I Hear People Caring Loudly

In the current world of streaming television and vast amounts of available media content, finding an inspiring show with entertainment value and meaning for the leadership work we do with students, especially around vocation and calling, can be highly satisfying. 

I was recently happy to find meaning, vocation, and care for others in an unexpected place on the streaming menu. All Creatures Great and Small is a PBS show in its third season. Based on books by novelist and veterinarian James Herriot, this series examines small-town life in Yorkshire, England, before World War II. As its main characters—Siegfried, James, and Tristan—take care of both farm animals and pets in their small veterinary practice, the show illustrates the relationships that form as community members depend on and care for one another in daily life.

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From Career Paths to Communications Circuits: Vocation and Book History

As an English teacher, I’m always attuned to language and its implications. The language of vocation tends to be a language of opportunity: to grow and flourish, to move forward, to make life-defining choices. Correspondingly, the imagery is of doors opening, of young people silhouetted against a sun-drenched landscape, their backs to us as they move forward into the radiant future. Both this language and imagery signal individualism, which is also present in my college’s exhortation to students to pursue their own “unique career path.” All this is certainly sensible: we want students to have a path to follow when they leave us, and to thrive and find fulfilment in the wider world. But in my interactions with students about the broad issue of vocational discernment, I find myself emphasizing the language not of opportunity but of constraint. Counterintuitive as it may seem, being explicit about how life choices are constrained by responsibilities to others and by factors out of our control can offer students a more robust framework for thinking about how to move forward.

Since the Lutheran mission of my college is vestigial, and since my students rarely have much formation in the concept of vocation, I don’t usually raise questions about discernment directly in the classroom. I do, however, teach a course on book history—the material lives of texts—that I have found a useful place to engage students in reflection about how they want their education and their lives to matter.

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Reengaging Students Through Vocational Discernment and Significant Learning

A series of posts about a collaborative project at the University of Dayton to develop courses, programs, and opportunities for undergraduate vocational discernment in the health professions, including a first-year course, “Discover Health and Medicine.”

At some point in the past couple of years, I think all of us in higher education have asked ourselves why our students seem to be so disengaged. More students seem to lack the ability to pay attention for an entire class period. They miss deadlines or do not seem to care about their academic success or progress. Worse yet, some students just disappear altogether with no explanation and refuse to respond when we reach out to offer assistance.

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Second Chances and Good Time(s): Transformations and Transactions in Prison

Three weeks ago, I submitted final grades for the January (J-Term) course that I taught at East Moline Correctional Center (EMCC) through the Augustana Prison Education Program (APEP).  I created the course, “Redemption, Reconciliation, and Restorative Justice,” on the “inside-out” model of prison education. The plan was to shuttle traditional students each day to the local prison to learn beside their incarcerated classmates. Sadly, EMCC nixed that plan earlier in the fall, citing a shortage of security personnel. When Sharon Varallo, the executive director of APEP, asked me to choose whether to teach the course to free students or incarcerated students, I quickly chose the latter. I knew from some prior experiences that deep transformation of individuals and communities is more likely—or at least easier to notice—when teaching behind bars.

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Embracing Uncertainty: Parallels Between the Scientific Method and Vocational Discernment

(Austin) I recently hosted a career panel for our science majors at my college. During this panel, students had the opportunity to hear from fantastic individuals who were doing exciting and fulfilling work in careers like healthcare diagnostics, pharmaceutical management, and biotech research and development. The students heard compelling stories about the winding and fortuitous journeys that led the panelists to their current vocations. Since the panelists were alumni of the college and had been in the same position as my students a decade ago, I was excited about how current students might gain confidence in pursuit of their own unique and creative paths.

After the panel, I held a feedback session for my students. I anticipated their excitement about potential careers and where they might be called. However, they seemed more nervously overwhelmed than awestruck. The sentiment in the room was summarized by a student who said,

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Vocational Narratives: Finding Meaning in Challenging Times

As students continue to navigate ever-changing, demanding times in higher education and the world, feeling a sense of purpose and control over one’s life is important. NetVUE’s Spring 2023 webinar on February 7 focused on vocational narratives as a creative and effective way to find meaning in challenging times. The webinar featured three speakers who discussed their experiences and strategies for integrating vocational narratives in our work with students.

Antonios Finitsis (top left); Esteban Loustaunau (top right);
Julie Yonker (bottom left); Rachel Pickett (bottom right)
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Supporting LGBTQIA+ Students in the Pursuit of Meaningful Work

A few years ago, one of my queer-identified students shared with me some resume advice they had received from a colleague in our career center: not to include their internship at an LGBTQIA+ advocacy organization because potential employers would respond negatively. This advice confused and frustrated the student. They were out, and their queer identity had played an important part in their vocational discernment. This internship had reinforced their sense of calling by clarifying and strengthening their emerging professional commitment to work in the queer community after graduation. Not surprisingly, this student wanted to know what I thought they should do.

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Called to Build Peace

How can people with different views on issues that matter have meaningful conversations? 

My students in first-year composition may or may not care about writing a paper, but when I ask this question the first day of class, they are with me. They are tired of the shouting stalemate they see in our current discourse, and they want to do better. 

As educators today, and particularly in the humanities, we face several challenges: how do we lead students into worthwhile conversations and real learning on controversial issues? How can we help students overcome their natural obstacles to understanding others, especially understanding views different from their own? How do we help them “loosen up so they can learn,” as my colleague Paul puts it—to open up intellectually and emotionally so that they can engage with the world? 

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I Was Once in Their Shoes: Exploring Vocation in the Health Professions

A series of posts about a collaborative project at the University of Dayton to develop courses, programs, and opportunities for undergraduate vocational discernment in the health professions, including a first-year course, “Discover Health and Medicine.”

 “I’ve always wanted to help people” or “I’ve always wanted to be a doctor” are common student responses when I ask them why they are interested in pursuing a career in the health professions. This is true particularly among those students who were not initially accepted into a health professions major or who are struggling in classes and second-guessing themselves. Each time I hear one of these statements, it takes me back to my own experience as a teenager and as a first-year college student. I, too, was that student who decided at age twelve that I wanted to be a doctor. I was that student who excelled in science classes in high school but for whom first-year chemistry and biology were unexpected, anxiety-provoking struggles.

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Hopeful Waiting: Advent and Vocation

Year after year, the academic calendar brings the gift of a rhythmic return to the same moments. If it’s mid-December, then I’m invariably scraping through exam week while ignoring the Christmas cards that should have been in the mail two days ago. As much as this month is about wanting to wind up the current semester, however, it also involves looking ahead. Just this week, I finalized—belatedly and guiltily—the book order for one of my spring classes. Doing so brought a familiar surge of excitement and anticipation. I have taught this class several times, but each new section offers the opportunity to tinker, improve, and of course meet new students. As I clicked “submit” on that book order, I was struck by the similarity between the renewal promised by the academic calendar and that embedded in the liturgical calendar. At this time of year, both calendars ask us to look ahead with hope. And that regular return of hopeful expectation, founded in students’ academic experience, can be a powerful vocational resource.

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