The first post in a series on the role that community-engaged learning can play in vocational exploration and discernment.
As a high-impact practice, community-engaged learning (CEL) has long been valued for fostering students’ social and personal responsibility, improving their learning and career readiness, and increasing student retention. We argue that CEL has another, rarely examined power: it is a powerful avenue for exploring vocation. In a 2025 webinar, Rachael Baker describes vocation as a capacious concept that stretches into all aspects of our lives, is open to all people, and summons us to consider the flourishing of individuals and communities. CEL nudges students to move beyond their narrow interests to examine their vocation or purpose; the latter is defined by Bill Damon as “a long-term, active commitment to accomplish something that is both meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self.”
Continue reading “Unlocking Vocation through Community-Engaged Learning”