{"id":12011,"date":"2022-09-14T15:35:40","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T15:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/?p=12011"},"modified":"2024-10-16T20:12:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T20:12:48","slug":"notes-from-president-pribbenow-multiply-your-mind-by-giving-it-away-sharing-the-gift-of-vocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/2022\/09\/14\/notes-from-president-pribbenow-multiply-your-mind-by-giving-it-away-sharing-the-gift-of-vocation\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes from President Pribbenow—Multiply Your Mind by Giving It Away: Sharing the Gift of Vocation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Paul Pribbenow<\/strong> (Photo by Courtney Perry)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few years back, I happened upon the work of Mark Federman, a Canadian scholar whose writings on innovation include this provocative suggestion: \u201cMultiply your mind by giving it away.\u201d And Federman means exactly what he says: be generous, be charitable, give instead of always taking.\u00a0Because when you are generous with your mind\u2014with your knowledge and education and other gifts\u2014you help to create organizations, neighborhoods, agencies, churches, and schools that are marked not by the scarcity of the world, but by the abundance of what is possible.<\/p>\n

I was thinking about Federman\u2019s challenge while serving on a panel about how Lutheran colleges and universities might apply lessons learned about vocation from work with our undergraduate students to other important constituencies. The following three themes emerged from our conversation:<\/p>\n

On our campuses, beyond undergraduates<\/h2>\n

Many colleges and universities have graduate programs in professional disciplines like nursing, education, and social work, where the concept of vocation can play an important role in shaping a professional career and life. At Augsburg, we created V-Portfolio, an online vocation portfolio for undergraduate and graduate students to share artifacts from their personal, academic, and professional journeys. V-Portfolio has proved a helpful tool for students to narrate the many facets of a vocational journey. In addition to academic work, students share experiences as parents, as citizens, as neighbors, and as professionals\u2014creating that many-layered story of a life.<\/p>\n

Across the vocational lifespan<\/h2>\n

Other important constituencies for our campuses include prospective students and alumni. For example, Augsburg has hosted an annual Youth Theology Institute for high school students. Over the summer, these student learning communities explore pressing issues in the world through a theological lens.<\/p>\n

Alumni are another important audience for our vocation lessons. At Augsburg, we organized the Centered Life Series, led by Jack Fortin<\/strong>, whose book, “The Centered Life,” has inspired many of us in our own vocational work. Fortin curates a series of sessions each semester (in person before the COVID-19 pandemic, but even more well-attended online during the pandemic) that address a particular vocational theme. For example, one series focused on the vocation of caregiving for a spouse with memory loss; another shared the concept of interrogating our institutional saga, the work of appreciation and accountability for what German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer called our historical legacy.<\/p>\n

Accompanying our faith communities<\/h2>\n

We also have shared our vocation lessons with faith communities, in some ways coming full circle to the traditions that have given us the gift of vocation. Many of those faith communities are now seeking new ways to support the vocational journeys of their members.<\/p>\n

The work of the Riverside Innovation Hub<\/a>, an initiative of Augsburg\u2019s Christensen Center for Vocation, comes alongside local congregations seeking to become public churches. A public church is committed to\u00a0place-based vocational discernment in the public square for the common good<\/em>. In other words, the partner churches are pursuing God\u2019s call for them to be in relationship with their neighborhoods in ways that bring flourishing and life.\u00a0The Riverside Innovation Hub explores how the many resources of a college or university can be brought to bear in helping faith communities be more responsive to the vocational pursuits of their members. For example, leaders found that many young people care deeply about environmental issues and don\u2019t feel that their faith communities offer them resources to pursue those commitments. The innovation hub brings scientists and artists and writers and theologians from the Augsburg faculty into conversation with faith communities to help expand their understanding of how they might accompany those young people in their passions for God\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n

Alumni living out their vocations<\/h2>\n

Multiply your mind by giving it away. In this issue of Augsburg Now, you\u2019ll find stories of Augsburg graduates doing just that. Keenan Jones ’13<\/strong> is driven to empower and educate Black boys<\/a>, who fall behind in every category the United States uses to determine\u00a0academic success and wellness. After 13 years in the classroom, he started a nonprofit for Black boys in grades\u00a05\u201312 that focuses on literacy, empowerment, social justice, and social\/emotional health.\u00a0Other Auggies\u2019 time and talents are focused on environmental justice<\/a>: Mar\u00eda Bel\u00e9n Power \u201907<\/strong> is an advocate and organizer for GreenRoots, an organization in her Boston-area suburb of Chelsea, Massachusetts, and was recently named to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Elan Quezada Hoffman \u201922<\/strong> pursues his calling through work as an environmental inspector for the City of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re finding new ways to share the gift of vocation and those lessons we have learned with our undergraduate students with others at all stages of life. We all are enriched by the joy of lives faithfully led.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years back, I happened upon the work of Mark Federman, a Canadian scholar whose writings on innovation include this provocative suggestion: \u201cMultiply your mind by giving it away.\u201d And Federman means exactly what he says: be generous, be charitable, give instead of always taking.\u00a0Because when you are generous with your mind\u2014with your knowledge <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":297,"featured_media":11829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,33],"tags":[222],"class_list":["post-12011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-the-quad","category-presidents-letter","tag-summer-2022"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/297"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12011"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13429,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12011\/revisions\/13429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}