in discerning life as a Norbertine while completing the necessary undergraduate studies to help prepare them to apply to the novitiate, God willing, if that is how they ultimately feel called.
Contemplation & Action
Education
During their college experience, college affiliates will live by a rule of life. This will connect them with their peers in the College Affiliate Program while also helping them get an experience of what it is like to live in community under a shared rule of life. A rule of life helps form those who follow it. It draws them closer to God through discipline while also giving them helpful guidelines to support them in their human formation and integration. For the college affiliates, this will include things like participating in communal prayer at Old St. Joseph Church, daily Mass, and weekly Eucharistic Adoration. An affiliate will also be assigned a part-time ministry (a few hours a week) during his studies in serving the People of God.
Affiliates will undertake a full-time undergraduate schedule (average of 16 credits per semester) at St. Norbert College to pursue a major of their choosing while also fulfilling the philosophy and theology studies required for future Master of Divinity studies.
Communio
One of our patrons is St. Augustine of Hippo, who invites us into relationship with the very heart of God by living a life in common. We are not formed on our own, but by our brothers in community and superiors as we strive to live in “One mind and heart on the way to God.”
Affiliates will be overseen and supported by the Vocation Director of St. Norbert Abbey and assisted by the Pastor of Old St. Joseph Church. They will be required to meet once a month with the Vocation Director and once a semester with the Pastor of Old St. Joseph Church.
Through shared experiences and attentiveness to one another, a college affiliate is built up to be a mature leader and a man of charity.
Stabilitas Loci
Norbertines are committed to the place in which we live and serve. An affiliate is able to participate in a “normal” college experience through college sponsored extracurriculars – sports, music ensembles, or clubs.
Application
Those interested in the College Affiliate Program will need to apply both to St. Norbert College and the College Affiliate Program of St. Norbert Abbey. If accepted into both, students in the College Affiliate Program will receive free tuition while still paying for room and board. They will live in rooms at St. Joseph Hall on campus, the original Norbertine priory, adjacent to Old St. Joseph Parish.
