33rd Annual ASHE Conference
November 8, 2008
Jacksonville, Florida
Don Thompson
Cindy Miller-Perrin
Pepperdine University
Literature Review
 Undergraduates are far more spiritual than was once recognized and
desire guidance in their search for spiritual truth and meaning from
their colleges and universities.
 One particularly important aspect of faith and spiritual development in
the context of higher education is its connection to the process of
developing a sense of meaning and purpose in life, a process commonly
referred to as vocational development.
 Questions about life meaning and purpose often surface during the
college years as students consider issues associated with personal
identity, faith beliefs, and career options
 An academic mentoring community helps students develop vocational
calling (Parks, 2000; Fowler, 2000).
Literature Review
 Professors want to speak about matters of spirituality, but lack
institutional support and encouragement (Astin & Astin, 1999).
 Faculty with spiritual character are more likely to help students
develop social connectedness, responsiveness and accountability
(Bennett, 2003).
 Despite the potentially important role of faculty in student
vocational development, most research on spirituality in higher
education has focused on students rather than faculty.
 Very little research has examined either how faculty view their
roles as vocational mentors or how faculty conceptualize and
experience vocation in their own lives.
Extending Our Own Work
 The current presentation describes our findings on
gender differences in discerning and acting on lifepurpose in the academy, extending the results of our
most recent publication:
 Thompson, D. & Miller-Perrin, C. (2008). Vocational
discernment and action: An exploratory study of male
and female university professors. Review of Religious
Research, 50(1), 97-119.
Definition of Vocation
 One’s “sacred lifework”, including any human activity
that gives meaning, purpose, and direction to life.
 One’s calling – which transcends job/career, including
friendship, parenting, marriage, church membership,
and community involvement.
Research Hypotheses
 There are potential gender differences with
regard to the nature and development of
vocational calling.
 Gender differences are evident in faculty
members’
 discernment of life purpose
 perceptions of vocational barriers
Sample Characteristics
Survey
144 faculty - 75 respondents
Age range: 23-64; mean: 47.7
28% Female, 72% Male
Predominantly Caucasian,
Married, Protestant
Essay
120 faculty – 83 respondents
Age range: 29-69; mean: 40.4
43% Female, 57% Male
Predominantly Caucasian,
Married, Protestant
Faculty Survey
 75-item survey that assessed faculty members’
 Definitions of vocation
 Personal experiences of vocation
 Barriers to vocational discernment and action.
 Respondents indicated the degree to which they agreed
with each statement using a 5-point Likert scale
Survey Results: Men and Women
Conceptualize Vocation Similarly
 Vocation is defined as:



Job/career/profession (82%)
One’s life purpose (92%)
God’s will for one’s life (82%)
 Vocation encompasses:




Marriage (62%),
Parenthood (70%)
Friendship (42%)
Service to others (64%)
 Vocation does NOT depend on one’s gender (69%)
Survey Results: Men and Women
Perceive Vocational Barriers Differently
 Demographic Factors

Age, Gender, Ethnicity, Education, Income
 Personal Attitudes and Negative Emotions

Fear, Self-doubt, Personal Control, Apathy, Security
 Interpersonal Relationships

Family, Boy/Girlfriend, Friend, Spouse, Mentor, Teacher,
Colleague, Boss
 Sociocultural Pressures

