Purpose of the Present Study

1. Personal Stories of CallingAmong University ProfessorsDon Thompson & Cindy Miller-PerrinPepperdine University“Cultivating a Culture of Calling: Mennonite Perspectives on Vocation”Goshen CollegeOctober 21, 2005

2. Purpose of the Present Study • To examine university faculty members’ concepts of vocation, personal experiences of discerning vocation, and personal bridges and barriers experienced while pursuing one’s vocation, along with potential gender differences in these areas

3. Research Methodology • Quantitative Approach • Vocation Survey Responses • Qualitative Approach • Vocational Autobiographies

4. Vocation Survey • The assessment included a 75-item survey • Definitions of vocation • Personal experiences of vocation • Barriers to vocational discernment and action • Sacrifices associated with living out one’s vocation

5. Survey Sample • Recruited faculty from two private, Christian liberal arts institutions • Sample size = 108 • Response rates of 52% and 100%

6. Demographic Characteristics of Survey Sample • Gender • 32% female • 68% male • Mean age = 48 years • Majority are Caucasian (82%) • Religious Denomination • 51% Church of Christ • 19% Presbyterian • 8% Roman Catholic • 3% Non-Denominational

7. Vocational Autobiography Approach • Faculty were recruited from: • Faith and Learning Seminars • Faith and Vocation Workshop • 76 faculty completed autobiographies • Response rates ranged from 65%-67% • Demographics are similar to survey respondents • Provided autobiography prompts

8. Vocational Autobiography PromptsMost Theology is essentially autobiography - Frederick Buechner • Reflect on your past and how you have become who you are • Describe major “turning points” along your vocational journey. • Discuss moments of crisis or confusion as well as moments of joy and clarity along your past vocational journey (e.g., experiences that have affirmed or shaken your sense of calling). • Write about friends or mentors who have contributed to your vocational development. • Include distractions, tensions, or barriers that have hindered the pursuit of your vocational calling. • Focus on your present calling and your role as a mentor to students • Describe evidence you have that you are living your call now • Explain how you practice ongoing discernment to your call • Identify what you do to mentor &/or facilitate a sense of vocation within your students

9. Survey and Autobiography Results • Definition and Scope • Discernment • Turning Points • Mentoring • Barriers and Obstacles • Gender Specific Findings

10. Definition and Scope of VocationHighlights from the Literature • Secular View • Work, Career, Occupation • Christian View • “a holy calling” 2 Timothy 1:9 • Any human activity that gives meaning, purpose, and direction to life: lifework • Public and Private Dimensions • Work, ministry, community, relationships

11. Definition and ScopeSurvey Responses – Agree A Lot or Very Much • Vocation Refers To • Life purpose – 94% • God’s will for one’s life – 87% • Job/Career/Profession – 81% • Personal interests or skills – 66% • Formal ministry – 48% • Gender – 8%

12. Definition and ScopeSurvey Responses – Agree A Lot or Very Much • Lifework Aspects of Vocation • Service toward others – 77% • Parenthood – 70% • Marriage – 66% • Church – 65% • Community – 57% • Friendship – 44% • No Personal Aspects – 4%

13. Definition and Scope • Vocation always involves service/benefit to others • Not at all 9% • A little or somewhat 26% • A lot or very much 63% • My vocation includes serving those in need • Not at all 1% • A little or somewhat 17% • A lot or very much 82%

14. Definition and ScopeEssay Summary • Our commission from God to identity, lifestyle, ministry, and service • Every decision, every relationship, every work • Discipleship, becoming like Jesus, loving God • Living from the outside in, rather than inside out • Seeking God’s will • The journey itself • Using God’s gifts

15. Definition and ScopeEssay Responses • Both my spiritual heritage and my professional identity as a scholar lead me to cast my personal sense of vocation in terms of a biblical text. Specifically, I find myself called by Deuteronomy 6:4-5, known as the shema: “Listen, Israel: There is no god except the Lord your God. Love the Lord your God with your entire heart, your entire self, and your entire ‘muchness’ (my translation). Thus the most concise expression of my calling is that I am called to love God with everything I am and have. Loving God is my vocation.

