Author: Geoffrey W. Bateman

Hope Circuits: Jessica Ridell

The latest NetVUE podcast episode features Jessica Riddell, a professor and researcher advocating for transformative change in higher education. In her book “Hope Circuits,” she explores fostering hope, equity, and creativity within universities. Riddell emphasizes renovating existing systems rather than destroying them, aiming for integrity and human flourishing.

Jessica Riddell

The most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings features Jessica Riddell, a speaker, professor, and researcher who focuses on systems change in higher education. Jessica’s recent book, Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Systems for Human Flourishing, and her previous co-authored book, Shakespeare’s Guide to Hope, Life, and Learning, cover various facets of educating and leading across the university. Jessica is a professor of early modern literature at Bishop’s University in Quebec, Canada, where she also holds the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence. She is the founder of the think tank Hope Circuits Institute and sits on the board of directors for the American Association of Colleges and Universities. In all these roles, she participates in a wide range of conversations at national and international levels about how universities fulfill the social contract to our broader society.

Committed to cultivating hope in higher education, Jessica wrote Hope Circuits to challenge educators to reconsider the assumptions with which we operate. In it, she offers innovative tools that emerge out of the stories of luminaries she gathered for the project and helps us come to a clearer understanding of systems of governance, leadership, and institutional culture so that everyone in the university can flourish. But such flourishing isn’t limited to higher education, which she argues plays an important role in fostering creativity and democracy across sectors. “Higher education,” she says, “is the place where we keep democracy and ourselves alive and awake. And my goodness, we need to stay alive and awake at this moment.”

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A Vocational Playbook: Anna Bonta Moreland

Anna Bonta Moreland, a humanities professor at Villanova University, discusses her new book, The Young Adult Playbook, designed for undergraduates. It offers guidance on vocational reflection and emphasizes the importance of work, leisure, and relationships for a fulfilling life. Moreland aims to empower students to pursue meaningful lives beyond graduation.

Anna Bonta Moreland

In April, NetVUE’s podcast Callings released an episode that featured an interview with Anna Bonta Moreland. A professor of humanities at Villanova University, Anna also holds the Anne Quinn Welsh Endowed Chair and directs the university’s honors program. While her academic expertise and research include medieval theology, interfaith dialogue, and comparative theology, she has also become passionate about educational renewal and the character and leadership formation of her students. She’s received both Templeton and Lilly Endowment grants for her work in these areas.

Recently, Anna coauthored The Young Adult Playbook: Living Like it Matters with Thomas Smith. Specifically written for undergraduates, the book invites them into and guides them in vocational reflection and discernment. But for Anna, writing the book represented her own vocational shift. It emerged out of a course she has been teaching senior honors students for the past eight years called Shaping an Adult Life—a course that helps these students, as she notes, “look beyond graduation and think about a life well lived as an adult.” While teaching the course, she felt “like I had put my finger on the raw nerve of my students’ lives,” and their “visceral” response to the course prompted her to write the book as a sort of “palate cleanser” from her previous scholarship. But it served as something more than a temporary shift in her own life as a writer, something much more significant. “This supposed palate cleanser,” she observed, “has ended up just becoming where I am, and I don’t want to leave.”

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The Craft of Teaching (and Learning): Carlo Rotella

The latest episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings features Carlo Rotella, a writer and professor at Boston College. His book, What Can I Get Out of This?, explores teaching undergraduates and emphasizes meaningful engagement in the classroom. Rotella advocates for seeing education as a practice requiring persistence and presence, underscoring its relevance beyond mere career preparation.

Carlo Rotella

NetVUE’s podcast Callings has released a new episode, which features an interview with Carlo Rotella, an award-winning writer and professor of American Studies, English, and journalism at Boston College. His most recent book, What Can I Get Out of This?: Teaching and Learning in a Classroom Full of Skeptics gets at the heart of what it means to teach and to learn together with undergraduate students today. Carlo has been a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine since 2007. His work has appeared in collections like The Best American Essays, as well as The New Yorker, Harper’s, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Slate, and various scholarly periodicals. Recurring subjects in his writing are cities and city life, boxing, music, crime, basketball, neighborhoods, and how people get good at things. He is co-editor and founder of the University of Chicago Press’s Chicago Visions and Revisions book series.

