Return to NetVUE Homepage A NetVUE Resource Page: Thinking about Vocation in a Time of Pandemic

​Last Updated: May 19, 2021

Note: some resources and links that were previously posted to this page have been removed, in order to allow space for newer, updated, or more relevant material to be added. View the archive to access previously-posted entries.

WEBINARS

Over the past year, NetVUE has hosted webinars addressing particular topics of interest and concern to the wider NetVUE community: “Theological Responses to the Pandemic” (June), “Fighting the Good Fight: Social Justice, Activism, and Vocation” (July), and “Courageous Texts, Courageous Teaching” (late July). During the fall, webinars included “Transitions: Navigating our Vocations in an Uncertain Present” (September)  and “The Scientific Vocation in a Time of Crisis” (December). In March, the national “Unconference” brought together NetVUE colleagues in online settings and included a session on “Good Enough Pedagogy in a Time of Crisis.”  Recordings of these  webinars can be accessed through this link (please note that the link requires a log-in) and are also available through the NetVUE online library (see the “Digital Media” folder). 
                                         

ZOOM CONVERSATIONS and workshops

NetVUE has been hosting conversations among administrators, faculty, and staff from the various campuses based on their role or portfolio. Thus far, gatherings have been hosted for chaplains, for directors and staff at centers for vocation and/or career services, and staff working in academic affairs or student affairs. Zoom has also enabled us to host online workshops. Diversity practitioner Nimisha Barton facilitated a workshop on “Bias, Privilege, and Educational Freedom” in October. The recording is available through the NetVUE online library (see the "Digitial Media" folder).

If you work at a NetVUE institution and would be interested in participating in (or facilitating) a conversation with colleagues in any of these areas (or others), please contact Lynne Spoelhof, NetVUE program manager, at lspoelhof@cic.nche.edu.

VOCATION MATTERS

The NetVUE blog includes posts related to themes of vocation in times of suffering and crisis. View a (regularly updated) list of these resources. Here is a partial list of recent posts that specifically address vocation in a time of pandemic and social upheaval:

• Catherine Knott (Hanover College), Resting into Vocation
  
• Matthew Sayers (Lebanon Valley College), A Call for Empathy and Honesty
  
• Martha Stortz (Augsburg University), Vocation Virtually (series of reflections for a "v" portfolio)
  
• Esteban Loustaunau (Assumption University), Hope as the Will to Turn Things Upside Down
• Rethinking and Unlearning: Imagining New Ways of Being in Community, an interview with Nimisha Barton
• Courtney Dorroll (Wofford College), A Call for Care in the Academy
• Mindy Makant (Lenoir-Rhyne University), Of Casseroles and Community
  
• Jason Stevens (Cornerstone University), Hope, history, and the redress of vocation 
• Anantanand Rambachan (St. Olaf College), Darshan: the challenges of seeing the divine in all 
  

If you have written (or are currently writing) a piece that might be appropriate for the NetVUE blog, please email Hannah Schell, NetVUE online community coordinator, at hschell@cic.nche.edu.

NETWORK ONLINE COMMUNITY: RESOURCES FOLDER

The NetVUE online community network now includes a folder for materials created by staff and faculty members at NetVUE campuses for use with students during the current pandemic. This folder is continually updated as materials are shared with us. The NetVUE online community requires a login, but anyone who works at a NetVUE member institution can obtain credentials. Click on “Library” and open the folder titled “Discussion Board Documents” in order to access a folder marked “Pandemic-related.” If you know of something that might be usefully added to this folder, please send it to Hannah Schell at hschell@cic.nche.edu. If you are not able to access the online library, please send your name, title, institution, email address, and phone number to Lynne Spoelhof at lspoelhof@cic.nche.edu, and she will provide you with the information to retrieve login credentials.

WEBSITES, podcasts, AND ONLINE COMMUNITIES

These websites and communities are available elsewhere on the internet, and may be of interest to those who teach undergraduate students or work with them in areas related to vocational reflection and discernment:

• Wabash Center’s Podcast: Dialogues on Teaching
  
• Wabash Center webinars
• The Purposeful Work podcast with Bryan Dik
• Call & Character podcast (with David Henreckson at Valparaiso University)
• The Soul of the Nation podcast (with Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine)
  
• Virtues and Vocations (recorded webinars), hosted by Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University
• How My Mind Has Changed series hosted by The Christian Century
• Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance)
  
• Faith and COVID-19 Vaccine (Interfaith Youth Core)
• COVID-19 and the Social Sciences Essay Forum (Social Science Research Council)
  
