At This Time and In This Place Vocation and Higher Education

Seeking to deepen current scholarly engagement with vocational exploration in both theory and practice, At This Time and In This Place champions the themes of calling and vocation as key elements of effective undergraduate education.

Growing out of a year-long seminar sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges and its Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE), this book brings together a nationwide group of scholars from a variety of disciplines in order to produce new scholarly writing on this topic. It offers a historical and theoretical account of vocational reflection and discernment and also suggests how these endeavors can be carried out through specific educational practices. Attending both to the current state of higher education and to broader cultural trends, the contributors examine the contours of vocation from historical, theological, and philosophical perspectives. They consider the relationship between vocation and virtue, both of which encourage the cultivation of habits that lead to a life marked by flourishing and fulfillment-for oneself and for others. The authors also discuss how to engage students in actively reflecting on questions of meaning and purpose through classroom conversations, co-curricular activities, programs for community engagement, and attention to a campus's physical features. At This Time and In This Place offers a compelling argument for vocational reflection and discernment in undergraduate education and represents a significant contribution to the emerging scholarly literature in this field.

David S. Cunningham is Professor of Religion at Hope College, where he also serves as Director of the CrossRoads Project and of the Klooster Center for Excellence in Writing.

Foreword - Richard H. Ekman, President, Council of Independent Colleges
Preface
Vocations of the Contributors

Introduction: Time and Place: Why Vocation is Crucial to Undergraduate Education Today - David S. Cunningham

Part One: Vocation in the Current Cultural Context
Chapter 1: Actually, You Can't Be Anything You Want (And it's a Good Thing, Too) - William T. Cavanaugh
Chapter 2: Finding the Center as Things Fly Apart: Vocation and the Common Good - Cynthia A. Wells
Chapter 3: Vocational Discernment: A Pedagogy of Humanization - Caryn D. Riswold

Part Two: The Contours of Vocation
Chapter 4: Places of Responsibility: Educating for Multiple Callings in Multiple Communities - Kathryn A. Kleinhans
Chapter 5: Stories of Call: From Dramatic Phenomena to Changed Lives - Charles Pinches
Chapter 6: "Who's There?": The Dramatic Role of the "Caller" in Vocational Discernment - David S. Cunningham
Chapter 7: Vocation and Story: Narrating Self and World - Douglas V. Henry

Part Three: Vocation and Virtue
Chapter 8: An Itinerary of Hope: Called to a Magnanimous Way of Life - Paul J. Wadell
Chapter 9: Seeing with All Three Eyes: The Virtue of Prudence and Undergraduate Education - Thomas Albert Howard
Chapter 10: Commitment and Community: The Virtue of Loyalty and Vocational Discernment - Hannah Schell

Part Four: Vocational Discernment Beyond the Classroom
Chapter 11: Rituals, Contests, and Images: Vocational Discernment Beyond the Classroom - Quincy D. Brown
Chapter 12: Sound and Space: Making Vocation Audible - Stephen H. Webb
Chapter 13: Self, World, and the Space Between: Community Engagement as Vocational Discernment - Darby Kathleen Ray

Epilogue: In Various Times and Sundry Places: Pedagogies of Vocation, Vocation as Pedagogy - David S. Cunningham