If you have followed recent news from Collegeville and St. Joe, you’ll know that St. Ben’s and St. John’s are changing. At the end of 2021, we talked with transitional presidents Jim Mullen and Laurie Hamen about what the future of strong integration for CSB and SJU will entail.

Now, as the 2022 academic year starts for students, a leadership framework in which CSB and SJU now operate under two boards made up of common members, and the first joint President of the institutions, Brian Bruess, is in office.

This podcast has always looked toward the future. After all, its mission is to help us better understand and identify the complexity of asking what may be next. It is fitting that, while many listeners are asking themselves the question that this podcast poses multiple times a week about subjects like housing, relationships, finances, and jobs, St. Ben’s and St. John’s are asking themselves that same question. With a new President at the helm, and a focus on the integration of key pieces of the two schools, what is next for all those involved? Students, staff, alumni, and friends of the university alike. Perhaps more importantly, what is next for St. Ben’s and St. John’s on the national stage of progress in higher education and the development of well-rounded, talented, and good young men and women?

In order for these places to survive and thrive in a changing world where the question of “is college worth it?” is now likely asked more than “which college should I attend?”, how can St. Ben’s and St. John’s position themselves to thrive? What about the unique fabric of these schools, the students, and the alumni, that can ensure that we keep developing future leaders that are grounded in the Catholic, Benedictine, and Liberal Arts tradition while having an eye for opportunity and change?

If you were to contribute a ‘drop in the bucket’ to address political, religious, or humanitarian challenges, how would you do it? It’s a hard challenge to address, no doubt. While many of us listening to this podcast are still formulating ways that we can use our time, talent, and treasure to address societal challenges that are dear to us, today’s guest has found a profound avenue of work that piques both a sense of adventure and impact.

Fr. Columba Stewart, today’s guest on the podcast, has traveled to the far reaches of the earth on literary rescue missions to save and preserve ancient manuscripts of the Christian and Islamic religions. When he isn’t conserving these ancient texts across the world’s farthest reaches, or meeting Pope Francis in Rome as he most recently did last month, he can be found in the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, or across the St. John’s campus in Collegeville, where he serves as the Executive Director of HMML and a professor of Theology.

To give you a better sense of his adventures and work, here is a quote from a recent article on Fr. Columba in the Smithsonian Magazine “Sometimes I feel like a war correspondent. Other times I’m cast in a religious role. In northern Iraq, I’ll be in my habit at Mass with 1,500 worshipers chanting in Aramaic. Then I’ll be going around in a tank.” - it seems like quite the juxtaposition from a quiet, prayer-filled monastic life in Collegeville, Minnesota. And, if you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend watching the 60 minutes episode with Columba to get a more profound idea.

A common thread through all of this is a connection to the understanding and preservation of history, and a sense of taking part in something bigger than yourself - both in the sense of continuing ancient traditions through preservation and participating in a community like St. John’s. 

Resources for more information: 

Hill Museum and Manuscript Library website: https://hmml.org/

National Endowment for the Humanities 2019 Jefferson Lecture: https://www.neh.gov/award/father-columba-stewart 

Fr. Columba's twitter: https://twitter.com/columbastewart 

Harper's Magazine article - August 2022 issue: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/08/the-quest-to-save-ancient-manuscripts-gao-mali/

Food is, without a doubt, an essential cornerstone of the Minnesota economy that sustains lives both here and around the world. Many of the companies Minnesotan natives grew up with in their backyards - Cargill, General Mills, CHS, Post Consumer Brands - play a key role in providing the essential pieces of our global agricultural and food ecosystem. What is more, the thousands of farmers - both here, across the midwest, and around the world - are sustaining our increasingly stressed food supply chain from which these companies bring our most loved items to shelves, cabinets, and refrigerators around the world.

There is certainly a lot to consider when we think about the scale, time, resource, and fragileness of our food, how it is harvested, and how it eventually feeds billions of people around the world. Often times it is easy to overlook the intricacy of our food, the food supply chain, and the changing impacts our economies, our populations, and our climate have on its production. So, how is the world of agriculture evolving to meet the current needs of our populations while simultaneously taking into account the realities of topographical changes, weather pattern changes, and other realities that climate and evolution of our land are showing? But even before the seemingly existential question I just asked, there are more important ones to ask that many of us may fail to think about. Just how difficult is it to farm in the 21st century, and how has its significance changed for those who are doing it, and those that are close to it? What types of challenges, situations, and variables are most important for those that work in agriculture need to consider when they are doing their work?

