Month: April 2024

Called to the Common Good in Teacher Education: Reflections on the 2024 NetVUE Keynote Address

In her keynote address at the 2024 NetVUE Conference, Meghan Sullivan, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, offered insight into how and why we can and should help our students deeply consider their callings.

In professions known for producing heroes, teaching ranks among the top. As Christine Jeske observes in her chapter in Called Beyond Our Selves: Vocation and the Common Good, teaching is found among the short list of “‘good’ vocations” whose work is assumed by our society to flow out of an abundant generosity. Teachers are famously overworked and underpaid, and as a teacher educator I’m constantly mindful of this backdrop for much of my work, including the facilitation of vocational exploration and discernment among undergraduate students.

Meghan Sullivan

In her keynote address at the 2024 NetVUE Conference, Meghan Sullivan, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, offered insight into how and why we can and should help our students deeply consider their callings. She reminded us that when students experience a lack of training, a lack of a sense of vocation, and a lack of being formed and habituated in a great community when they’re young, they can more easily come to believe that everything truly is about them. The result of this lack of formation can lead to a pursuit of money and power as if nothing else is worth aiming for in life. Sometimes, these students can eventually acquire enough power to destroy the common good.

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Rethinking Vocation in Gender and Sexuality Studies

Both Gender and Sexuality Studies and vocational exploration invite students to rethink assumptions, to contribute to the world in which they want to live, and to be ready to redesign the shape that their engagement will take over a lifetime. 

Major Decisions, Major Discoveries: Exploring Vocation in the Undergraduate Years, a series of posts from Nebraska Wesleyan University about helping students develop meaning and purpose as part of their major coursework 

Vocation is a shared language for me and the students I teach, advise, and supervise. Not only are students still identifying their future careers but I, after 25 years as a professor in religious studies, am also still exploring my vocation by directing the Gender and Sexuality Studies program, which offers an interdisciplinary, advocacy major that draws on the humanities and the social sciences. This role illuminates for me that what we do as teachers, professors, advisors, and internship supervisors isn’t about sharing what we think we already know. In this program, the collaborative, high-impact practices do not include lecturing (see the AAC&U on high-impact practices). Instead, we engage students at the intersections of what we control and what we don’t, what we are good at and what we can do for others, and what can be planned for and what we encounter despite our planning—without perfectionism or self-deception. Both Gender and Sexuality Studies and vocational exploration invite students to rethink assumptions, to contribute to the world in which they want to live, and to be ready to redesign the shape that their engagement will take over a lifetime. 

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Anantanand Rambachan on Considering the Sacred

The most recent episode of Callings features hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton speaking with Anantanand Rambachan, scholar of Hinduism and interreligious studies and professor emeritus of religion, philosophy, and Asian studies at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

The most recent episode of Callings features hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton speaking with Anantanand Rambachan, scholar of Hinduism and interreligious studies and professor emeritus of religion, philosophy, and Asian studies at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is also a co-president of the global interfaith network Religions for Peace and is active in the dialogue programs of the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue at the Vatican. His numerous books include A Hindu Theology of Liberation and Pathways to Hindu-Christian Dialogue.

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Retirement as Rehearsal

Retirement shows you how finite your time is. If you stare retirement in the face long enough, then you can even see your death looking back at you. No wonder it can be hard to retire.

As a young academic hired into a largely older faculty in the mid-1990s, I watched certain colleagues become increasingly grouchy as they approached the final stage of their careers. Thirty years later, I get it: your sense of self, your vocation, the edifice that has housed your purpose and given your days and years meaning—all of it coming to an end. The conventional wisdom on this life phase invokes the perils of aimlessness and loss of identity as we step away from our work. Yet the research on the relationship between retirement and purpose is not all negative, and Hyrum W. Smith, the “father of time management,” urges “purposeful retirement.” Still, retirement shows you how finite your time is. If you stare retirement in the face long enough, then you can even see your death looking back at you. No wonder it can be hard to retire.

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Nurturing Vocation: Ideas from Health and Human Performance

Within our Health and Human Performance Department, we recognize the significance of assisting students in discovering their calling, aligning it with their passions, and fostering holistic wellness along the way.

Major Decisions, Major Discoveries: Exploring Vocation in the Undergraduate Years, a series of posts from Nebraska Wesleyan University about helping students develop meaning and purpose as part of their major coursework 

During their college years, students often find themselves at a crossroads, fumbling with questions about their future careers and personal fulfillment. In small-college settings, where personalized attention and experiential learning are prioritized, the exploration of vocation should be approached with deliberate attention and ample support. Within our Health and Human Performance Department, we recognize the significance of assisting students in discovering their calling, aligning it with their passions, and fostering holistic wellness along the way.

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Handle Hard Better

Whether our students are athletes or not, we help them daily to prepare for “going pro” in whatever careers they choose. And even beyond career planning, these young NCAA athletes also teach us and our students how to tell our own stories and build our own resilience.

It’s that time of year when March Madness seems to be on everyone’s mind, undeniably the best time of the year. Whether you work at or attended one of the schools represented in the 68-team men’s and women’s tournament field or are a fan of the underdog, you can hope to see another one of the great runs of recent history by teams like Saint Peter’s University, Florida Atlantic University, or Loyola University Chicago. This year, little-known Oakland University put itself on the map—in the metro area of Detroit and not in California—by eliminating the University of Kentucky from the tournament as No. 14 seed.  And No. 11 North Caroline State upset Marquette and Duke, teams more favored and higher seeded, to return to their first Final Four since 1983. 

There could be countless reasons why so many tune in at noon on that first Thursday and follow the tournament through to the Final Four, join groups of friends and co-workers in filling out brackets, and take time to learn about the lesser-known schools and mascots. However, for me, it’s the thought that anything can happen in two 20-minute halves of a basketball game. The tournament displays the players’ resilience, hours of preparation, and love for basketball and for the schools involved. Although controversies around name, image, and likeness (NIL), sports betting, and lucrative media contracts mean that the competition may not be as pure as it once was, I admire the celebration of talent and accomplishment in men’s and women’s basketball for these three weeks.

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