Month: December 2023

The Language of Vocation in the Age of AI

By integrating AI-related language and concepts into our curriculum, fostering critical thinking about the ethical implications of AI, and encouraging students to embrace lifelong learning, we prepare them to navigate the evolving landscape of work and calling with confidence and resilience.

In the rapidly changing landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), our understanding of vocation and career is undergoing significant transformation. In my role as a linguistics professor, I’ve been closely observing how the discussion on AI is reshaping the very language we use to navigate work and calling.

A recent article in Forbes, “How AI is Changing the Future of Work,” explores the dual impact of AI on the workforce: automation is causing job displacement in some sectors, while simultaneously creating new opportunities in AI development and support.

My engagement in leading university-wide discussions on the influence of AI on education, as well as facilitating conversations about AI in a freshman-level course on vocation, has allowed me to delve deep into this topic. This awareness allows me to guide students and educators through the many implications and burgeoning opportunities arising from this new frontier.

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Katharine Hayhoe on the Practice of Hope

Erin VanLaningham and John Barton interview atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe on the most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast, Callings.

Katharine Hayhoe

Erin VanLaningham and John Barton interview atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe on the most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast, Callings. Katharine is a distinguished professor and the Political Science Endowed Chair in Public Policy and Public Law at Texas Tech University, where she is also an associate in the Public Health program of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She currently serves as the chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy as well. Her most recent book is Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World.

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Recovering Deep Gladness

When we compel young people to discern a specific career path as early as high school, or encourage them to spend time only on resume-building activities in college, we fail to honor their complete humanity. Instead of asking the question, What’s your major?, we should embrace questions like, What brings you joy?

When I introduce students to Frederick Buechner’s adage about being called to “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” I ask them which side of that Venn diagram they think has been underemphasized in their prior learning about vocation. Most often they mention that “the world’s deep hunger” needs more attention. This might be true, or maybe they think it’s what I want to hear. Perhaps they have been told so often that they are part of a self-centered generation that it has made them reluctant to seek their own gladness or name it as valuable. Recently, however, an insightful minority report stood out. A student responded that they might have been told to focus on themselves, but they sure haven’t been encouraged to seek deep gladness. If anything, they’ve been told to focus on themselves by building their resumes.

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Parker Palmer on Muddling Through

The most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings features hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton speaking with Parker Palmer.

The most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings features hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton speaking with Parker Palmer. Well before vocation and calling developed their current popularity, Parker was recognized as one of the foremost scholars, authors, and speakers on the topic. The author of ten books, including Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, he is also the founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal.

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Echoed Vocation I: A Call to Courage

As I call to my children, I hear an echoed call from them, uncontained and unpredictable and unsettling, that reverberates back into my teaching.

A series of posts about virtue, autism, vocation, and the teaching of history.

Martin Dotterweich

With this opportunity to reflect in four parts for Vocation Matters, I want to explore something that I have not really noticed until recently: how much my children have taught me about vocation and about the virtues. These posts will describe an echoed vocation. As I call to my children, I hear an echoed call from them, uncontained and unpredictable and unsettling, that reverberates back into my teaching. I write these posts with their knowledge and approval.

I have spoken and written about my calling as a father to my two children, Kathleen and Peter, for many years. That calling has been informed by my calling as a teacher of history, part of which involves presenting the virtues clearly and winsomely to my students. The past not only offers examples of virtue (and vice) but it also calls us to virtues as rememberers of the past. I have tried to teach virtue to my children as well with attention and creativity because they both have autism. In doing so, I have discovered both their unique challenges and their unique insights.

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