Archives: Newsletter Post

It’s Saturday on a farm outside Tempe. A math major and an English major from Arizona State University are weeding a row of carrots and chatting about where they grew up, while two students from the school of business are turning a compost pile nearby. Afterwards they gather with the rest of the student volunteers […]

“She wasn’t used to lying to anyone but herself.” I have a holiday ritual where I read the Booker Short List between Christmas and New Year’s. Indeed, it is a family tradition. So come January, I often focus on well-reviewed new books that might be a bit lighter but which still have strong, captivating narratives. […]

In this article, Zena Hitz, Tutor at St. John’s College and founder and president of the Catherine Project, distinguishes between two kinds of work, hollow work and real work, aimed at a human good. Read more.

Why do good engineers make bad ethical choices? “This question has been at the top of my mind for a long time,” said Jesse Pappas, Assistant Professor of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. “My suspicion has been that many students and professionals aren’t taking ethics personally […]

A colleague recently asked why I read some novels more than once. I had never really considered why some and not others. Some books feel like they become a part of me in a way that is comforting to revisit. Some books are haunting in a way that demands reconsideration. There are also books that […]

In this article, Paul Blaschko, Assistant Teaching Professor and Founding Director of the Sheedy Family Program in Economy, Enterprise, and Society, upends the cultures of achievementism and productivity, both of which conspire to empty both work and education of meaning. He asks and attempts to answer the question: “What Does Leisure Look Like Today?” Read […]

The clinical psychology student recited the facts of the case as if it were a formula. That’s what she had been trained to do, what her peers and professors expected. There was probably a time when this student wondered about the complex and human questions that might lead a person to the moment of diagnosis, […]

In Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, Elizabeth Oldfield uses the seven deadly sins as a framework for exploring practices that can shape character and provide consolation in the midst of global upheaval and troubling times. Oldfield is a Christian and tells her own story of finding and losing and finding faith […]

In this essay, Michelle Weise, Chief Impact Officer of The Kern Family Foundation and co-host of “A Life Worth Working,” muses on a new “understanding of calling: one that embraces the messiness, imperfection, and circuitous routes through which people forge meaningful lives.” These are the spaghetti pathways, and they appear to define our working lives today. […]

What if high-quality, virtue-based leadership development could reach anyone, anywhere? Leading with Character, a free online course, has begun to scale character-based leadership training across cultures and continents. The course is a collaboration between the Oxford Character Project, Legatum, and the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard. Its roots, however, stretch back to the pandemic, when […]