Finances, Discrimination, Family Duties, Church Tradition
Barrier Differences
30
25
**
20
15
*
10
5
0
Female
Male
Faculty Essay
 Faculty completed an autobiographical assignment as part of a seminar
designed to integrate faith, learning, and vocation.
 Focus on some or all of the following issues:
 The major “turning points” along one’s vocational journey
 Particular moments of crisis or confusion as well as moments of joy and
clarity along the journey
 Particular individuals who have contributed either positively or
negatively to vocational development
 Experiences that have either affirmed one’s sense of calling or that have
shaken the sense of calling
 Distractions, tensions, or barriers along the way that have hindered the
pursuit of vocational calling
Essay Results
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Males
78%
70%
Females
57%
61%
39%
30%
Turning Point
Mentor
% Present in Essays
Barriers
Turning Points
 Women most frequently mentioned turning point experiences
that occurred in the form of a personal loss:
When I was fifteen, my parents separated. This meant the end of
economic stability for my family, as my father took all of our savings
with him, but a new sense of peace came over us all. I began to work
full-time while in high school in order to help support my family at
home and my sister away at college. While it may seem strange to
some, I saw this period as a gift. I learned at a very early age that I
could support myself. This opened up a whole world to me, as I realized
that I could take risks in life. Suddenly, the world beyond my hometown
seemed to open its doors to me.
Turning Points
 Men most often mentioned a watershed experience:
All of my science courses seemed like work; all the literature courses
seemed like play. On Thanksgiving holiday, I had to work through some
heavy-duty equilibrium problems for my quantitative analysis chemistry
course, and I was to read Thornton Wilder’s Our Town for my American
literature course. The power of the play overwhelmed me. I didn’t know
it then, but I was feeling the difference between what Thomas De
Quincey called the literature of knowledge and the literature of power.
And I began to think, 'Something is wrong here. Why am I competent in
but so unmoved by my major, and why do plays and stories and novels
and poems move me so?’
Mentoring
 Men are more likely to report a mentoring experience and
mentors typically include family members and professors:
In college, I came to know an incredible professor, who was the theatre
department. As I worked with him in classes, on stage, and as a work-study
student, I came to understand more clearly the meaning of vocation. He exuded
passion for his field, and he gave of himself unselfishly. When he wasn’t directing
a play, he was pulling costumes for someone else’s production, running the box
office, or designing sets. And when he wasn’t doing any of those things, he was
telling me how his life in academic theatre had given him the opportunity to take
his family all over the world, the skills to work on dramatic productions at his
church, and the drive to produce and direct children’s theatre productions at
Christmas and during the summers. In short, he provided me a vocational
model.
Barriers
Barrier Type
Men
Women
Demographic
32%
56%
SES
Sex
66%
69%
Fear
Need for Security
21%
44%
Parents
Professors
38%
69%
Lack of Financial
Resources
Religious Tradition
Personal
Interpersonal
Sociocultural
Demographic Barrier
Today, I can turn to my neighbors in Hollywood and say that I
understand being without. I can say that I’ve been on the streets,
that I’ve had to go without food, that I have lived in a garage like
many of them are doing today, that I too grew up without a
father, that I’ve tasted poverty, that I have dreamt dreams that
were deferred like a raisin in the sun. And even though I have
never told my story to any of my neighbors, they feel and
acknowledge my solidarity with them. Upon reflection, I have
come to understand that God rescued us from our poverty so that
we can go back into it to help lighten the load of those still in it.
This is my life-purpose, both metaphorically and literally.
Personal Barrier
It wasn't until my mother-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer 3 years
ago that I really began to ask one of the “ultimate questions”: what is the
meaning in life, and what is the meaning in death? Perhaps because of the crisis
I was experiencing in my occupation when we learned of her diagnosis, these
questions became inextricably linked to my vocation. I was at UCLA Student
Psychological Services, providing therapy to college students full-time. The
limited free time I had was spent desperately trying to finish my dissertation.
During that year my husband and I were also planning our large upcoming
wedding. Quite simply, even though I was finally providing the healing services I
went to graduate school to provide, living the “life of service” I strived toward for
years, I was burned out - emotionally, intellectually, physically exhausted. I
found my finitude in all those areas. There I was, just beginning to see the light
at the end of the long, dark tunnel of graduate school, and all of a sudden I was
questioning if I pursued the right profession. I didn’t know what I was doing
with my life, or more importantly, why.
Interpersonal Barrier
My father was the most logical candidate to mentor me, but he
was simply unavailable. Even when we were together, my
interests and inclinations puzzled, irritated, or confused him. I
did not doubt his love, but I did doubt his ability to know me or
understand me. The distance from my father greatly confused
me, so I invented a theory to explain my anomalous life: I had
been adopted, I decided. Anyone today who looks at a picture of
my father and me would laugh at my hypothesis. But to the
child’s mind—being a changeling or an adoptee made perfect
sense: I was left-handed, and everyone else in my family was
right-handed. I had blue eyes and everyone else had brown.
Everyone else cared about the football scene of “Friday night
lights,” and I didn’t. It was as simple and obvious as that: I was an
orphan.
Sociocultural Barrier
I have found my vocation in the resonance between my own struggles to
reconcile the complexities of spirituality and life and the struggles of those I
study. As a woman, about whom my church background has definite theological
baggage, I also find a cultural explanation and, perhaps ironically, an escape
from the ingrained gender traditions wrought so subtly as to become almost
imperceptible to those who labor under their influences. To be expected to
occupy a space that is uninhabitable dooms women to failure—thus the
Victorian obsession with the fallen woman who becomes the scapegoat for all
ills opposes the redeeming ideal who represents a panacea for the world. Neither
one is real, but they make a congenial vision of good and evil. Victorian literary
studies have allowed me to identify the gender issues, to see them in an
historical light and to understand and name the varieties of oppression that
haunt the daily lives of women even still. To work intimately with Victorian
literature is to confront the history of my religious heritage. It has aided in my
working out where my religious tradition has been and why it has evolved in the
way it has. It has provided—often in language so beautiful it will make you
weep—a framework of Christian faith that has survived both the human tragedy
and the human comedy, that can stand up to critical examination and reevaluation.
Conclusions
 Women reported experiencing a significantly greater number of




barriers than men in their understanding and pursuit of life
purpose, especially as related to their sex, interpersonal
relationships, and sociocultural pressures.
Male faculty tend to rely on mentoring experiences for
discernment of their vocation more than women.
Although women perceive more barriers than men, both sexes
experience barriers to their vocational calling and the subthemes
differ for men and women
Vocation not only transcends job and career, but also gender,
race, and class boundaries, and affirms equality among all men
and women and their mutuality.
The academy should provide opportunities for faculty to reflect
on their calling and life purpose and potential barriers they may
encounter along the journey.
Contact Information
 Don Thompson
 thompson@pepperdine.edu
 Cindy Miller-Perrin
 cperrin@pepperdine.edu