• Council for Christian Colleges and Universities’ Monitoring and Response to COVID-19
• Becoming Less Racist/Anti-Racism as a Spiritual Practice, interviews (Religion News Service).
• “What Makes a Life Worth Living?” series hosted by Lenoir-Rhyne University (videos)
  
• Baylor Conversation Series (Baylor University)
• Liberal Education blog (AACU)
  
• How Should Christian Leaders Respond to a Pandemic? Faith & Leadership, Duke Divinity School
• COVID on Campus: An Audio Documentary from American Public Media
• “Talking About Race” (National Museum of African American History)
  
• The Congregational Resources Guide
  
• The Christian Century (pandemic-related essays)
• Corona-virus Updates (news items), Religion News Service
  
• Pandemic Pedagogy (Facebook Group)
• Academic Advising Resources in Response to Covid-19 at NACADA
  
• The Key with Inside Higher Ed (conversations about the pandemic, recession, and more)
• Poems about anxiety and uncertainty, collected by the Poetry Foundation

ESSAYS, BLOG POSTS, and podcasts ELSEWHERE ON THE INTERNET 

• Beckie Supiano, “Giving Students ‘Time and Space’ to Process,” Chronicle of Higher Education (May 6, 2021).
  
• Adam Grant, “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing,” New York Times (April 22, 2021).
  
• Cia Verschelden, “A Hard Look at America: Confronting Our Problems Through the Learning Zone,” Liberal Education blog, AAC&U (April 15, 2021).
  
• David I. Smith, Students and Vocation in the Present Tense, Christian Scholar’s Review (April 14, 2021).
• Lilah Burke, “Navigating Grief and Memorials,” Inside Higher Ed (April 12, 2021).
• Daniel Lee Hill, “On Forming a More Perfect Union: How Can We Develop Character Required for Social Change?” Comment (April 1, 2021).
• Kate Bowler’s interview with Willie James Jennings on belonging, Everything Happens podcast (March 23, 2021).
  
• “Creative Maladjustment: How Not to Return to ‘Normalcy’ After the Pandemic,” webinar hosted by Gregory Wegner of the GLCA-GLAA (March 18, 2021). 
  
• Jonathan Lear, “We Will Not Be Missed,” The Point Magazine (March 16, 2021)
• Christine Jeske, “Hard Work and the Good Life: A Vocation Audit for 2021,” Comment (March 4, 2021).
  
• Ben McFarland, “The Precedents of an Unprecedented Virus,” Christian Scholar’s Review (February 26, 2021), 
• Kerry L. O’Grady, “How to Manage Through Emotional Exhaustion,” Chronicle of Higher Education (February 22, 2021). 
  
• Arthur E. Farnsley, “The Undergrads in My Bible Class Taught Me a Few Lessons” (about teaching online), Christian Century (February 16, 2021). 
  
• Gordon Marino, “’Faith Sees Best in the Dark’: Joe Biden, Soren Kierkegaard, and the Education of Suffering,” ABC Religion & Ethics (February 10, 2021). 
  
• Susan Neiman, “What Makes a Moral Hero, and Why We Need Them More Than Ever,” ABC Religion & Ethics (January 25, 2021). 
  
• Ray Schroeder, “Zoom Fatigue: What We Have Learned,” Inside Higher Ed (January 20, 2021). 
  
• Maria Popova, “The Decades-Old Classic That Became the Ultimate Pandemic Poem,” Brain Pickings (January 2021). 
• Jeffrey Pugh, “Bonhoeffer for Troubled Times” (podcast interview), Crackers and Grape Juice (January 8, 2021). 
• Erika Veurink, “Prayer for Rain” (on vocation), Ekstasis Magazine (December 2020). 
• Aisha S. Ahmad, “How to Have a Restorative Holiday Break During a Pandemic,” Chronicle of Higher Education (December 7, 2020). 
• Laurie L. Patton, “A Surprising Fruit of Our Pandemic Fall,” Inside Higher Ed (December 7, 2020). 
• Don Marcus, “The ‘Fauci Effect’: Inspired By Front-Line Health Care Workers, Record Numbers Apply to Medical Schools,” Hechinger Report (December 1, 2020). 
  
• Emily McFarlan Miller, “Martin Luther’s Pandemic Advice Goes Viral – 500 Years Later,” Religion News Service (November 20, 2020). 
• “What Can We Do Now?” Greater Good Magazine (November 4, 2020). 
• Linda Yaron Weston, “Mindfulness in Class and in Life: Mental Health and Emotional Resilience Alongside Academic Studies,” Liberal Education (Fall 2020).