A photo from a recent news article in The Guardian stopped me in my tracks. It featured a black tombstone memorializing 15 departments within the humanities and social sciences facing cuts at Montclair State University, where students organized a mock funeral in protest of this proposal. At the top of the tombstone, a large RIP dramatically introduced the list of the departments, starting with anthropology and ending with English.
This story is an all too common one across higher education right now, leaving students, faculty, and staff in a state of grief over profound vocational dislocations as their callings are being devalued by college administrators and policymakers. This student-organized funeral resonated with me upon my return from a recent retreat for educators, who gathered to reclaim our vocational visions and voices. One undercurrent in our conversations was a deep sadness for all that has been lost in higher education in recent years: departments slashed, dedicated colleagues terminated, harmful narratives about our work increasing.
That image of a funeral reminded me of a podcast I had stumbled upon last summer, which told a story of even deeper grief—that of the loss of a child. I decided to revisit this powerful story, hoping that its reflection about a very different type of loss might help my colleagues in higher education reconnect to their own callings as a pathway out of our shared grief. This may feel like a paradox: we need to sit with the discomfort of our collective sense of loss and, while doing so, recommit to our vocational journeys so that we can maintain a vision of higher education at its best.
This may feel like a paradox: we need to sit with the discomfort of our collective sense of loss and, while doing so, recommit to our vocational journeys so that we can maintain a vision of higher education at its best.
This podcast episode—“You 2.0: What is Your Life For?”—is part of the Hidden Brain series. It begins with host Shankar Vedantam deeply interrogating the question, “What is my life for?” Vedantam posits that it is a nearly universal dilemma that humans grapple with at every stage of life and promises that the episode will explore the topic through a scientific lens.
Honestly, my initial thought was that this discussion might be sterile and formulaic, perhaps reflecting my own ambivalence about understanding the human condition within the world of “hard” science. As a clinical social worker and an educator of the next generation entering this field, I tend to feel deep skepticism in the face of “answers” or “clarity” when it comes to the study of human beings. A cornerstone of our work is that we lean into complexity and ambiguity and reject the concept of universal scientific truths in the study of human behavior. In fact, a favorite quote from Essential Theory for Social Work Practice that I share with my students is that “social work is not rocket science: it is much more difficult than that.” In other words, working with human beings introduces much less predictability about what will happen in response to an intervention because the variables within human experience are exponentially more complicated than the relative certainty of the world of rocket science.
Despite my initial skepticism about the podcast episode, its ensuing interview with Victor Strecher, a professor at the University of Michigan, proved me wrong in my assumptions. The story began shortly after the birth of his daughter, Julia, who Strecher describes as a “ten out of ten” at birth—a healthy, thriving baby. Soon after she was born, Julia became ill with a respiratory problem that ultimately led to a devastating diagnosis from a cardiologist who said, “Julia’s heart is ruined,” estimating that she had mere weeks to live. The family learned that Julia might be a candidate for a heart transplant. However, in 1990, when pediatric heart transplants were relatively new, children in Julia’s situation had about a 25% chance of living to be six years old. The Strechers began to grapple with some of life’s deepest questions, chief among them was, “If she lives to be six, can we make this a life worth living?”
Going through the experience of his daughter’s heart transplant gave Strecher a new perspective, driving him to focus on his legacy and recommitting himself to living a purposeful and meaningful life. Julia beat the odds and was thriving at age nine until one day, Julia fainted, leading her cardiologists to determine that she needed a second transplant.
After several medical setbacks, Julia received the second heart. About a week later, she was playing Bach on the portable piano her parents brought to the hospital. One of Julia’s cardiologists became tearful and explained that he believed her recovery was a miracle. After high school, Julia became a nursing student at the University of Michigan, where her dad taught, hoping to provide the type of care to others that she had received during her medical journey. During a particularly difficult winter, the family decided to vacation together in the Caribbean for some needed rest. The family was on the beach one night, and Julia exclaimed, “I’m so happy now that I could die.” These turned out to be the final words that her dad heard from Julia, as she died overnight at age nineteen.
With his background in public health, Strecher knew that one stressor with the worst life outcomes is the loss of a child. While Strecher went through an extended period of darkness following Julia’s death, he found his way back to living a full life through his vocation of teaching. “I want to teach every one of my students as if they were my own daughter, Julia,” he realized, and these words became his mantra—reflecting his purpose as he returned to the classroom.
Strecher also returned to his research, focusing on how a sense of purpose can improve a person’s mood and functioning. His book, Life on Purpose, cites research demonstrating that for every one-point increase on a six-point scale of life purpose, patients with heart disease have a 27% reduced risk of suffering a heart attack. For older adults, a similar 22% decrease in stroke risk was found as their sense of meaning and purpose increased. For college students, research shows that connecting their learning to a life of purpose is associated with more persistence through challenging or even less interesting subjects.
Strecher’s own life attests to the power of having a sense of purpose, which helped him move through the deepest grief by re-engaging with his vocation of teaching. He defied the scientific odds by finding a pathway to resilience out of the grief of losing a child. I found Stretcher’s story and subsequent research to be so powerful that I began to wonder if our vocations can be a roadmap to finding our way out of the darkness that has permeated our campuses in recent years.
Strecher’s story drives home a critical point about vocational exploration—one that Deanna Thompson eloquently explores in her essay in Called Beyond Ourselves: Vocation and the Common Good. Thompson points out that our conversations about vocation must move beyond the language of “deep gladness” and make room for our stories of grief and trauma, and for the way in which vocation and purpose can provide a pathway to healing and recovery. Strecher embodies Thompson’s insights; through his actions, he shows that by sharing stories like Julia’s so openly, we can “make more space to live alongside the sadness.” Those of us who bear witness to these stories build what Thompson describes as our “empathic muscles … opening new possibilities for working together toward the flourishing of all.”
Debbie Minsky-Kelly is an assistant professor of social work at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Debbie contributed to the development of Carthage’s Reflection Toolkit to help faculty incorporate reflective practices into their courses. She also serves on the planning committee for the Carthage College Callings Program, which has trained 75 Carthage faculty and staff to engage students in vocational conversations as part of their college journeys. Through this effort, the college has documented over 1500 purposeful conversations with students, which resulted in a presentation of the that name at the 2026 NetVUE Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. Debbie also participated in the 2026 NetVUE Writing Colloquy in Indianapolis, Indiana.
