Insights and Conversations from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE)
NetVUE’s November webinar featured experts sharing experiences and strategies for maximizing campus consultation at NetVUE institutions focused on enhancing vocation-related programming. Contributors included Deirdre Egan-Ryan, Sheila Bauer-Gatsos, Cyndi Grobmeier, and Jonathan Redding, who discussed curriculum, faculty development, and streamlining vocational efforts across programs, concluding with participant questions.
Over the past few months, a significant number of NetVUE institutions have hosted focused consultations on their campuses to strategize about vocation-related work. NetVUE’s November webinar explored the benefits of working with peer experts and the creative ideas, objective perspectives, and professional validation they offer. On November 18, the featured speakers discussed their experiences and strategies on how to make the most out of focused consultations to enhance vocation programming.
The author reflects on the challenges faced in advising for students, noting a disconnect between student expectations and meaningful discussions about their futures. Drawing from Rowan Williams’s ideas on the significance of time, the author advocates for teaching students to appreciate time’s giftedness, aligning academic rhythms with their religious calendars and broader vocational paths.
I have just finished a round of appointments with many of my first-year students and undeclared advisees to help them review their progress and pick classes for next semester. Even as I am blessed with students who are polite, eager, and diligent, some of their expectations create obstacles to having more meaningful conversations about their vocational arc. They often want to prioritize a more convenient, linear pathway—one aimed at a credential they are just beginning to understand. I would prefer to spend time with them discussing a more holistic trajectory: how they prepared in the past for their lives as students, what they are exploring in this present moment, and how they are creating foundations for their futures. Given this tension, this most recent round of advising conversations felt to me like boilerplate sessions of prescriptive compliance.
Continue reading “Vocational Calendars and Teaching the Giftedness of Time”