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Virtues & Vocations is a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education. Virtues & Vocations hosts faculty workshops, an annual conference, and monthly webinars, and engages issues of character, professional identity, and moral purpose through our publications.
UPCOMING
Educating for Good
Angel Adams Parham, author & Associate Professor of Sociology at UVA
Monday, September 16, 2024, noon – 1pm
Angel Adams Parham is an associate professor of sociology and a senior fellow with the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Virginia. She is the author of The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature. We will consider how questions of moral purpose and character are integral to education.
Higher Education & Democracy
Spelman College President, Helene D. Gayle, MD, MPH
Monday, October 7, 2024, noon – 1pm
Helene D. Gayle, M.D., M.P.H., began serving as the 11th president of Spelman College on July 1, 2022. A pediatrician and public health physician with expertise in economic development, humanitarian, and health issues, she previously worked in leadership roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and was the president and CEO of the international humanitarian organization, CARE and the Chicago Community Trust. We will have a conversation about her work at Spelman and how higher education can promote democracy and the common good.
Generosity & Medicine
with physicians, Sneha Mantri, MD, MS and Abraham Nussbaum, MD
Monday, November 4, 2024, noon – 1pm
Sneha Mantri, MD, MS is a physician and director of Medical Humanities at Duke University School of Medicine. Abraham Nussbaum, MD is a physician, Chief Education Officer at Denver Health, and an author of several books, including the recently released Progress Notes. Mantri and Nussbaum wrote essays on generosity for the fall issue of the Virtues & Vocations magazine. We will discuss their essays and others from the issue, American healthcare, and medical education.
Character, Leadership & Professional Education
Former Valencia College President, Sanford Shugart
Monday, December 16, 2024, noon – 1pm
Sanford “Sandy” Shugart served from 2000 to 2021 as the fourth president of Valencia College in greater Orlando, Florida. He is a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute and the author of Leadership in the Crucible of Work: Discovering the Interior Life of an Authentic Leader. Our conversation will consider the broad landscape of higher education — and particularly pre-professional and professional education for flourishing within community colleges — along with issues of leadership and character.
We will host our second annual conference May 20-22, 2025 at the University of Notre Dame. More details will be released in the fall.
We hosted a conference on Higher Education & Human Flourishing from June 3-5, 2024 at the University of Notre Dame. For those who were unable to attend or who would like to revisit the conversation, we are pleased to offer the following resources:
Cover artwork: “Harmony” by Samuel Prophask Asamoah
Laurie L. Patton
A discussion of the role of religious traditions in promoting generosity in education is not just necessary, but enlightening. It can guide us in rebuilding our current institutional lives and deserves more philosophical reflection.
Sarah A. Schnitker
In an era of disconnection, we must find ways to help students reconnect with other people and the transcendent. One of the best ways to build social connections is through the experience of gratitude in response to generosity.
An Interview with Fr. Greg Boyle
Father G is known for telling stories, and his life is, indeed, a storied existence—not a strategic plan, but an embodied response to believing the ultimate reality is one of love, and that we flourish when our lives and relationships reflect the abundance of that love to others.
Abraham Nussbaum
The best bicycle shops remind us what a teaching hospital can be. Brad and Josh are better at transmitting Basil and Jofré’s virtues than many teaching physicians. In their company, a bicycle repair can be watched, understood, and taught. An education can be given away. If you walk up the stairs.
In his reflection on "Training Happy Warriors," James E. Coleman, Jr. discusses ways he engages law students to cultivate a deep sense of purpose. "We tell our students that they will face many opportunities in their careers to act with courage and integrity, sometimes against prevailing winds," he said.
Through three sections – work, worth, and work that’s worthy – the authors explore issues around work and purpose, and give readers ways to think about their own work and the role they would like it to play in a meaningful life.
In 2016, Cynda Rushton started exploring what could be done to help nurses prepare for the moral distress and suffering that they would inevitably face as part of their work in healthcare. And the leadership at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing was on board. Dean Patricia Davidson knew how many nurses leave the profession within their first year of work, making it clear how important emphasizing the role of resilience is in preparing nurses for their careers. From there, the Mindful Ethical Practice and Resilience Academy (MEPRA) was born. Through MEPRA, nurses learn to be mindful, clarify their values, and exercise self-stewardship, all skills which then strengthen their moral resilience and help them confront the ethical challenges they face in acute care settings.