16. DiscernmentSurvey Responses – Agree A lot or Very Much • Personal sense of vocation develops from: • God’s will – 87% • Personal Interests/Skills – 81% • Significant Life Experiences – 80% • Influence of others – 73%

17. DiscernmentSurvey Responses • I have a strong sense of my own personal vocation Somewhat 8% A lot 37% Very much 55%

18. Discernment – ProcessEssay Summary • Intersection of talents, skills, desires and deep need for mankind • Gut feelings - innermost convictions • God’s loud voice speaking through tragedies, disappointments, losses • Ask and be asked questions • Through experience, trial and error, surprises

19. Discernment ProcessEssay Responses • Knowing the will of God as a life calling occurs through experience itself. We discover what our calling is in the same way an artist paints on a canvas. We learn by trying, by experimenting, by doing. Our calling is inseparable from the journey. It IS the journey. • Listening to God’s voice inside of me. • Discernment is where prayer meets action.

20. Discernment – EvidenceEssay Summary • When nothing else matters • Spiritual growth occurs • Deep sense of joy, satisfaction, contentment, peace, excitement, renewed energy • Positive feedback from others • Answered prayer

21. Discernment EvidenceEssay Responses • Am I living my call now? I am uncertain. Is it possible that I am living it in one area of my life and not another? Now that God is opening doors and I am reconnecting with my passions. I have a sense of peace about what I am doing and the results are positive. Individuals, families, and students are being helped. Those that I trust have encouraged me in my present pursuits, while providing words of caution about overextending myself. My reward is a deep sense of satisfaction, excitement, and renewed energy. • It is related to whether I would perform certain aspects of my work without pay.

22. Turning PointsEssay Summary • Death of family member or close friend • Life’s mistakes & wrong turns • Education • Accepting Jesus • Conflict, tension, growing pains • Helping someone in need • Parenting

23. Turning PointsEssay Responses • All of my science courses seemed like work; all the literature courses seemed like play. On Thanksgiving holiday, I had to work through some heavy-duty equilibrium problems for my quantitative analysis chemistry course, and I was to read Thornton Wilder’s Our Town for my American literature course. The power of the play overwhelmed me. I didn’t know it then, but I was feeling the difference between what Thomas De Quincey called the literature of knowledge and the literature of power. And I began to think, “Something is wrong here. Why am I competent in but so unmoved by my major, and why do plays and stories and novels and poems move me so?”

24. Turning PointsEssay Responses • I was watching the news when a disturbing story came on. In England, two young boys had kidnapped a toddler and killed him. I couldn’t get over that event. After hearing that story, I began to wonder what would cause someone, particularly children to do such a horrific thing. At that point I changed my major to psychology, transferred to a different school, with a better psychology program, and focused on understanding child development.

25. MentoringParks, S.D. (2000). Big questions, worthy dreams. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. • Recognition of their Protégés • Support • Challenge • Inspiration • Dialogue • Mutual Attraction Toward Similar Aims

26. Mentoring – MentorEssay Summary • Encourage, serve, support, lead, nudge, excite, energize, hear, listen, share inner lives • Learn about self, giftedness, passions, life purpose • Help students navigate faith integration • Build and foster courage

27. Mentoring – MentorEssay Responses • I need to listen to my students. I need to hear what they are hearing. I need to be able to take their perspective as I decide what and when to share my own vocational journey. Perhaps it is enough that they fully grasp that vocation is a journey; they don’t have to understand it or be able to articulate their own vocation. They just need to accept that if they listen they will eventually find as Buechner says “where their deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.”

28. Mentoring – ProtégéEssay Summary • From Teachers, Professors & Colleagues • Through scripture & inspirational writing • Via spouse, parents, family members, church family & friends

29. Mentoring – ProtégéEssay Responses • Throughout my life, my grandmother wrote several letters to me. In almost every one she included the following verse, from II Timothy 2:20: ‘In a large house there are not only articles of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.’ This advice gave me a sense that I was called by God to do important things.