Resources recommended on today's show: 

According to a recent survey by Willis Towers Watson, the “Great Resignation” currently occurring across our workforce has roughly 44% of the American workforce listing themselves as employees that are “job seeking”. This term, or the sentiment around the shuffling of America’s workforce, should not be unfamiliar at this point as the pandemic caused many of us to think about the value of our work, both as employees and as human beings with a multitude of things going on in our lives at any giving point. The newfound demand for jobs, and the drastic shift in the way we accomplish work in the past 2 years, have caused many people to ask themselves bigger questions about their jobs. More commonly than not, I’d venture to say that many people can take the more finite questions they're asking themselves about their work to two key themes: first, “Do I feel a sense of purpose and happiness in the functions of my job” and second, “Do I feel that I can grow as an employee and a person in the work I am currently doing?”. The narrative surrounding the "Great Resignation" holds that people are willing and able, to move jobs in search of something better. Sometimes this can be a search for better pay and conditions, but it can also be a search for more meaningful work.

Employees feel more empowered to seek better pay, benefits, a shorter commute, a fully-remote office culture, and other objective reasons to search for different work. This podcast could certainly cover that as part of our topic today, but I want to take this a step further and get to the fundamental feelings of purpose, belonging, happiness, balance, and community that need to sustain us in order for our work to be any semblance of sustainable throughout the course of our careers. After all, if we have learned anything about work over the past years, we know that the joy, meaning, and growth we obtain from our work directly translates into the feelings we derive from other parts of our lives.

Judy Zimmer is a 1984 graduate of CSB, and is the president of Coachology.us, a national coaching and speaking firm in Minneapolis. Zimmer has coached 4000+ senior leaders on how to know, grow and maximize their personal brand. She helps clients and teams to set and achieve big goals by leveraging language and habits. Clients leverage micro-habit changes, behavior changes and powerful new connections to get unstuck. She is joining us today to share her insights on how she works with clients who are seeking greater joy and purpose in their work.

*Episode Disclaimer: The views and opinions on the housing market from this episode are held by the guests. If you are making active decisions involving navigating the current housing market, please seek the most recent counsel and advice from professionals in this field, such as those hosted in the episode of this show. 

Whether you’re 29 and looking for your first home, 45 and looking for rental properties to add to your rental portfolio, or 65 and looking to move into a new location for retirement, there are good odds you are feeling the stress of a housing market that is feeling a compilation of all the forces of supply shortages, the pandemic, cultural shifts, massive age and demographic shifts and other impacts all at once.

For many, homeownership isn’t at all an option. And for others - renting just makes much more sense. The Millennial generation has recently grown to the largest generation currently in the US, yet millennials don’t yet have the opportunity to create wealth to the same extent because their earning power has been reduced by the lingering effects of a recession. Homeownership has long been considered an important factor in wealth formation for middle-class households. The recent decline in homeownership, which has dropped to 62.9 percent, the lowest rate since 1965, could exacerbate income inequality. Yet, even with that taken into consideration, the United States housing market is tight and expensive and shows no signs of easing. Existing home sales hit a 15-year high in 2021, with 6.12 million sold, a jump of 8.5 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors. The median sales price climbed to 15.8 percent in that period. This is making it particularly hard for some groups -  sales to first-time homebuyers fell from 33% a year ago down to 27% in January. Under more normal conditions, first-time homebuyers would make up about 40% of sales. All in all, we can confidently say that the 2020s have been obscenely competitive for buyers.

Olivia VanOrsdale

Olivia VanOrsdale is a REALTOR® licensed in both her home state of Minnesota, as well as Wisconsin. She specializes in working with first-time home buyers & sellers and navigating the ever-changing real estate landscape through education & empowerment. Olivia is 1/3 of the VanOrsdale Group which is in the top 4% of all Edina Realty Agents. When not writing offers, she enjoys walking her dog, Poppy, around the lakes, tackling home reno projects, or trying out new Pho restaurants around the cities. Follow along on IG for all things real estate & more: @vanorsdalegroup_realestate

Max Rathmanner

Max Rathmanner has been helping individuals buy and sell real estate throughout the Twin Cities for the last 8 years and has recently started The Rathmanner Real Estate Team to offer a more comprehensive experience to all his clients.  He specializes in first-time homebuyers because he understands that it is more than just a transaction, it is an educational process for those buying their first home. He strives to make the home buying process as enjoyable as possible and works to ensure his clients achieve their goals of owning a home.  Max has been recognized and given many different awards over the past 8 years, from the TrailBlazer award presented by Twin Cities Real Producers in 2018 to be a part of Coldwell Banker Realty International Diamond Society again in 2021.  The reason Max sells real estate is because of the amazing relationships that are formed through the process of buying or selling.

