Description: This book is the first of three projected volumes to be published with the support of the Scholarly Resources Project of the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE) with the goal of deepening and broadening current scholarly engagement with the themes of calling and vocation. It proposes various pedagogies of vocation that can help undergraduate students reflect on larger questions of meaning and purpose, and demonstrates how academic institutions can more actively engage students by encouraging vocational reflection and discernment.
Review Quotes: "The idea of a personal calling or vocation has grown increasingly foreign in contemporary culture, at the expense of notions of success, happiness, and consumption. Creative thinkers at small colleges are reconsidering the crucial idea of vocation, however, and this is the first report on that rethinking. I hope it garners widespread attention and stimulates much-needed new reflection and discussion." --Christian Smith, author of Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood
"Essential reading for reminding us of the integrative value of higher education. Toward helping students thrive during college and beyond, Cunningham and colleagues offer critical perspectives on how we can incorporate vocational exploration, reflection, and discernment within the undergraduate experience, and why it is essential that we do so." --Jennifer A. Lindholm, Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, University of California, Los Angeles"What happens when diverse scholars gather to discuss the idea and practice of vocational exploration in undergraduate education? The answer is this brilliant and generative volume. No stone has been left unturned in the analysis of vocation's significance at this cultural moment, its connections to virtue, or its place within and beyond classrooms. The movement to revitalize higher education via vocational exploration will be powerfully strengthened by these fine essays." --Tim Clydesdale, author of The Purposeful Graduate: Why College Must Talk to Students about Vocation