About Magis CTC

Magis Catholic Teacher Corps at Creighton University was founded in the early 2000s in response to the growing need for well-formed, mission-driven educators in Catholic schools. Inspired by Ignatian spirituality, generous donors, and the successful national UCCE Catholic school teacher formation model, Creighton welcomed its first cohort of Magis teachers in the summer of 2002. From the beginning, the program was designed as a two-year graduate experience that integrates professional preparation (master’s degree coursework and teaching full-time), intentional community living, and spiritual formation rooted in the Jesuit tradition.

The program’s earliest placements were in the Archdiocese of Omaha, establishing what would become Magis’ longest-standing community. As the program matured, Creighton expanded Magis’ mission beyond the local region in response to partner school needs and institutional commitments to justice, accompaniment, and educational access. In 2007, Magis launched its Pine Ridge community, partnering with Maȟpíya Lúta Owáyawa | Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. This partnership marked a significant expansion of the program’s intercultural and immersion-based formation model and continues to shape Magis’ understanding of leadership, cultural humility, and community-rooted education.

Over the next two decades, Magis continued to grow regionally, serving Catholic schools in multiple Midwestern communities and partner sites, including Sioux Falls, SD; Minneapolis, MN; Tucson, AZ; the Sioux City, IA region and most recently, Phoenix, AZ, while remaining grounded in its original formation pillars of professionalism, community, and spirituality.  The program also had successful teacher communities over the years in various Nebraska cities, including Winnebago, Crete, York, North Platte, Grand Island, Hastings, and Nebraska City. Through these partnerships, Magis has prepared hundreds of educators who have gone on to serve not only as classroom teachers but also as school leaders, mentors, and advocates for Catholic education.

Over time, Magis Catholic Teacher Corps has also evolved academically to support a wider range of graduate pathways within Creighton’s Education Department. Today, Magis participants may pursue any of the department’s five master’s degree options (Elementary Teaching, Secondary School Teaching, Educational Leadership, School Counseling, Educational Specialist Areas including ELL, Catholic School Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Early Childhood Education, and Sports Leadership), allowing the program to serve both newly entering teachers and already-licensed educators seeking an advanced master’s degree. This flexibility reflects Magis’ commitment to meeting educators at different stages of their vocational journey while maintaining a shared foundation in mission-driven service and formation. As a small, intentionally designed program, Magis enables faculty and staff to practice cura personalis in tangible ways, such as offering individualized academic advising, professional mentoring, and personal accompaniment that attend to the whole person: intellectually, professionally, spiritually, and relationally.

Across its communities, Magis now partners with approximately 20-25 Catholic schools each year, collectively serving nearly 2,000 K–12 students annually. Through these placements, Magis teachers provide direct classroom instruction while also contributing to the broader life of their school communities through mentoring, tutoring, campus ministry involvement, coaching sports, curricular development, and extracurricular leadership. This sustained presence has allowed Magis to build long-term relationships with partner schools while amplifying the program’s impact on Catholic education across the region.

Today, Magis Catholic Teacher Corps remains a central expression of Creighton University’s Jesuit mission in action as a flagship program in the Education Department and College of Arts and Sciences. With more than two decades of formation, over twenty cohorts of alumni, and new communities continuing to emerge, the program continues to form contemplatives in action—educators committed to faith, justice, and the long-term vitality of Catholic schools and the communities they serve.