A series of posts on integrating vocation into a gateway course for the major, featuring conversations between a professor and her student.
In conversations with some friends in higher education these days, there’s a moment where we make eye contact, and—in some form or another—admit this isn’t quite what we signed up for. We see our students’ isolation and mental health crises, fostered by an over-reliance on technology and the aftereffects of the COVID pandemic. We live in a divisive political climate that undermines our deepest shared commitments to civil and informed conversation. We face grave challenges such as slimming—or disappearing—budgets, diminishing numbers of college-bound students, and a perceived lack of confidence in the liberal arts. Let’s face it, the burnout many of us feel is real.
It’s easy to lose hope. But as Paul Wadell reminds us, a vocational perspective embodies hope.
At my small liberal arts college, our intentional focus on vocation through our English curriculum has given us and our students a sense of purpose and hope.
We now begin our major with a cohort- and skill-building course, Introduction to Literary Studies, that directly addresses questions of calling and purpose. Tim Clydesdale’s The Purposeful Graduate suggests that the most effective place to begin undergraduate conversations about vocation is the sophomore year. Nonetheless, we advise our students into this course in the spring of the first year. Our need to foster a cohort experience—to encourage their membership in the guild, so to speak—outweighs the potential that they might not be ready for it in the first year. We’re flexible as well, and know that some students won’t discern their love of English until their second year. Whenever they enter the pipeline, we recognize that early conversations about vocational discernment can only help our students better articulate their skills and passions, building shared purpose along the way. We are also creating other opportunities for vocational discernment across the major, including mid-degree internships, a capstone course, and co-curricular programming connected to the major.
This five-part series takes up our Introduction to Literary Studies course as an example of how embedding vocation early on in the major has fostered hope for everyone in our department, faculty and students. Each of us has a better sense of our vocations because of this course.
I write this post with my co-author Caroline Van Sistine, who is now beginning her junior year as a double-major in English and sociology. Caroline enrolled in the first offering of this course in the spring of 2023 in her first year at St. Norbert, and it served as a powerful catalyst for her discernment and future opportunities. We hope that our shared perspectives on the elements of the course will illustrate the broader impact this kind of course can have on our students. In this series, Caroline and I describe the course and its effects as a model for those who seek to integrate a vocational perspective into their curriculum and pedagogy, regardless of field of study.
Deirdre: As the teacher of this course, my ultimate goal was to demonstrate that the English major prepares students for many different vocational journeys. I designed the course to address sources of anxiety for our students, and to offer hope for the road ahead. Ultimately, my goals were: 1) alleviate students’ concerns about the applicability of their English degree; 2) offer them a variety of ways to imagine their current and future work in the world; 3) understand and leverage their own power to bring about lifework that they have not yet even considered; 4) begin the process of helping them articulate their skills; and 5) focus on the beginning of the major as a moment to solidify these students’ membership in this discipline as part of a larger community.
I also wanted them to understand that the processes of professionalization involve not only choosing a career, but also undertaking authentic vocational discernment as a life-long process of finding our paths within community. And most importantly, since our paths change over the course of time, the degree needs to be capacious and flexible. I knew that our major could be so.
Caroline: As a student, I can say without a doubt that the course that has had the most impact on me has been Introduction to Literary Studies, which I took in the second semester of my first year. When I first came to college, I sought a way to rationalize being an English major, so I enrolled as a double major in English and Business Administration, despite having zero desire to major in business. Having a ‘practical’ degree as a safety net made me feel justified in pursuing my passion for English. The problem was that I loved poetry more than economics. I cherished getting lost in webs of characters in mystical worlds far more than learning about data analytics. I relished diving into the depths of a text, deciphering its explorations and revelations, much more than studying market activity. Yet I struggled to see how my love for literature could translate into a practical career. This course didn’t just teach me about literature; it opened my eyes to new perspectives, built a supportive community, and guided me toward understanding my own vocational path.
It was during this class that my doubts began to fade. In the midst of analyzing metaphors and unraveling themes, I started to notice something remarkable. The analytical skills I was developing—learning to see beneath the surface, asking thoughtful questions, and crafting arguments—were not confined to the pages of a novel. They were tools for navigating the real world, and for understanding people and their stories. Literature taught me empathy by allowing me to live a thousand lives and view the world through different lenses. It taught me to communicate clearly and persuasively, to think creatively, and to embrace complexity. These are the skills required of leaders, innovators, and change-makers. They are the foundation of meaningful work, no matter the field. In finding my passion, I discovered that the so-called ‘impractical’ path of an English major is, in many ways, the most practical choice I could make for a fulfilling career.
In finding my passion, I discovered that the so-called ‘impractical’ path of an English major is, in many ways, the most practical choice I could make for a fulfilling career.
In the next four posts, Caroline and I will discuss four ways this introductory course embeds a vocational perspective that has fostered hope for us:
- Career focus in the context of calling
- Cultivating the skills of the major
- Conversation that is scholarly
- Community-building in the class
Each element in the introductory course focuses on connection: among people in community, among scholars, among ideas, and between current versions of ourselves and potential future ones. History professor and MacArthur Grant recipient Bill Cronon describes the habits of liberally educated people in his essay, “Only Connect: The Goals of a Liberal Education.” Ultimately, he writes, “More than anything else, being an educated person means being able to see connections that allow one to make sense of the world and act within it in creative ways.” As our students make sense of the world through their callings, together we can strengthen our sense of hope and freedom that education offers each of us.
Deirdre Egan-Ryan is the director of faculty development at St. Norbert College outside of Green Bay, WI, where she is also professor of English. She is a NetVUE Faculty Fellow and was part of the inaugural cohort of NetVUE’s Teaching Vocational Exploration Seminar. Her essay, “Community-Based Pedagogy, Literary Studies and Vocation,” appears in Cultivating Vocation in Literary Studies; it grew out of her years directing the program in academic service-learning and community engagement at St. Norbert. Her many vocations include rescuing overlooked big dogs and laughing with her teenage sons.
Caroline Van Sistine is a junior at St. Norbert College. A double major in English and sociology, she is interested in gender, race, intersectionality, and vocation in modern literature. She works as a consultant in the St. Norbert Writing Center and also interns at The Green Bay Press Times. This past summer, she was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship and worked with Deirdre Egan-Ryan on researching narratives of vocational flourishing in modern Black literature. A former gymnast, Caroline discovered one of her vocational passions for reading novels as she rehabilitated from an ankle injury.