vocation matters

The Uncommon Good of Theatre

The post discusses theatre’s vital role in fostering community, exploring vocation, and supporting marginalized groups, particularly queer students. It emphasizes how theatrical experiences can challenge stereotypes, enhance empathy, and allow individuals to engage with diverse identities. Ultimately, theatre promotes personal and communal growth by recognizing and embracing the “uncommon good.”

A series on the role of theatre in vocation, with a focus on how it supports community-building, the uncommon good, and vocational exploration and discernment for all our students.

STUDENT

Will you run lines with me for my acting scene?

ROOMMATE

Sure. What’s the part?

STUDENT

My character tells his best friend he’s in love with him.

(Roommate freezes, suddenly guarded.)

ROOMMATE

Wait—are you gay?

STUDENT

I don’t think so. I just want to get the scene right.

ROOMMATE

Never mind, I’m not running those lines.

(Lights fade.)

close up photography of a man — *^{Photo by graham wizardo on Pexels.com}*

This scene is, unfortunately, not fiction. It is rooted in real student encounters. I’ve heard these stories whispered in the wings, muttered backstage, or offered between rehearsals when a student feels safe enough to speak. Often students don’t name these moments as trauma—because they’ve been trained to believe it is normal to be shamed. But they are traumatic. They are moments in which students begin to doubt not just their talent, but their belonging. And that doubt, left unspoken, corrodes the heart of their calling.

Being and Becoming in Community: Hearing Vocation through the Indigo Girls

The author reflects on how the Indigo Girls’ music influenced their understanding of identity and community, especially during adolescence in a restrictive environment. Their songs foster kindness, activism, and self-reflection, serving as a catalyst for personal growth and social awareness. The music is portrayed as a bridge between the secular and sacred in life.

a couple lying down while playing ukulele — *Photo of two young people enjoying music together by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com*

The practice of discerning and living into one’s callings is often deeply influenced not only by overt barriers but also by implicit messages that shape what seems possible in our lives. As a child of the 1980s, I yearned for representation that countered the oppressive gender roles in the world around me in the small northern Michigan town where I grew up. Most viscerally, I noticed my own discomfort with the pervasive narrative that I would have a husband and children someday, regardless of what my paid work would be. In my adolescence, queer life was invisible; but when I listened to music, I experienced a sense of being-in-community and was invited into self-reflection about who I was called to become.

Sexual Configurations Theory as a Tool for Vocational Reflection

The post discusses the significance of supporting students’ understanding of their sexualities beyond traditional frameworks, emphasizing sexual configurations theory (SCT). SCT, developed by Sari van Anders, encourages deeper reflection on sexual identities, acknowledging diverse lived experiences and the interplay of various identities. This approach fosters authentic self-discovery and meaningful relationships in the context of vocational exploration and discernment.

silhouette of a couple behind a rainbow flag — *^{Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com}*

In my first job after graduate school as a visiting professor, I did not advise students officially, but happily mentored many of them. Because I was both out as a queer person—genderqueer lesbian at the time—and open about my own struggles as a first-generation college student, students often shared with me their own identities, questions, challenges, and longings. One day over lunch at a language-immersion table, a student told me that she was having a really hard time. She had long known that she was queer and recently had experienced her first relationship with a woman. Their time together was short-lived—the partner had graduated early and moved away—and the student didn’t feel like it was a serious relationship. She judged herself for the intensity of her feelings about it and its end. I listened, thanked her for sharing with me, and reminded her that relationships don’t need to be serious to be important.

Our Students’ Vocations and the Gift of (Un)Gendered Language

This post emphasizes the importance of gender justice in higher education, particularly in language and pronoun use. It discusses the need for inclusive teaching methods that recognize diverse gender identities, while also critiquing traditional practices that may marginalize LGBTQIA+ students, including the compulsory sharing of pronouns. The author advocates for fostering supportive environments that promote vocational exploration for all students.

hands joined against progress pride flag — *^{Photo by Lisett Kruusimäe on Pexels.com}*

Gender justice—both in and through language—is fundamental to my vocation. As an out queer faculty member, I center the power of language, narrative, and agency in my teaching and in my mentoring relationships. My courses span topics from French language to Francophone world cultures, and LGBTQIA+ literature to queer and feminist theories. Accordingly, gender and sexuality are embedded throughout them as forces that shape our day-to-day lives, the institutions we inhabit, and their linguistic norms. At the same time, my students and I grapple collectively with how we contribute to reinforcing or disrupting these concepts and how we might activate them to empower or to constrain.

Geoffrey Bateman and the Uncommon Good

The most recent episode of Callings features a conversation with Geoffrey Bateman, associate professor of peace and justice studies at Regis University.

The most recent episode of Callings features a conversation with Geoffrey Bateman, professor of peace and justice studies at Regis University. He is also a NetVUE faculty fellow and NetVUE scholar and has written extensively on the topic of supporting LGBTQIA+ students in their vocational journeys. In addition to serving as one of the faculty advisors for the Queer Student Alliance at Regis, he also leads Brave Space Trainings for the Queer Resource Alliance. His recent scholarship includes the essays “Queer Vocation and the Uncommon Good” in Called Beyond Ourselves: Vocation and the Common Good and “Queer Callings: LGBTQ Literature and Vocation” in Cultivating Vocation in Literary Studies.

Queering our Advising of LGBTQIA+ Students

Queering our approach to advisement helps students cultivate critical dispositions and build not only resilience but also resistance to injustice, thus creating the conditions of transformative possibility for flourishing within our institutions and beyond.

In my last post, I suggested how we might better educate ourselves as advisors and support our queer students as they explore and prepare for the world of work after graduation. Many of these strategies focused on helping students navigate the homo- and transphobic contexts of work. In this post, I consider a different angle by highlighting queer theory’s disruptive potential for our students’ academic journeys and vocational discernment. Queering our approach to advisement helps students cultivate critical dispositions and build not only resilience but also resistance to injustice, thus creating the conditions of transformative possibility for flourishing within our institutions and beyond.

Supporting LGBTQIA+ Students in the Pursuit of Meaningful Work

As educators and advisors, we best serve our queer students not by adopting a one-size-fits-all kind of approach but rather by helping them understand and articulate the relationship between their sexual and gender (and other intersecting) identities and their emerging and evolving professional interests.

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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Tag: queerness

The Uncommon Good of Theatre

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Being and Becoming in Community: Hearing Vocation through the Indigo Girls

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Sexual Configurations Theory as a Tool for Vocational Reflection

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Our Students’ Vocations and the Gift of (Un)Gendered Language

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Geoffrey Bateman and the Uncommon Good

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Queering our Advising of LGBTQIA+ Students

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Supporting LGBTQIA+ Students in the Pursuit of Meaningful Work

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