In December of 2002 Pacific Lutheran University received a $2 million grant from the Lilly Endowment for a five-year project under an Endowment program for undergraduate campuses on the theological exploration of vocation. The project at PLU has since come to be named The Wild Hope Project , inviting students to ponder, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”* “Wild” because so much is possible and unpredictable and the complexities of the world are so great, and “precious” because the life of each individual student vitally matters and is full of remarkable promise.
The Project's Basic Purpose
The project's basic purpose is to improve the quality of student reflection on vocation—meaning and
purpose—and make PLU a more intellectually rigorous, developmentally
astute, theologically rich, and world-informed environment that will
better help students to become the mature, thoughtful, contextually
aware, committed, creative leaders the world needs. “Vocation” here
entails the intersection of one's talents, inclinations, and choices
with the needs of the world. Reflection on vocation involves situating
educational and life choices within the frame of broader questions of
meaning and purpose. This sense of vocation is a contemporary version
of the longstanding Lutheran notion that the work people do across the
entire range of roles that contribute to a flourishing humankind is
theologically significant. The search for a sense of vocation is vital
to every human being, and it is also demanding.
Vocation in this sense is neither mere occupationalism nor pietism, arguably two prominent contemporary misunderstandings of the term. In the first, the meaning and purpose of students' education is construed solely or primarily in terms of preparing for an occupation. Profession-aimed education is an important part of an intentionally vocation-nurturing university, but finding one's vocation is far more than finding an occupation, even one called a “profession.” It is gaining a sense of one's purpose and role in life, both within one's career and outside it —“outside” it both in respect to the extra-professional aspects of one's life, and in respect to one's obligation to examine and understand critically the larger role a profession plays in human life. Concern for vocation is not “pietistic,” either. Thinking and speaking of “God's calling for my life,” for example, may be a typical and powerful way of phrasing the search for vocation in the context of certain theological beliefs. In an educational institution like PLU, however, any process of coming to recognize such a calling needs to be far more than simply personally or directly “getting straight with God” about what that calling might be. One has to encounter big intellectual and social questions and bump up against the messy, complex world people have made for themselves down through the ages, before one can find well-grounded meaning and purpose in life.
Ultimately the project focuses on nurturing an inquisitive and passionate sense of vocation in students; they are a primary part of the direct focus of the project. But faculty and staff are also, for it is their enhanced understanding of their vocation at PLU, of vocation more generally, and of how to nurture its search most effectively in students that is key to the long-term success of the project for students.
The Conceptual Structure
The conceptual structure of the project is the belief that four dimensions of a student's life are simultaneously involved in the development of a mature sense of vocation : the life of the mind , connections to the outside world , personal development , and spiritual development .
Therefore the project has clear and interrelated elements of
intellectual stimulation, engagement with needs and challenges of the
larger society (globally, nationally, locally), attention to students'
personal needs, and encouragement of theological matur-ation. (Within
the project, theological maturation involves developing a capacity for
critical reflection on whatever one's wisdom tradition resources are,
be they religious, literary, scientific, philosophical, or other.)
On a more organizational dimension, the project's activities are conceived as having three levels of institutional direction: challenging the whole university community to grapple with “vocation” in a deep and provocative sense, nurturing students toward the formation of meaning and purpose in their lives, and culti-vating the foundation of the institution—PLU's faculty, administrators, and staff—to meet this challenge.
Specific Component Activities
Specific component activities are organized by the three levels of institutional direction just mentioned. In the section on Challenging the University ,
a number of curricular activities enhance service learning and expand
opportunities for student-faculty research. Reflection groups for
students returning from study off campus (international and domestic)
are instituted, designed to help students integrate their experiences
away from PLU with their PLU study and deepen their reflection on
questions of meaning and purpose. A variety of outside speakers and
artists will visit the campus; all will be chosen for their ability to
relate to students' critical reflection on vocation. Even when they are
talking on exceptionally important developments in the world and
academic fields, they will be asked to tell students something about
their own journeys into their now highly purposeful lives.