To study history is to study change. History provides tools to analyze and explain problems in the past, it positions us to see patterns that might otherwise be invisible in the present. History can help us feel a connection to the past - after all, the more time you spend learning about history, I’d argue that it is more likely to see that your human experience in the present is not all that different from those in the past.

Although now may feel like a timely moment to talk about history’s importance due to current events, it has been an important time to talk about understanding history to understand our present for many, many years. Today, fewer than 2 percent of male undergraduates and fewer than 1 percent of females major in history, compared with more than 6 percent and nearly 5 percent, respectively, in the late 1960s. A survey by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that “more Americans could identify Michael Jackson as the composer of ‘Beat It’ and ‘Billie Jean’ than could identify the Bill of Rights as a body of amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” “more than a third did not know the century in which the American Revolution took place,” and “half of the respondents believed the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation or the War of 1812 were before the American Revolution.”

It is imperative to know your basic history, your community’s history, your nation’s history, and build an understanding and interest in other areas of history based on your present interests. You simply can’t fully understand the present if you don’t understand the past. History informs our opinions, builds perspective, and develops our ability to critically think about our present world. History has also evolved to become more broadly inclusive in terms of perspectives, too - which has led us to question the very truth of history itself because, as Winston Churchill famously repeated, history is told by the victors. We are now seeing history told by those who aren’t always considered the victors, which is broadening our perspectives and challenging some of our historically preconceived notions on the past, too.

Helpful resources to help the war effort and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine

Career or family - must it be a binary choice? And what about your passions, friends, frivolous things you used to enjoy? Do we just say goodbye to those altogether when it’s time to raise kids and progress in a career? Those questions were already tough prior to the pandemic, now we’ve spent the past 2 years rethinking the balance between family, career, and passions altogether again.

We’ve all seen the headlines and heard the stories - parents of young kids are out of steam and worn out due to childcare challenges. Remote work has added stress to the already stressful lives of parents who balance a progressing career and managing the needs of their family. And we are still very unsure about just how drastic the impact of off-and-on schooling will have on the long-term development of our children, both socially and intellectually.

At times, it seemed like the world around us, particularly in the past two years, forced parents into two one of two buckets - you’re only allowed or have a kid or a job. Not both. Many of you that tune into this podcast are have recently graduated with your undergrad degree - putting us between the ages of 22 and 35. Of course, this means a solid group of us are either starting to get to the point where having a family is a reality, or already to the point where you’ve started a family. If you’re part of those groups, or if you’re well into your work and family life, this podcast is for you.

Learning how to balance work and family life isn’t easy. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Every person and family must find specific solutions that work for them when balancing career, family, and self-care. Joining us to talk all about balance and identity through one of life's biggest changes - a growing family - is Dr. Jessica Najarian-Bell. Dr. Najarian-Bell is a pediatrician and mother of 3 who attended Creighton University Medical School, The University of Nebraska Medical Center for residency and is also a certified lactation consultant. With extensive experience in well and sick care of pediatric patients, as well as a passion for caring for newborns and nursing mothers, Dr. Najarian-Bell is focused on delivering the best well-rounded care to all ages. To add to an already extensive resume, Dr. Najarian-Bell also has an Instagram blog (@lessstresswithdrjess) and podcast geared to educating parents about the vast array of childhood illnesses, answering frequently asked questions, as well as sharing important lessons she has learned along her parenting journey.

A wide-lens review of the year 2021 based on the reflections on the economy, with foresight into 2022. U.S. economic activity resurged in 2021 after a year marked by lockdowns, stay-in-place orders, and general uncertainty about the future. Economically, this rebound was fueled by a combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus, as well as firm consumer spending. However, it wouldn’t be the “Covid” era without lingering uncertainty and constraints. against The second half of this year especially has seen an economy grappling with constraints across supply chains and rising price pressures. Lingering virus concerns, with the rise of different variants like the present Omicron variant, have compounded with still-elevated demand to push up inflation.

Will we gain more clarity and certainty in 2022? Will 2022 be the year that the economy, and many of us along with it, settle into a new normal? Joining us to review the state of our economy in 2021, shed some light on what 2022 may hold, and provide insight into how that impacts us are CSB/SJU Economics Professor Louis Johnston, and renowned economist, Chris Farrell.

Chris Farrell is senior economics contributor at Minnesota Public Radio and Marketplace, American Public Media’s nationally syndicated public radio business and economic programs. He is co-host of the MPR/APM podcast, small change: Money Stories from the Neighborhood. Chris is a columnist for PBS Next Avenue and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He has written for Bloomberg Businessweek, New York Times, Kiplinger’s, and other publications. His most recent book is Purpose and a Paycheck: Finding Meaning, Money and Happiness in the Second Half of Life (HarperCollins Leadership, 2019).

