Category: resources

Article of Note: The Good Life

A recent article in Inside Higher Ed shares research on how “good life courses” can prepare undergraduate students for more productive and meaningful lives.

A recent article in Inside Higher Ed shares research on how “good life courses” can prepare undergraduate students for more productive and meaningful lives.

Kristina Callina, Alicia Lynch, and Michael Murray conducted interviews with and collected survey data from professors and their students from 14 colleges and universities to determine if such courses work and how they work. They report their findings and explore the rising interest in such courses across the country in “Teaching the Good Life” (September 19, 2023). They identify “the essential pedagogical features of good life courses, how they impact students’ sense of purpose and well-being, and what educators can do to optimize successful implementation of good life courses at their postsecondary institutions.”

Not only do the findings show that these courses are valuable for students, but they also suggest that such courses can bring new energy to the humanities disciplines that often house and support them.

One of the institutions mentioned in the article, the University of Notre Dame, is home to a course called “God and the Good Life.” Among its teachers is UND philosophy professor Meghan Sullivan, who will deliver the keynote address at the 2024 NetVUE Conference.

Stephanie L. Johnson is the editor of Vocation Matters.

Articles of Note: Building Career Readiness

Two recent Inside Higher Ed pieces challenge us to consider how successfully we are preparing students for life after college.

In Career-Readiness Initiatives Are Missing the Mark, Matthew T. Hora (UW-Madison) suggests that many job-readiness initiatives on college and university campuses are not effective in part because  of “an overreliance on off-campus work-based learning as opposed to more accessible work-integrated learning in the classroom.” In the classroom, faculty can contextualize soft skills and build an equitable and inclusive environment, which is much different from exclusionary off-campus internship programs. He offers suggestions for academic departments to incorporate career-readiness into their curricula.

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Responding to Hora, Matt Reed reflects on Career Services in his latest post for Confessions of a Community College Dean. He advocates for faculty engagement with Career Services and the overt discussion of transferable skills in the classroom. “Faculty members who engage with career centers, and who share those lessons with students, can make an enormous difference” in the lives of students, he writes.

Stephanie L. Johnson is the editor of Vocation Matters.