• Curricular enhancement: Service-learning course development (2 per year, 2004-07; individual faculty stipends). Service-learning workshops for faculty (1-2 per year, 2003-07). Mini-sabbaticals for faculty service-learning projects (1 per year, 2004-07). Development of disciplinary “gateway” and “vocation of leadership” courses (2-3 per year, 2005-07). Student/faculty research on communities, congregations, and civic life (2-3 projects per year, 2004-07). “Returner” reflection groups for students returning from off-campus study (2-6 per year, 2004-07).
• Visiting speakers, artists, and mentors: Global activists & artists of popular culture (2-3 per year, 2004-07). Community activists & exceptional pastors (2-3 per year, 2004-07). Roles models in the disciplines & professions (2 per year, 2004-07; 8 total). Mentor-in-residence (1 per year, 2004-07). Recent alumni/ae with exceptional experiences (1 per year in 2003, 2005, 2007)
• Website on the project.
The Nurturing Students section features a highly focused orientation retreat for first-year students, during which they will be challenged to begin the development of a sense of meaning and purpose and to understand that their role as students is itself a calling of the highest sort, not only preparation for something else. Other components are specially trained RA's who will support the involvement of first-year and sophomore students in particularly meaning-and-purpose stimulating campus activities, and a sustained ministry exploration group for students considering full-time ministry.
• New first-year student orientation retreat (beginning September, 2004).
• Expanded numbers of 1-credit “vocation advising” courses (2-4 per year, 2003-07; a la PSYC 113).
• Well-trained “vocational RA's” in residence halls (4-10 per year, beginning 2004).
• An intellectually engaged “ministry exploration” group for students considering full-time ministry.
• Personnel support for the project in Academic Advising, Career Development, and Campus Ministry.
The Cultivating the Foundation section includes a series of workshops to increase the competence of various participating faculty and staff to facilitate critical and theological reflection and so nurture theological maturation in students, employing methods that are intellectually and societally engaged in contrast to those that are anti-intellectual or focused on individual salvation. Also in this section of the project are study seminars for faculty and administrative staff, available for 16 faculty and ten staff each year. Each 8-person faculty seminar runs a full year, with all participants receiving a course release funded by the grant. The seminars' subject matter will be vigorous and intellectual, designed to stimulate better understanding of PLU among other universities, major contemporary challenges in and to higher education, and selected theological matters of the most socially and intellectually influential sort.
• Workshops to deepen and broaden competence in critical reflection, including theological reflection, for: Faculty and administrators facilitating student groups (e.g., “returner” reflection groups). Faculty teaching courses enhanced through the project (2004-07). Residence Assistants and other students in leadership roles (annual, 2004-07). Administrators and staff in critical roles affecting students (annual, 2004-07). Faculty, regarding religious commitments in classroom (annual, 2004-07).
• Intensive study seminars for: Faculty (full year, 2 per year, 2004-07; 8 faculty per seminar, each with a 1-course release). Administrators and staff (semester-long, 2004 and 2006; 10-12 per seminar).
• Retreat for new faculty (annual, 2004-07).
• Retreat for faculty advisers (annual, 2004-07).
Project Leadership
Project leadership includes Samuel Torvend, Project Director (x8106, torvensa@plu.edu); Lynn Hunnicutt, Project Coordinator, (x7644, hunnicutt@plu.edu); and Eva Johnson, Director, Student Exploration & Engagement (x7159, johnsoer@plu.edu).
The project coordinating team includes also Oney Crandall, Laura
Majovski, Pat Roundy, Dennis Sepper, Laurie Murphy, Stephen Woolworth and Jeff Olsen Krengel
(and Eli Berniker, Douglas Oakman, Wendelyn Shore, Patricia Killen and Laura Majovski, advisory). Melissa Jones in Ramstad Commons serves as project
assistant (x7327, jonesmm@plu.edu).