Tag: global education

Peace, Conflict Resolution, and Vocation: A Call to Respond

NetVUE’s November 2023 Webinar focused on vocational elements of peacemaking and conflict resolution in the context of existing conflict and violence in various parts of the world, such as Gaza and Ukraine.

Engaging students in the classroom continues to be an essential part of undergraduate education but is often a challenging task. Current world events can be complicated, stressful, and difficult to understand. NetVUE’s November 2023 Webinar focused on vocational elements of peacemaking and conflict resolution in the context of existing conflict and violence in various parts of the world, such as Gaza and Ukraine. Exploring meaning and purpose as peacemakers can help students connect academic topics as well as personal development to global and local realities. On November 21, three speakers discussed experiences and strategies for how we can integrate global events in our work with students.

John Barton (top left); Geoffrey Bateman (top right);
Jonathan Golden (bottom left); Rachel Pickett (bottom right)
Continue reading “Peace, Conflict Resolution, and Vocation: A Call to Respond”

Vocation in a Global Frame: Four Considerations

Our students will likely live and work in a world even more interconnected and interdependent than we do now. The complex issues that face us spill across national borders, oceans and continents, involve communities with varying histories, cultures, beliefs, languages, political structures and forms of creative expression. These complex global issues and this interconnectedness shape the work-world our students enter. Students seek to discern vocation, not just once, but again and yet again, within this context.

How does globalization impact vocation?

We deepen and enrich our students’ understanding of vocational discernment, and we better understand it ourselves, when we situate the practice of reflection, anticipation and choice of life path within this global frame, when we consider how best to mentor students who are not privileged in their citizenship, circumstances and freedom or range of choice. 

Here are four components of the intersection of vocational discernment and globalization that seem pressing to me. These are not the only components, and readers are likely to identify additional significant, complex global issues affecting the work world our students enter. We live in a dynamic, constantly changing, highly interdependent world: by calling out these four major intersections of vocational discernment and globalization my hope is to initiate an open-ended conversation, to encourage reflection and dialogue. Continue reading “Vocation in a Global Frame: Four Considerations”