For our sixth and final episode in this season of the podcast, we welcome Dr. Lynn Hunicutt. Lynn is professor of economics at Pacific Lutheran University and NetVUE’s assistant director. She shares with us what vocation looks like from an economist’s point of view, and a little about what she’s learned as the grant guru at NetVUE. Support the Show.

We’re five episodes deep into our look at NetVUE (the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education) in this season of the Purposeful Work Podcast, and this episode is a treat. In it, we hear from two NetVUE leaders about some incredible resources the network generates and maintains—one focused on producing scholarly resources and the other on connecting like-minded educators and scholars interested in issues related to calling, vocation, and purpose. Dr. Erin VanLaningham is a professor of...

Dr. Jason Mahn, a PhD scholar, religion professor, and a Chair of the Humanities Department at Augustana College joins us for a discussion on Lutheran understandings of vocation and how that impacts and is applied to today’s world of work. Discover his findings from his latest book Neighbor Love through Fearful Days: Finding Purpose and Meaning in a Time of Crisis in our most recent podcast.Support the Show.

In this episode, our third in a series on NetVUE, our guest is Dr. Tim Clydesdale, sociologist and Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies at The College of New Jersey. NetVUE grew out of an 8-year project in which 88 colleges and universities across the United States developed programs designed to foster a sense of purpose, calling, and vocation in the lives of their students. Tim led a massive, multi-year, mixed-method study of 26 of those campuses. His team interviewed hundreds of studen...

This episode of the Purposeful Work Podcast is our second in a series on NetVUE, the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education, an initiative supported the Council for Independent Colleges with financial support from the Lilly Endowment. This episode features Dr. Shirley Roels, the inaugural director of NetVUE and leader of the network for its first 8 years. We’ll learn a little about NetVUE’s history and growth, its challenges and opportunities, and about Dr. Roel’s own vocational jour...

The Purposeful Work Podcast is back with a brand new season! Are you interested in building a deeper understanding of concepts like calling, vocation, purpose, and meaning as they apply to your learning and your work? Of course, you are. We’re going to build that deeper understanding in this season of the podcast by spending time with experts from NetVUE—that is, the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education. NetVUE is a nationwide network of 272 colleges and universities formed “to enr...

Helping people discover their personal sense of calling and mission is incredibly rewarding. So is using applied research strategies to identify student drivers of engagement. These are some of Dr. Sam Jones’ primary callings within his career, and he accomplishes them in a variety of ways. What does it look like to promote a sense of purpose for MBA students at the prestigious Wharton School? What tools and strategies have proven most effective at achieving this goal? Sam i...

Imagine the career center at your university was called the Career Center for Life Calling. At Ashland University, this is the reality. What activity led to the rebranding in 2020 from “Career Services Center” to the “Career Center for Life Calling”? How have career services at Ashland changed? Karen Hagans has been instrumental in rethinking career services at Ashland. She is the director of the Career Center for Life Calling, a career coach in Ashland’s Dauch College of Business and Economi...

Career services have evolved over time to stay ahead of cultural and economic changes we’ve endured. How? And in what ways do the concerns of emerging adults, in terms of their career development, generalize to the challenges faced by people later in life, even into retirement? Today we welcome Dale Austin, Associate Dean in the Boerigter Center for Calling and Career at Hope College in Holland, MI. We’ll learn a little about Dale’s four decades in career services, get his perspective o...

What is your calling? How did you figure this out? For students, what experiences or tools or skills are most helpful in fostering wise discernment? Denise Terry joins us for this episode. Denise is the Director of the Center for Career Connections at Grace College, on the shores of Winona Lake in northern Indiana. In the interview, we learn a little about Denise’s own career journey, get her take on what makes work purposeful, and explore why learning to pivot in your career is s...