Month: May 2024

Self-compassion and the Vocational Journey 

In this post, I will share how the psychological literature defines self-compassion, my observations of self-compassion (or the lack of it) in students, and where self-compassion and vocation intersect. 

In the new NetVUE volume, Called Beyond Ourselves: Vocation and the Common Good, Meghan M. Slining’s chapter, “A Case for Compassionate Pedagogy: Caring for the Public’s Health, Cultivating Sustainable Vocations,” argues that our compassion can keep students engaged during difficult times. Compassion is a way of being with suffering that allows us to see, hold, and acknowledge suffering, while also compelling us to take actions towards reducing it. Slining suggests that training and skills related to compassion can help reduce burnout and support sustainable vocations, which are important for the longevity of caring for the common good. Slining notes that this compassion extends not only to those we serve or the external world but also to ourselves. Within both my previous clinical work and my current teaching, I have been interested in self-compassion, but only recently have I begun to see its intersection with teaching vocation. In this post, I will share how the psychological literature defines self-compassion, my observations of self-compassion (or the lack of it) in students, and where self-compassion and vocation intersect. 

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Echoed Vocation II: A Call to Moderation

Ultimately, the call of temperance is a call to self-examination, for each of us knows the things that consume us personally. Moderation is best judged from the inside.

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

Martin Dotterweich

My first exploration of the echoing of vocation between my students and my children suggested ways in which the latter demonstrate exceptional courage. For this second exploration, which will consider the call to moderation, their example for me is more problematic—like the virtue itself.

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Kathleen Fitzpatrick on Joy in the Classroom

In the most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings, hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton speak with Kathleen Fitzpatrick, director of digital humanities and professor of English at Michigan State University.

In the most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings, hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton speak with Kathleen Fitzpatrick, director of digital humanities and professor of English at Michigan State University. She also serves as the project director of Humanities Commons, an open-access, open-source network serving more than 16,000 scholars and practitioners in the humanities. In addition to her extensive blog, her publications include Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University (2019) and the forthcoming Leading Generously: Tools for Transformation (2024).

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Our Work Doesn’t End at Commencement

Have you had the experience that your work with undergraduates doesn’t end at commencement?

Have you had the experience that your work with undergraduates doesn’t end at commencement? In your role as advisor and professor, you helped first-year students and sophomores begin to find their way. You guided and supported them as juniors and seniors, when their vocational choices started to narrow with their more developed interests; this ordinary and important work may have culminated with writing a letter of recommendation or giving employers a reference. But now, especially in career-challenged and underemployed domains, have you realized that you continue to advise and mentor some of them long after they’ve graduated?

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