Vocation is a practice of hope. I recently attended the 2026 NetVUE Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, right on the heels of a communication conference. I realized quickly that I was having conversations at NetVUE about the same topics I had just discussed with my communication colleagues, but the tenor of the conversations were strikingly different. At NetVUE, the prevailing sentiment about circumstances in undergraduate education was that of hope.
I don’t mean that people were ignorant of the headwinds facing our institutions; I mean that the people I conversed with agreed that the work we do matters and is worth doing, despite the challenges we face. Indeed, hope was a fitting theme for the conference. It reinforced the belief that we can—as a group of networked colleagues—pursue a shared vision of shaping our students through sustained action to be people of hope. What was reinforced for me at the conference was that vocational education is one practice of hope.
On the second day of the conference, I attended a session about artificial intelligence (AI) and advising. Such a space can easily devolve into despair, and at the communication conference I attended, there were certainly some despairing moments about this issue. At the NetVUE conference, however, I was encouraged by the ways our colleagues turned to hope. During the session, we were prompted to think about why students might turn to AI to answer the kinds of questions that a good undergraduate advisor should be answering—questions about how to discern calling and how to find resources about vocational discernment. One colleague noted that a chatbot can return a list of popular resources—books, articles, and podcasts—but it can’t help students reflect in community about the ways that their previous experiences, backgrounds, coursework, mentors, and decisions have each formed and informed students’ vocational trajectories. That kind of conversation is generative, but only when had in conversation with other people.
As David S. Cunningham notes in his essay for the inaugural volume in NetVUE’s new journal Studies in Vocation and Calling, vocational thinking requires reflection and evaluation with other people. Reflective conversations are formative and productive in a specific way; they actively shape one’s thinking in response to the ideas of others—a generativity that is only possible between human beings.
On the final day of the NetVUE conference, I had perhaps the most interesting non-academic conversation I’ve ever had about vocation with the owner of a car service who drove me to the airport (and whom I had hired after learning that the hotel did not offer an airport shuttle but recommended this car service instead). The driver, Patrick, arrived dressed in black dress clothes and a tie, and he explained that he started a car service because distinguished guests prefer a car service, and he prefers distinguished guests. I didn’t have the heart to tell Patrick that I was not distinguished—merely uninformed about how to secure a ride to the airport.
It turns out that Patrick was a bit of a philosopher. He attended college for a year at a satellite campus of a large state school. He was a football player and intended to transfer to the main campus but suffered a shoulder and a hip injury almost immediately and lost his free ride. Patrick remarked that no one tells you that your quality of life will be forever impacted at 45 or 55 by football injuries sustained while trying to pay for college with your athleticism. He talked for a few miles about the ways that colleges present dream-life scenarios to prospective students, but then don’t follow through after students enroll.
Catching a glimpse of my conference name tag in his rearview mirror, Patrick shifted the conversation rather suddenly toward vocation and said he wished that he had pursued what he called “Vo-Tech,” or vocational or trade-based technical training, while in high school or college. With this kind of degree, Patrick believed he could have worked his way up a skilled trade through specialization and promotion, but given his football injuries, he was unable to pursue Vo-Tech after dropping out of college.
All of this left him with a sour taste in his mouth about the promises of college, especially for lower-income student athletes. I asked Patrick about vocation—both in terms of vocational technical training and his work as the owner of a car service—and he told me that for him, vocation means “knowing what to do and how to do it.” He then remarked that college doesn’t teach anyone how to own a car service—he had to do that on his own—and college is not for everyone.
Patrick is right: college is not for everyone. But: vocation is.
Before I exited the car, Patrick and I talked about vocation as knowing what to do and how to do it, but also why we do the things we do. He manifested a highly developed sense of vocation and calling: over the 20 miles, I learned that Patrick identified as a business owner and entrepreneur, community leader, philanthropist, community historian, favorite uncle, and good friend. When I asked Patrick how he started his business, or why he chose to own a car service rather than drive for a ride share company, or how became a leader in his community, his answer was the same: because he has learned a lot over his 55 years and wants to share his knowledge with others. We agreed that this is a pretty good articulation of his current understanding of his vocation.
While discouraged by early life setbacks, Patrick is yet steeped in practices of hope. His car service work is one such practice, as are his vocational mindset and community involvement. While Patrick may not use the academic language of vocation, he certainly talks the talk and walks the walk every time he picks up a client or attends a neighborhood meeting or plays catch with his nephews. Vocational living is a practice of reflection and responsive action, and a belief that our actions compound over our years to make a difference. In short: a practice of hope.
Vocational living is a practice of reflection and responsive action, and a belief that our actions compound over our years to make a difference. In short: a practice of hope.
The last thing Patrick and I shook hands on before we parted ways is that “vocation is for everyone.” I shouldn’t have been surprised to read those very words in Cunningham’s essay when I opened the NetVUE journal at the airport while waiting for my departing flight, but when I did, I knew I had to write this reflection. Vocation is for everyone, and if we talk about vocation effectively with our students and one another, perhaps we can articulate our callings as easily as Patrick does. If our conversations engage these questions fully and deeply, maybe we’ll be able to talk helpfully and naturally with our friends and neighbors about why the things we do—big and small—really matter. Vocation is inherently hopeful. It articulates meaning and purpose. Engaging our students in the language of vocation is one tangible way that we can shape them through hope to be people of hope.
As another round of our graduates head off into all sectors, let’s learn from Patrick about how to talk about what we do and why it matters. The next time we talk about vocation with our students, let’s tell our stories and help our students reflect on the ways that people and events have “turned their toes,” as Shirley Hershey Showalter writes, to and through the present moment. And may we train and send out graduates fluent in the language of vocation so that they can encourage vocational depth and reflection in their communities, wherever they go next.
Kristin VanEyk is an assistant professor of English education at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where she teaches writing and education courses. Her scholarship about teaching, education, and language studies has appeared in Daedalus, Pedagogy, Christianity Today, and elsewhere.
