Month: June 2025

Reimagining the Good Life: Jennifer Herdt

The final episode of this season of Callings features Jennifer Herdt, a professor of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School, discussing virtue ethics and the good life. She emphasizes that living well isn’t about self-gain but instead about being responsive to the world. Herdt encourages asking, “What is worthy of my devotion?” to guide one’s vocation.

Jennifer Herdt

The final episode of this season of Callings features an interview with Jennifer Herdt, the Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, where she also serves as senior associate dean of faculty affairs. She is the author of many books and articles on virtue ethics, early modern and modern moral thought, and political theology. Her most recent book, Assuming Responsibility: Ecstatic Eudaimonism and the Call the Live Well, engages with questions of calling and obligation to others. Jennifer’s research also explores science-informed theological anthropology, which has been funded by a grant by the Templeton Foundation. In her teaching and research, Jennifer explores the connection between virtues, the good life, and the “call to live well.”

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Coping with Loss: Supporting Students when They Navigate Unforeseen Academic Changes

Joseph, a first-generation honors student, struggled in his first-year chemistry course, earning a C, which led to doubt about pursuing medicine. Many students face similar pressures regarding GPA and vocational goals. Institutions must proactively support students experiencing academic difficulties, emphasizing vocational exploration and mental well-being resources to alleviate distress and promote resilience.

overwhelmed young man against trigonometry calculations
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Joseph was a high-achieving first-generation student who graduated with honors from his high school. He aspired to pursue medicine but suddenly found himself struggling in his first-year chemistry course. At the end of the fall term, he earned a C. Learning had come naturally to him during high school, requiring little time outside of school. He now needed to learn to study independently but was unsure how to retain information. Writing lab reports was also new to him. Resolved to improve, he met with a tutor during the first half of the spring semester, but when he looked at his midterm grades, his stomach dropped. After all his work, he still had a C. Panic set in as he doubted his ability to pursue medicine. He also remembered he needed to register for fall courses the next week. Unsure how to proceed and apprehensive about his future, he decided it was time to meet with his advisor.

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Hope Through Connection IV: Scholarly Conversation and the Real Work of Building a Meaningful Life

At St. Norbert College, an English gateway course integrates literary scholarship with vocational reflection. Professor Deirdre Egan-Ryan and her student Caroline Van Sistine discuss how this approach reshaped students’ understanding of literature and their personal callings. Reading texts on vocation led to deeper academic engagement, community building, and a redefined sense of purpose within their studies.

A series of posts on integrating vocation into a gateway course for the major, featuring conversations between a professor and her student.

Deirdre and Caroline

One of the biggest challenges we faced at St. Norbert College when we redesigned our gateway course for English majors was deciding how much scholarship from the field to include. Our answer? We scaffold engagement with research by asking students to integrate literary criticism selectively into a short research paper, saving more comprehensive methodological investigations for later courses. We also introduce the scholarship of vocation into our discussions about calling and literary studies. Creating this vocational context has helped our students cultivate deeper meaning within the major and set them on journeys of increasing purpose, embedded in community.

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Re-visioning Humility as a Virtue for Vocation

The author reflects on a classroom experience where students struggled to identify their skills and talents. This silence prompted discussions about societal expectations and humility. The piece re-imagines the practice of the virtue of humility in relation to the barriers young women especially face in recognizing their giftedness due to cultural pressures. It ultimately emphasizes the importance of acknowledging both strengths and limitations in personal growth.

students cheating during an exam
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One day about halfway through the semester with a class of thoughtful, generous, and talkative juniors, we were turning our attention to the role of religious practices. I wanted to prime them to think about the way “practices” take “practice,” so I asked what I thought was a fairly innocuous question to generate discussion: What is something that you are good at, and how did you get good at it? I then circulated throughout the room, eager to eavesdrop on the small group conversations of these engaged and engaging young adults. Instead, I heard only a “profound and holy silence.” Anna, a brilliant and conscientious psychology major with a great sense of humor and a small group of deeply devoted friends, sat in silence with Jillian, a compassionate and skilled nursing student with a side job as the group fitness instructor whose class everyone rushes to sign up for. Finally, Anna stammered, “Well, I guess I used to be good at dancing, but I don’t have time for that anymore.”

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Philosophy for Life: Kwame Anthony Appiah

The final episode of this season of NetVUE’s podcast features Kwame Anthony Appiah, an influential philosopher and professor at NYU. He discusses his journey from Ghana through England to the U.S., highlighting the significance of liberal education and the need for students to think critically about diversity and moral dilemmas rather than being told what to think.

Kwame Anthony Appiah

The most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings brings listeners an interview with Kwame Anthony Appiah. One of the world’s most influential philosophers and public intellectuals, he writes about political philosophy, ethics, diversity and identity, the philosophy of language, and African intellectual history. Kwame was raised in Ghana, educated in England, and now is professor of philosophy and law at New York University. He is the author of many books and articles, including Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers and The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity, as well as the author of the popular “Ethicist” column for the New York Times Magazine, which offers advice on life’s trickiest situations and moral dilemmas. The winner of the 2024 John W. Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanity from the Library of Congress, Kwame currently serves as president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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Closing the Gap: Integrating Vocation into Second-Year Initiatives

Many colleges lack support programs for second-year students, leaving them feeling isolated and without direction. Institutions are encouraged to integrate vocational exploration into academic advising and provide tailored support. Initiatives such as high-impact practices, applied learning, cohort events, and mentoring opportunities can enhance social connections and address students’ needs for purpose and career direction during their critical second year.

brown cardboard box with sad face
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When sophomores return to most colleges after the summer, they often discover less support than they received as first-year students. Half of institutions do not offer second-year initiatives to meet students’ needs. Given the scarcity of time and dollars, some institutions are simply relieved that second-year students have returned and then shift their focus almost exclusively to the newly arrived first-year students.

The absence of second-year programs leaves many students in their second year feeling invisible and isolated. In response, many institutions have embedded second-year initiatives into academic advising, career exploration and planning, early alert systems, leadership programs, and back-to-school events. Sophomore retreats, mentoring, and residence life initiatives have also become popular.

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