NetVUE’s conversation cards are one of the latest tools aimed at supporting our students’ vocational exploration and discernment. There will be three decks focused on distinct kinds of inquiry—Explore, Engage, and Envision—with the first two decks already available, and the third set to be released in March. In addition, a Spanish language deck that focuses on more culturally situated aspects of vocation is being developed. Each of the decks features questions for students at all levels of vocational inquiry, from first-year icebreakers to senior-year capstones.
NetVUE’s most recent webinar focused on various ways to use this resource with students, as well as with staff and faculty. On February 3, the webinar’s featured speakers discussed their experiences with and strategies for making the most out of the first deck (Explore) to enhance vocation programming on their campuses.
MT Dávila of Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts, is an associate professor of religious and theological studies. She described how she uses the conversation cards to build community in large classrooms. She also reviewed ways they are being used by faculty from diverse disciplines and varying levels of comfort and experience teaching vocation in a first-year seminar course. She concluded by sharing specific examples of student experience with the cards.
Jennifer Ferguson is the associate dean and professor in the school of nursing at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas. She explained how she integrated the conversation cards into faculty development activities. In this programming, faculty were exposed to student perspectives on the cards and were encouraged to share their perspectives on what they learned with peers. Jennifer and her colleagues set out to educate faculty on how to use the resource but reaped the unexpected benefit of building their colleagues’ morale.
Peter Carlson Schattauer of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, serves as the associate director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community. He discussed how he used the Explore deck in an extended orientation program to engage student leaders. His team integrated the “discerning purpose” exercise featured in Patrick Reyes’s The Purpose Gap, which expands vocational thinking by looking at the constituent practices, places, people, and purposes of a life.
Finally, Monique Jiménez-Herrera of St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, shared more about the development of the Spanish language deck, highlighting the importance of cultural context in vocation exploration. She emphasized the connections among vocation, identity development, and culture; she also connected her reflection to The Purpose Gap. Monique is assistant vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as a licensed clinical psychologist. NetVUE staff member Krista Hughes shared with attendees that the Spanish language deck should be available later this fall.
The last half-hour of the webinar was dedicated to questions from participants. This included questions about the specific approaches for using the cards. Additional related resources were also provided, including episodes from NetVUE’s podcast Callings “A Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope: Emmanuel Katongole” and “The Double Edge of Calling: Bonnie Miller-McLemore,” as well as blog posts “Visualization in Vocational Explorations” by Kim Garza and Kiki Kosnick’s “Vocation in the World Languages Classroom.”
The webinar was recorded and can be accessed through the NetVUE Online Community Network, to which all staff and faculty members at NetVUE institutions have access. Click here for more information about NetVUE membership. To learn more about NetVUE’s conversation cards and how to order decks for your campus, click here.
Rachel F. Pickett is the webinar coordinator for NetVUE.