30. Mentoring – ProtégéEssay Responses • One of my professors encouraged me to pursue graduate school. He even went so far as to sign out a school car, make appointments for me with faculty, and drive me to the university to consider its program in human development. He encouraged me to consider teaching at the college/university level and helped me find my first academic post.

31. Barriers/Obstacles • Various obstacles or barriers may interfere with our ability to discern or act upon our vocational callings • Barriers serve as challenges that either • create struggles that we must overcome • create an impasse that redirects our journey

32. Barriers/Obstacles to Vocational Action • Demographic Barriers/Obstacles • Most faculty responded “not at all” • Age 50% • Gender 64% • Ethnicity 73% • Education 56% • Income 57%

33. Gender as a Vocational Barrier/Obstacle

34. Barriers/Obstacles to Vocational Action • Personal Attitudes or Emotions as Barriers/Obstacles • Variable responses from faculty • Fear • Selfishness • Self-doubt • Need for personal control • Desire for certainty • Need to feel secure/safe • Uncertainty about one’s vocation • Lack of faith

35. Fear as a Vocational Barrier/Obstacle

36. Self-doubt as a Vocational Barrier/Obstacle

37. Barriers/Obstacles to Vocational Action • Interpersonal Relationships as Barriers/Obstacles • Most faculty responded “not at all” • Parent or other family member 51% • Friend 72% • Boyfriend or girlfriend 77% • Teacher or professor 65% • Spouse 69% • Mentor 79% • Colleague 60% • Supervisor/Boss 54%

38. Parent or Other Family Member as a Vocational Barrier/Obstacle

39. Barriers/Obstacles to Vocational Action • Personal and Social Circumstances as Barriers/Obstacles • Variable responses from faculty • Lack of financial resources • Concerns about supporting standard of living • Unwillingness to sacrifice financially • Feeling pressure or a desire to get married • Gender discrimination • Job-related responsibilities • Raising children • Family responsibilities • Traditions of my church • Physical limitations

40. Lack of Financial Resources as a Vocational Barrier/Obstacle

41. Job-Related Responsibilities as a Vocational Barrier/Obstacle

42. Barriers/ObstaclesEssay Summary • Pride, Self-Centeredness, Prejudice • Lack of faith, lack of self-confidence • Struggle with traditional gender roles • Balance between home and profession • Health setbacks • Family conflict, divorce, remarriage • Church culture

43. Barriers and Obstacles to Vocational ActionEssay Responses • My first semester was painful. Straight out of graduate school, I embraced my students excited and ready to embark on an intellectual journey. I found, however, that my students responded to my enthusiasm with indifference, sleepiness, and even hostility. I was also disheartened to see racial tensions and divisions in and outside of my class with minority students coming to me to say that they felt depressed and alienated on campus. I felt that I had to be an entertainer instead of a teacher and a radical social activist instead of a private and objective researcher.

44. Gender Specific Findings • The topic of gender differences in vocational calling has not been examined empirically • Research in the areas of faith and identity development suggests the potential impact of gender on vocational development

45. Gender Analysis • Gender differences were examined for the barriers and obstacles that faculty members experienced related to their vocational calling • Gender differences were evident in two areas: • Interpersonal barriers/obstacles • Environmental barriers/obstacles

46. Interpersonal Barriers/Obstacles

47. Specific Interpersonal Barriers/Obstacles • Women reported that the views and opinions of others served as barriers/obstacles with regard to their ability to pursue their vocations • Parent or other family member • Teacher or professor

48. Environmental Barriers/Obstacles

49. Specific Environmental Barriers/Obstacles • Women reported that environmental or social circumstances interfered with their ability to pursue their vocations: • Gender discrimination • Pressure/desire to get married • Raising children • Traditions of church home

50. Gender Barriers/ObstaclesEssay Responses • While it may be best that I didn’t end up a youth minister, realizing that I was limited because of my sex was deeply disconcerting and left me a bit confused as to where God was leading me. In fact, I recall thinking that God only called men to positions of ministry and so I resigned myself to that reality.