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Welcome to the School of Professional Programs at Franciscan University of Steubenville!
It is a great joy and privilege to welcome our current and prospective students, alumni, faculty, and community partners to our School.
At the heart of the School of Professional Programs is a simple but important conviction: professional preparation is about more than preparing for a career. It is about preparing for a vocation, a call to use one’s God-given gifts, knowledge, and skills in service to others.
Our programs in business, education, nursing, counseling, social work, and criminal justice prepare students with the knowledge and skills necessary to excel in their professions. But at Franciscan, we seek to do something more. We strive to form professionals who understand that excellence and faith belong together—men and women who recognize the dignity of every human person and are prepared to lead and serve with integrity, compassion, courage, and wisdom.
St. Francis of Assisi reminds us: “Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.”
Those words beautifully capture what we hope to cultivate within our School. We want our students to pursue knowledge and professional excellence in the context of charity, recognizing that our gifts and abilities find their greatest purpose when placed at the service of God and others.
Our faculty make this mission come alive. They are accomplished scholars, experienced practitioners, dedicated teachers, and mentors who bring disciplinary expertise and real-world experience into their classrooms. Through rigorous coursework, clinical experiences, internships, field placements, research, and other hands-on opportunities, our students develop the knowledge, judgment, and professional competence necessary to lead and serve well.
Most importantly, our Catholic and Franciscan identity is not something added onto professional preparation. It shapes how we understand professional excellence itself. Whether caring for a patient, teaching a child, counseling an individual or family, leading an organization, serving a vulnerable population, or pursuing justice, our graduates are called to see the person before them as someone created in the image and likeness of God.
That is the kind of professional formation we aspire to provide and the kind of difference we hope our graduates will make in the world.
I invite you to explore our programs, meet our faculty, and discover the opportunities available within the School of Professional Programs. Whether you are discerning your future, preparing for your vocation, already serving in the field, or partnering with us in this important work, we are grateful to have you as part of our community.
May God bless you as you discern where He is calling you to learn, lead, and serve.
Rebecca Rook, Ph.D.
Dean, School of Professional Programs
Professor of Education
The School of Professional Programs prepares highly skilled, career-ready professionals committed to the sacredness of human life and the transformation of the world into a just environment. Grounded in Catholic virtues and professional ethics, our programs form students as moral professionals competent to engage in socially responsible practice. Faculty are respected scholars and practitioners who prepare students to serve through instruction in evidence-based practices and contemporary theory applied in real-world environments. The outcome is principled, trained leaders who can renew the world by serving the common good and empowering others to realize their human potential.
Franciscan University of Steubenville (FUS) offers multiple programs designed to lead to licensure or certification in the state of Ohio. This means that, when a student graduates from a licensure program at Franciscan University of Steubenville (FUS), he or she has the minimum educational qualifications to apply for Ohio licensure.
Franciscan’s Education Department one of only 22 educator preparation programs nationwide honored with CAEP’s Frank Murray Leadership Award for excellence and continuous improvement.
Dr. Tiffany Boury, Senior International Officer and Professor of Education received a grant for 80,000 from the USCCB to support work on with Catholic schools on the Native American Reservations.
Dr. Megan Reister shares how Franciscan’s Education Department is involved with the local community.
Dr. Michael Welker, professor of economics, has been appointed the inaugural director of Catholic Business Management and Entrepreneurship
Two professors in Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Education Department received a $75,000 grant from the Ohio Deans Compact on Exceptional Children to create an online module to help educators across the state teach evidence-based behavior management practices.
Dr. Stephen C. Miller
Department Chair, Dept. of Accounting, Business Administration, and Economics
Professor of Economics
Christian Students in Free Enterprise (CSFE) Advisor
