Tag: first-generation

Change Maker: Abel Chávez

This podcast Callings features an interview with Abel Chávez, the tenth president of Our Lady of the Lake University. Chávez discusses his background as a first-generation college graduate and his commitment to supporting first-generation students. He emphasizes the importance of education in improving civic life and encourages listeners to engage as change makers in their communities.

Abel Chávez

NetVUE’s podcast Callings is pleased to release its recent interview with Abel Chávez, the tenth president of Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. In this role, he has energized university efforts in fundraising and outreach, developing strong partnerships at the local, state, national, and international levels. An integrative leader and learner, he has served in multiple roles in higher education, including his work as a civil and environmental engineer. Abel is himself a first-generation, first-in-family college graduate, and a son of immigrants. As such, he brings his bilingual skills and bi-cultural heritage to all of his work, reflecting his commitment to enhancing the quality, access, and affordability for all students while serving the needs of families and communities—all with an eye for their economic prosperity.

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Vocation revisited, part 1

Is “vocation” really a helpful word for the work we do with students? A conversation about vocation, race, class, privilege, and interfaith engagement, facilitated by Anita Houck.

Over the years, Vocation Matters bloggers have often asked, “Is ‘vocation’ really a helpful word for the work we do with students?”

I’ve had the opportunity to work with wonderful colleagues who are powerful, generous mentors to our students, but who have had their own concerns about the word “vocation.” So I greatly appreciated the opportunity to talk about “the ‘v’ word” with Professor Stacy Davis, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and Gender and Women’s Studies. I then brought Dr. Davis’s written thoughts to a Zoom conversation with two exceptional alumnae of Saint Mary’s, Romona Bethany, Group Violence Intervention Program Manager for The City of South Bend, and Sophia Funari, currently a student in the M.Div. program at the University of Notre Dame. I interwove the comments and invited these three wise women to edit their comments as they wished. My deepest gratitude to them for the privilege of learning from them.

Anita: Dr. Davis, you’ve raised questions about whether “vocation” is always a helpful term to use. What limitations do you see in the word, especially when we’re working with students?

Stacy: I have two main concerns with the language of vocation. The first involves the idea of vocation as a type of singular and permanent state, which I think can create an unnecessary sense of panic in emerging adults. David Cunningham notes that vocation needs to be a more flexible concept to acknowledge that paths change over time, and that vocation has often been limited incorrectly to one’s profession [see his introduction to Vocation Across the Academy]. But I am not sure the language of vocation is flexible enough for that.

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