Month: July 2023

The Carnegie Hour and the Vocation of Student Learning

The aim is to teach students to prioritize non-homework activities that support mental health and emotional well-being, and that are critical for building cognitive function inside and outside of the classroom.

In my previous post, I reflected on the impossibility of today’s full-time, undergraduate students’ completing the two “independent student learning” homework hours for every “instructor-led” class hour as standardized by Carnegie. Fulfilling these mandated homework hours was not possible before the pandemic because students did not have enough time in their weekly schedules. After the pandemic, students face even more obstacles. Still lacking enough time to study, students seem to be missing critical independent study skills and are experiencing limited cognitive capacity as well as increased mental health concerns. In this post, I will offer a few concrete ways to address these two concerns in our syllabi and support the vocation of student learning.

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Special Issue on Vocation: Christian Scholar’s Review

The Summer 2023 issue of Christian Scholar’s Review is devoted to the subject of vocation in undergraduate education.

The Summer 2023 issue of Christian Scholar’s Review is devoted to the subject of vocation in undergraduate education. Guest edited by David S. Cunningham, executive director of NetVUE, this special issue features articles by a range of writers who have been active in the network, both on their own campuses and more broadly through their writing and speaking: Bryan Dik, Niki Johnson, Tom Perrin, Amy Santas, Paul Wadell, and Danny Wasserman. It also contains reviews of recent vocation-related books, including several whose authors have been featured at NetVUE events: Kiara Jorgenson, Jason Mahn, Patrick Reyes, and Charlie Pinches and Paul Wadell.

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How Much Does Loyalty Weigh?

Loyalty comes before a discerning intelligence; it makes me listen and understand first, even while I may be struggling internally with my preferences for what I think is right or correct or better or true.

This post will try to explain a way of thinking about our vocational interactions in which loyalty might weigh more than intelligence.

Before the technologies of notes apps and simple word processing software were created, I collected and saved memorable quotations on notecards, using a typewriter. Then I’d file the typed and titled cards alphabetically in an old, wooden, recipe card box. In that box, in the Ls, is a card titled LOYALTY. The card contains a quotation from San Martin, “The Liberator,” whose idea about loyalty was found repurposed on a factory wall in Argentina in the 1980s. The quotation ended with “Remember: an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of intelligence.”

I can’t remember where I came across the quotation or in what context it was used, but I’m pretty sure I made the effort to capture the thought because I was intrigued by its comparative equivalency in favor of an unthinking loyalty. At the time, and until recently, I was suspicious of loyalty, especially as a tool used to manipulate people to act without thinking.

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Rainn Wilson on Otherishness

The final episode of this season’s Callings podcast features a conversation with Rainn Wilson, who is best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on The Office.

The final episode of this season’s Callings podcast features a conversation with Rainn Wilson, who is best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on The Office. Rainn is an actor, producer, writer, and cofounder of the media company SoulPancake. His most recent book is Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution.

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