Experience level: 
Advanced
Intended Audience: 
All
Authors: 
Julio Jiménez Escobar jjimenez@uloyola.es, Araceli de los Ríos Berjillos arios@uloyola.es, Eduardo Ibañez Ruiz del Portal eibanez@uloyola.es Universidad Loyola Andalucía

Professional vocation and the social function of the profession: a proposal to work on the curriculum of the Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and Management from an Ignatian perspective.

The social function of the professions gives meaning to professional work and constitutes one of the fundamental elements in the aspects related to people's professional vocation. For all these reasons, the social function of the profession brings together a series of characteristics that make it an integrating element of the ethical dimension in all the training that the student will receive. It is concerned with the purpose and ultimate meaning of training, a fundamental aspect in Ignatian-inspired universities. Together with the professional profile of each degree, it is up to us to construct a specific professional profile of a graduate of an Ignatian-inspired university. This paper presents the work carried out within the framework of a teaching innovation project on the accompaniment of our students in the process of realizing their professional vocation. This requires making explicit and reflecting on the social function of the profession, both for each individual professional and for the professional collective as a whole. All this has been carried out in some disciplines of the Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and Management at Loyola Andalucía University. This project is directly linked to the third universal apostolic preference (PAU) of the Society of Jesus, which is to accompany young people in the creation of a hopeful future. Specifically, and within the university framework of Ignatian-inspired institutions, this work of accompanying young people can take shape in teaching through the implementation of the Ledesma-Kolvenvach (L-K) paradigm in teaching. The social function of the profession responds to the Utilitas dimension of the L-K paradigm, while also working on the lustitia and Humanitas dimensions. Furthermore, some of the methodologies used in this project are very well adapted to the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm - context, experience, reflection, action, and evaluation. The general objective of the project was formulated as "to form students aware of the social function of their profession and willing to assume the exercise of the profession in terms of commitment, service, attention to the common good". Other specific objectives were: 1. To carry out an experience of concretization of the Ignatian pedagogical model and the L-K paradigm, which can be extended to other degrees of the university. 2. To bring professional life, its challenges and challenges closer to the student. 3. To generate more spaces for vocational-professional accompaniment for students. In the conclusions, specific methodological contributions are presented on how to work on this issue in the students' formative itinerary. In addition, the importance of a cross-cutting approach and work throughout the university is stressed, which implies coordination and joint work with other services, such as the professional careers service and the evangelization and dialogue service which, from different perspectives, also work with students on this issue.