Author: Samantha Brown

Networking and Vocation

Faculty and staff members can play an important role in facilitating networking opportunities that encourage our students to explore who they want to be in the world.

When I have thought of the word “networking,” I have imagined lawyers in New York City drinking martinis after work or corporate business men playing a round of golf on the weekend, closing business deals. Based on who I am and what I value, networking absolutely did not seem to be for me. Yet this perception has been narrow: it limited networking to transactional interactions that benefit the few who fit the mold and exclude others with less power and access. Recently, I have reconsidered my understanding of the value of networking and how it can relate to broader aspects of our students’ vocational journeys beyond careers. Faculty and staff members can play an important role in facilitating networking opportunities that encourage our students to explore who they want to be in the world.

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Self-compassion and the Vocational Journey 

In this post, I will share how the psychological literature defines self-compassion, my observations of self-compassion (or the lack of it) in students, and where self-compassion and vocation intersect. 

In the new NetVUE volume, Called Beyond Ourselves: Vocation and the Common Good, Meghan M. Slining’s chapter, “A Case for Compassionate Pedagogy: Caring for the Public’s Health, Cultivating Sustainable Vocations,” argues that our compassion can keep students engaged during difficult times. Compassion is a way of being with suffering that allows us to see, hold, and acknowledge suffering, while also compelling us to take actions towards reducing it. Slining suggests that training and skills related to compassion can help reduce burnout and support sustainable vocations, which are important for the longevity of caring for the common good. Slining notes that this compassion extends not only to those we serve or the external world but also to ourselves. Within both my previous clinical work and my current teaching, I have been interested in self-compassion, but only recently have I begun to see its intersection with teaching vocation. In this post, I will share how the psychological literature defines self-compassion, my observations of self-compassion (or the lack of it) in students, and where self-compassion and vocation intersect. 

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Assessing Character Strengths: Resources from Positive Psychology

Part of our work as educators is to help students recognize and appreciate their natural strengths so that they can share them with others.

Before starting my first semester as a professor, my department held a retreat that included discussion of our results from the VIA Inventory of Strengths (also called the VIA Survey). To my relief, my top strengths included love of learning, curiosity, and teamwork—all excellent characteristics of a new academic. They also included love and humor, however, and even though those felt accurate, I cringed with dismay. As someone who falls prey to imposter syndrome (see my previous blog post), these characteristics seemed unprofessional and “fluffy.” I didn’t want to be seen as a joker or not rigorous. Since that retreat six years ago, I have learned that these two strengths are invaluable to my work. My compassion is evident to my students, and my humor can appropriately bring levity to even challenging situations.

Many students struggle to identify their strengths and to communicate them to others, which I suspect is partly because they cannot always see the value of their strengths. This can happen because our strengths are so natural to us that they may not seem unique or consequential. Part of our work as educators is to help students recognize and appreciate their natural strengths so that they can share them with others. As a resource provided by the VIA Institute on Character (formerly Values in Action Institute), the VIA Survey is a free online tool that can help.

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Imposter Syndrome and Vocation

Making imposter syndrome more visible shows our students that they are not alone, and it reminds us, as faculty and staff members, that we are not alone either.  

I am an expert on imposter syndrome, not in the academic sense but rather in the lived experience sense. It is the little voice in the back of my head that says, “You’re not supposed to be here” or “Everyone is going to see you don’t belong.” In fact, when I was asked to contribute to Vocation Matters, it showed up and said, “What could you write that your amazing colleagues haven’t already written?” As I considered that little voice, I realized that imposter syndrome might be precisely the vocation-related topic that I could talk about. I imagine that some (maybe even many) of you share my experience and that even more of you know and work with students who share this experience. I want to reflect on how imposter syndrome might intersect with and influence our and our students’ vocational journeys.

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