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Vocation across the Academy: A New Vocabulary for Higher Education
Although the language of vocation was born in a religious context, the contributors in this volume demonstrate that it has now taken root within the broad framework of higher education and has become intertwined with a wide range of concerns. This volume makes a compelling case for vocational reflection and discernment in undergraduate education today, arguing that it will encourage faculty and students alike to venture out of their narrow disciplinary specializations and to reflect on larger questions of meaning and purpose.
In conversation with a growing range of scholarly resources, these essays advance the cause of vocational reflection and discernment well beyond its occasional mention in general education courses and career placement offices. The book's thirteen contributors all work in higher education, but they do so as biologists and musicians, sociologists and engineers, doctors and lawyers, college presidents and deans, and scholars of history, literature, and business administration. Together, they demonstrate that vocation has an important role to play across the entire range of traditional academic disciplines and applied fields. Regardless of major, all undergraduates need to consider their current and future responsibilities, determine the stories they will live by, and discover resources for addressing the tensions that will inevitably arise among their multiple callings.
Vocation across the Academy will help to reframe current debates about the purpose of higher education. It underscores the important role that colleges and universities can play in encouraging students to reflect more deeply on life's most persistent questions and to consider how they might best contribute to the common good.
In conversation with a growing range of scholarly resources, these essays advance the cause of vocational reflection and discernment well beyond its occasional mention in general education courses and career placement offices. The book's thirteen contributors all work in higher education, but they do so as biologists and musicians, sociologists and engineers, doctors and lawyers, college presidents and deans, and scholars of history, literature, and business administration. Together, they demonstrate that vocation has an important role to play across the entire range of traditional academic disciplines and applied fields. Regardless of major, all undergraduates need to consider their current and future responsibilities, determine the stories they will live by, and discover resources for addressing the tensions that will inevitably arise among their multiple callings.
Vocation across the Academy will help to reframe current debates about the purpose of higher education. It underscores the important role that colleges and universities can play in encouraging students to reflect more deeply on life's most persistent questions and to consider how they might best contribute to the common good.
376 pages, Hardcover
Published February 8, 2017
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About the author
David S. Cunningham
17 books1 followerDavid S. Cunningham is Professor of Religion and Director of the CrossRoads Project at Hope College, Michigan. He has published widely on the subjects of systematic, doctrinal and philosophical theology and Christian ethics.
He holds degrees in Communication Studies from Northwestern University, and in Theology and Religious Studies from the University of Cambridge and Duke University. His works include Faithful Persuasion: In Aid of a Rhetoric of Christian Theology (Notre Dame, 1992) and These Three Are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology (Blackwell, 1998).
He holds degrees in Communication Studies from Northwestern University, and in Theology and Religious Studies from the University of Cambridge and Duke University. His works include Faithful Persuasion: In Aid of a Rhetoric of Christian Theology (Notre Dame, 1992) and These Three Are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology (Blackwell, 1998).
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June 2, 2022
This is an uneven collection, but some of the essays are truly vital for helping students and college professors think about what we are doing in higher education. Reading through this with faculty is helpful for coming up with a vocabulary that contributes to the “so what” of education.
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