As his career and his most recent book illustrates, Carlo is interested in the nuts and bolts of teaching—what he considers its craft and the ways we can build classroom experiences that help our students make meaning. The book follows the experience of a single cohort of students in a required introductory literature course, most of whom are not English majors. In it, Rotella tells the story of what happens when students practice discussing ideas and readings with each other over a semester and then follows up with them a few years later, revealing that the course’s impact yielded an impactful return on investment in one’s education and life. As he describes it, one of the things it explores is “how to be a student, how to do college,” helping educators better understand how our students experience and live out their vocations as students.

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Grit and Purpose: Angela Duckworth

In a recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings, Angela Duckworth discusses her book “Grit” and the significance of passion and perseverance. The conversation touches on mentoring, the importance of connection in education, and the relationship between human flourishing and serving others. Duckworth emphasizes goal setting and intentionality in pursuing one’s vocation.

Angela Duckworth

NetVUE’s podcast Callings recently released an episode featuring an interview with Angela Duckworth, the author of the well-known book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, a number one New York Times bestseller. Her TED talk on this topic is one of the most watched of all time. A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, Angela is the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor in the department of psychology and faculty co-director of the Behavior Change for Good initiative in the Wharton School, both at the University of Pennsylvania. Angela’s wide experience includes having advised the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, Fortune 500 CEOs, as well as working as a math and science teacher in the public school system. She founded a summer school for underserved children and co-founded the Character Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing scientific insights that help children thrive. Angela holds degrees from Harvard, Oxford, and the University of Pennsylvania.

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A Call to the Small: Barbara Brown Taylor

The latest episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings features Barbara Brown Taylor, a renowned author and public theologian. She discusses the importance of recognizing personal and external callings, emphasizing the value of small, local actions. Taylor encourages prioritizing life-affirming pursuits and remaining attentive to personal vocations amidst life’s demands.

Barbara Brown Taylor

NetVUE’s podcast Callings has released its first episode of the new year, featuring New York Times best-selling author Barbara Brown Taylor. In addition to the many award-winning books that she has written—including Holy Envy, Learning to Walk in the Dark, and An Altar in the World—Barbara has served as an Episcopal priest, a teacher, and a public theologian. For many years, she held an endowed chair in religion and philosophy at Piedmont University, a NetVUE member institution, and she has served on several seminary faculties as well as the theological studies certificate program at Arrendale State Prison for women. Barbara has been recognized as one of the most effective preachers in the English-speaking world by Baylor University, and in 2014, Time magazine included her on its list of “The 100 Most Influential People.” She has been named the Georgia Woman of the Year and recently elected to the Georgia Writer’s Hall of Fame. And beyond all these accolades, she continues to write and speak and serve as the caretaker of a farm in rural Georgia.

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Article of Note: Employers’ Confidence in Higher Education Reflects Value of Vocational Exploration and Preparation

In December, the American Association of Colleges and Universities released a report highlighting employer support for higher education’s role in preparing students for uncertain futures. The findings emphasize the importance of vocational exploration, informed citizenship, and community engagement, showcasing how colleges equip graduates with essential skills valued by employers.

In December, just as many of us were wrapping up courses and preparing for a much needed break, the American Association of Colleges and Universities released a report—“The Agility Imperative: How Employers View Preparation for an Uncertain Future”—that should give many readers of this blog reason to feel confident about the vocational work we do to prepare students for their lives after college. In conversation with Inside Higher Ed, Ashley Finley, AAC&U’s vice president and report author, said that in contrast to the skepticism colleges and universities face from many Americans, “employers are higher education’s biggest fans. They value the ways in which colleges are preparing students to be nimble and agile for an uncertain future.”

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Mentoring for Vocation: Maria LaMonaca Wisdom

In a recent NetVUE podcast, Maria LaMonaca Wisdom discusses her role as assistant vice provost for faculty advancement at Duke University. She emphasizes the importance of mentoring in fostering growth and personal relationships, while highlighting the need for revision and change in vocational paths. Mentors illuminate potential and inspire hope in students.