Louis Johnston is a Professor of Economics at the College of Saint Benedict and St. John's University. Johnston specializes in macroeconomics, economic history, and the connections between economic policy and economic history. His most recent projects focus on analyzing the evolution of Minnesota’s economy and how Minnesota became “above average” over the past 60 years. Johnston writes a regular column on economics and the economy for MinnPost called “Macro, Micro, Minnesota,” is a regular guest on radio shows, and is a contributor to local and national news publications.

Over the decades in Collegeville and St. Joe, I’d imagine that thousands of people have stood on various stages or in front of crowds varying in size, trying to explain what makes St. Ben’s and St. John’s so special to many of the people that are lucky enough to experience them.

St. John’s and St. Ben’s bring different feelings and create different experiences for everyone. People often tell students, graduates and young alums to wait a few years to understand the sentiment. For many, all it takes is the drive down Interstate 94 to the two exits to stir memories and ground us. It is my sincere hope that, whether you are a student, class of 2019, class of 1984, or someone who is familiar with St. Ben’s and St. John’s, that your experience in St. Joe and Collegeville grounded you in some sense of togetherness, and left you with a deep understanding of what it means to live in community, to lead, and to critically think and act in the communities you are now a part of today.

The experience at St. Ben’s and St. John’s, of course, changes – as the world around us changes at a pace for which it is nearly impossible to race along. Divisiveness, disagreement, and undue actions still find their way into the walls of the schools, too. Our programs, our demographics, our teachings all change as the society around us changes. But underneath all of that is still a sense of connectedness to the consistencies that stand the test of time – the values, the friends, the physical spaces, and the togetherness experience for 4 of our most formative years.

As we now have moved beyond our years attending St. Ben’s and St. John’s, how can we lean on these places and communities that for so many have set a solid foundation? What of the values, communities, and places can we take with us to ensure that we’re making communities better and becoming impactful leaders? What does it mean to be a Bennie or a Johnnie in 2021 – how has that meaning changed over time, and what permanent pieces of our connectedness do we want to maintain permanence when asking this question in years to come? What can we do, as members of these communities, to ensure that others can experience the sense of place and grounding that we now have as a result of these places?

Our relationships and our mental health are deeply connected. In many ways, they are the single most connected element to whether or not we consider ourselves happy and fulfilled, or detached and unsatisfied. We’re wired to connect to others from the time we’re babies. Social connectedness is what drives every part of our lives - family, friends, significant others, colleagues, classmates - nearly every setting we are put in is dependent on our connectedness to those around us. It explains why the discomfort of moving away, whether for college, a new job or a fresh start, can be so tough. It also explains the sense of gratitude and ‘filled cup’ feeling you get when you are together with many people you hold close.

If you ask your parents, they will likely tell you that relationships now are vastly different than when they were in their teens, twenties and thirties. The way we interact with each other, and the volume in which we do it, has changed in medium and amount drastically in the past two decades. On top of that, the Covid-19 pandemic has reshaped our personal relationships in unprecedented ways, forcing us to live closer together with some people and further apart from others. Life in lockdown has necessitated close, constant contact with our families and partners, but social distancing measures have isolated us from our friends and wider communities.

Having close, positive relationships can give us a purpose and sense of belonging. Recognizing the importance of good relationships and defining new ways of developing and maintaining strong social connections are integral to our wellbeing, yet it can be hard to adapt and address the change that naturally occurs as we go through different stages of our lives. Our circles change, our jobs and family situations change, where we live changes, our relationships with spirituality often change too.  For many of you listening, when your parents were your age or younger, the average 21 year old was married and caring for a new baby. Careers spanned decades for many; and it was commonplace for most young parents to focus on making money and building a family. There seemed to be a natural progression, twenty-somethings moved from being sons and daughters to being husbands and wives, growing up and taking on responsibility immediately after their schooling. Yet, in just a few decades, the twenty-something years turned from being defined by responsibility and adulthood into one defined by experimentation and, increasingly in the last 18-months in particular, uncertainty.

In this episode, we have a conversation with Kari-Shane Davis Zimmerman, an Associate Professor of Theology and Co-Director of the First Year Experience at CSB/SJU. She specializes in the areas of Catholic and Christian sexual ethics. Her scholarly work examines the influence of hookup culture on college students’ views and the formation of intimate relationships. She has been teaching at CSB/SJU since 2004.

Kari-Shane encourages students to reach out to her - as she says, her door is "always open": 

Email: [email protected]