In Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies About Calling, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore explores the “double-edged” quality of our callings, grappling honestly with how we live out our vocations in all their complexities. As affirming and generative as they can be, “deeply meaningful callings,” she writes, “are also often painful!” On November 13, four faculty members from NetVUE institutions explored this issue (and many more) as they discussed Miller-McLemore’s recent contribution to vocation studies, which also serves as NetVUE’s Big Read this year. In their discussion, they reflected on ways to engage this book with undergraduate students in the classroom and how its major themes can help them understand and contextualize the challenges that come with callings to work and live in a fast-paced, modern society.
Webinar presenters brought a diverse set of experiences and examples to the conversation. R. Brian Bowman serves as an assistant professor of communication studies at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. In his teaching and research, he focuses on storytelling through various media and shared a vocation mapping project using Follow Your Bliss. Brian holds a master’s degree in digital communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Deirdre Egan-Ryan is a professor of English and director of faculty development at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. She specializes in twentieth-century American literature, and her edited collection, Modernist Women Writers and American Social Engagement explores the role of female authors’ social and political engagement in the development of American modernism. Deirdre presented a senior capstone assignment that incorporated the Big Read. She earned her PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jason Mahn is a professor of religion, director of the Presidential Center for Faith and Learning, and Conrad Bergendoff Professor of Humanities at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. He has published a number of scholarly articles about contemporary Christian theology and religious belief, suffering, vocation, secularism, and temptation and sin, including Neighbor Love Through Fearful Days. Jason discussed Miller-McLemore’s book in the context of a religion course on contemporary Christianity. He earned his PhD in theological studies from Emory University.
Finally, Brad Pardue is a professor of history and dean of institutional effectiveness at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri. His areas of interest include Western civilization, European history, and church history. He shared how he integrated Follow Your Bliss in a vocation course required for all sophomores as well as an upper-division course on social mobility in the general education program. He earned his PhD from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in History.
The concluding thirty minutes of the webinar were dedicated to questions from participants, which included questions about using Follow Your Bliss in the undergraduate classroom. Additional related resources were also shared, including episodes from NetVUE’s podcast Callings: “The Double Edge of Calling: Bonnie Miller-McLemore” and “Callings We Don’t Choose: Deanna Thompson.” Participants were also encouraged to check out these blog posts on Vocation Matters: “Hope through Connection V: Becoming Ourselves in Community” by Deirdre Egan-Ryan and Caroline Van Sistine and “Imagining Sisyphus Happy?” by Jason Mahn.
The webinar was recorded and can be accessed through the NetVUE’s webinar page, to which all faculty and staff members at NetVUE institutions have access. Interested in becoming an institutional member? You can find more information on NetVUE’s website for membership.
Rachel F. Pickett is the webinar coordinator for NetVUE.