Maria LaMonaca Wisdom

In the most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings, hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton interview Maria LaMonaca Wisdom, a leading voice on mentoring and coaching in higher education. Maria is the assistant vice provost for faculty advancement at Duke University, where she focuses on helping faculty flourish as researchers, educators, mentors, and leaders. In this role, she offers group coaching programs along with 1:1 coaching to faculty at critical transition points of their careers. She is also the author of How to Mentor Anyone in Academia, published recently by Princeton University Press, which offers methods and approaches to understand the mentor role. No stranger to undergraduate education, Maria is a former Lilly Fellow and holds a PhD in English; she taught literature for a decade at a small liberal arts college before pivoting to her work as an administrator.

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The Power of Unexpected Mentorship

Mentorship can profoundly influence personal growth, as illustrated by Ben Gambuzza’s experience with a music professor, referred to as Professor J. Their connection encouraged Ben to explore deeper questions about himself and his future. Through unconventional guidance, Professor J taught Ben valuable lessons that transcended traditional classroom learning, emphasizing self-discovery over direct career advice.

Scott Carlson, senior writer at The Chronicle.

Mentorship can take many forms, and sometimes we cross paths with people with whom we unexpectedly form significant relationships that prompt us to see our lives in new and different ways. Last week, in his newsletter for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Scott Carlson included an essay by Ben Gambuzza, an undergraduate student he met in 2019 when he gave a talk at Trinity College about “writing, college, and the future of work.” After the talk, Scott took on Ben as a mentee, and when Ben proposed writing a piece on mentorship for Scott’s newsletter, Scott supported his efforts and published Ben’s essay last week. In it, Ben tells the story of his serendipitous encounter with a music professor who became one of his most important mentors. This professor didn’t always provide Ben with concrete answers to his questions, but he helped him refine the kinds of questions he was asking about himself and his future. Readers of Vocation Matters interested in the role of mentoring and vocational exploration will find much to appreciate in Ben’s essay, which is included in its entirety below.

This piece by Ben Gambuzza was originally featured in Scott Carlson’s newsletter The Edge, which is published by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Vocation Matters is grateful for the permission to repost it for our readers. If you wish to access the original essay, you can go to last week’s issue of the newsletter published on December 4, 2025, but you will need a subscription to view it.

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Attention and Contradiction: Willie James Jennings

Willie James Jennings, an esteemed theologian at Yale Divinity School, emphasizes the importance of belonging in education through his insights shared on NetVUE’s podcast. He advocates for educators to engage with students as fellow learners and highlights the need to confront racial injustices within education systems while committing to challenging antisemitism and advocating for Palestinians.

Willie James Jennings

The most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings features an interview with Willie James Jennings. Willie is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale Divinity School. A highly sought-after speaker, Willie teaches and writes in areas that include theological anthropology, liberation theologies, cultural identities and race theory, and environmental studies. He is the author of numerous articles and several award-winning books. He is also an ordained Baptist minister, and before completing a Master of Divinity from Fuller Seminary and a PhD from Duke University, he received his undergraduate education from Calvin University, a NetVUE member institution. Willie was also the keynote speaker for the NetVUE Unconference in March of 2021.

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Cultivating Character: Michael Lamb

In the second episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings, hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton interview Michael Lamb, a faculty leader at Wake Forest University. He discusses ethics and the importance of virtues in public life, encouraging listeners to connect passions with community needs and to cultivate virtues in discovering personal callings.

Michael Lamb

In the second episode of this season of NetVUE’s podcast Callings, hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton interview Michael Lamb, the senior executive director of the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University. An associate professor of interdisciplinary humanities and the F.M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character at Wake Forest, Michael also serves as an associate fellow of the Oxford Character Project at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, a project which helps graduate students in various fields, including government, law, medicine, business, and academia, think about the role of ethics in their professions. Michael’s research and teaching focuses on the ethics of citizenship and the role of virtues in public life, all of which offers many connections to the exploration of vocation.

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