I once had the opportunity to serve under a great administrator at my institution that valued and encouraged me to speak up when moved. I definitely felt moved to write this personal insight at the end of the 2023 VOLHE Conference.
The “So that We, Too, May Flourish” Conference, was a refreshing and necessary event for my own vocational flourishment. This opportunity to allow those that support the NECU’s common calling of “Called and empowered to serve the neighbor so that all may flourish” is one of the first opportunities for me to interact with others outside my institution, since the COVID-19 pandemic, and everything that came with it. It allowed me the opportunity to sit among many that value the desire to dismantle systems of oppression that are so entrenched in our society, and even among some of our dear Lutheran institutions. Yes! We do need to be “real” with each other and recognize that those systems are present, even in our own well-meaning institutions. An example of this came up while listening to how some of the attendees shared their own views and definitions about some of our students. No need to get defensive, if we are truly committed to assisting our students, and ourselves, in serving our neighbors so we may flourish with them. This being my second time attending this conference, allowed me the opportunity to recharge my soul and create new connections with other well-meaning folks across our great institutions.
The topics covered during the conference were inspiring and provided hope for a weary DEI advocate. The thought-provoking plenary sessions reminded me that the desire to speak up for others, students and those working with them, is important. I will say that the discernment about burnout, reminded me that this very important topic is probably one that many of our institutions may not be willing to look into. This may be because the concept of asking staff and faculty to do more without looking into what other duties can be stopped, is a tough one. The conversations I had with several attendees demonstrated that this may be an import discussion to have on each campus to minimize burnout and support what we really want to achieve—flourishment for all.
There were other great sessions such as the Talking Circle on Indigenous Issues presented by the Luther College in Regina, Canada, and the Racial Healing Circle presented by Dr. Monica Smith. These sessions allowed participants to dive deep into issues of racial and diversity identity and how they continue to affect us. I felt that these discussions and the burnout issue hit a cord with many attendees. At the end of this gathering, the question is, whether we want to take on the challenges to create significant change or just leave it all on Augsburg’s beautiful campus? What are we really willing to do to enhance true flourishment?
One last thought, authentic connections to others are necessary for all of us to continue to do the hard work that we are doing. It was refreshing to see two of our NECU’s Presidents be present to hear the importance of the topics discussed. Again, the reality is that dismantling systems of oppression and engaging in caring, tough conversations is serious hard work but having gatherings such as this, allow for us to build valuable connections to recharge the soul for this long journey.
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Editorial
From the Editor: So That We, Too, May Flourish
Colleen Windham-Hughes
Windham-Hughes introduces the 2023 VLHE conference theme of educator flourishing, drawing on Dr. Monica Smith’s plenary challenge — “How can we flourish if only some are centered and others are at the margins?” — and invites readers to ground themselves in Us/We, the cover art by Augustana graduate William Hatchet, and join the conversation.
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Editorial
Maintaining Our Lutheran Identity: A Source of Strength
Lamont Anthony Wells
Wells reflects on the well-being of staff, faculty, and administration in Lutheran higher education across four pillars — rest, creativity and innovation, religious diversity and pluralism, and the preservation of Lutheran identity — and addresses the painful reality of Finlandia University’s closure as a reminder of the network’s shared mission.
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Article
A Lutheran Call for Educator Flourishing
Krista E. Hughes
Hughes argues that without educator flourishing there is no student flourishing, traces how an exploitative “passion tax” can distort vocation, and offers seven Lutheran “third-way” value pairings — including Metrics/Grace, Efficiency/Kairos, and DEI/Priesthood of All Believers — to reframe institutional success at NECU campuses.
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Article
Do One Thing: Academic Vocation in the Age of Burnout
Jonathan Malesic
Malesic draws on Oliver Burkeman’s 4,000 Weeks and Søren Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing to argue that academic burnout is fundamentally institutional — a widening gap between mission ideals and working conditions — and urges colleges to resist “projectitis” by focusing on the one thing that matters most.
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Article
Cultivating Staff Flourishing in Lutheran Higher Education: A Framework for Advocacy and Engagement
Laree Winer
Winer narrates her own “love affair” with Lutheran Higher Education to argue that the heart of the tradition — vocation, de-emphasized hierarchy, and shared humanity — equips NECU institutions to advocate for staff flourishing through data collection, professional development, and ongoing relational commitment.
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Article
Staff Governance at St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
Don Ezra Cruz Plemons
Cruz Plemons describes how staff at St. Olaf, in the wake of a decade of difficult events, have built a three-year, glacier-paced effort toward a Staff Governance model — through affinity groups, the Council for Equity and Inclusion, and the Task Force to Confront Structural Racism — that gives staff a voice alongside faculty and students.
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Article
Vocare: A Spiritual Practice for the Spaces Between
Charlene Rachuy Cox
Cox introduces Vocare, a six-word spiritual practice developed through the Nourishing Vocation Project at St. Olaf, that uses the acronym V-O-C-A-R-E to help individuals and communities honor the spaces “between no longer and not yet” and discern their callings for the common good.
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Article
“A Decolonizing Conversation”: Indigenous Engagement at Luther College at the University of Regina
Marc Jerry, Sarah Dymund
Jerry and Dymund describe Luther College at the University of Regina’s response to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission — Land Acknowledgments, a Starblanket ceremony, the Project of Heart, an Elder in Residence, and the unedited video conversation with Elder Lorna Standingready that anchored their 2023 VLHE keynote.
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Article
Beyond Deep Gladness: Coming to Terms with Vocations We Don’t Choose
Deanna Thompson
Thompson, living with incurable cancer, expands Frederick Buechner’s definition of vocation to make room for deep sadness — drawing on Arthur Frank, Shelly Rambo, Beverly Wallace, and Ross Gay to argue that practices of lament, including the public lament of Friday Flowers at St. Olaf, open space for gladness, joy, and even flourishing to emerge.
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Article
Grinding for the Common Good and Getting Roasted
Rahuldeep Singh Gill
No. 42 · Fall 2015
Reading Starbucks’ ill-fated “Race Together” campaign as a parable for campus work on the common good, Gill argues that interfaith cooperation, vocational reflection, and the “re-storying” of our campuses require us to err boldly across lines of difference — not pretending that difference doesn’t matter, but inviting students to imagine and realize what the common good might mean to them.
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Reflection
Walls: Talk At Gustavus Adolphus College
Elizabeth Baer
No. 5 · Summer 1998
Baer’s September 11, 1997 Gustavus Adolphus chapel homily on Joshua 6 turns from the trumpets to the walls—Robert Frost’s “Mending Walls,” the walls of the Warsaw ghetto in Vladka Meed’s On Both Sides of the Wall and Margaret Zassenhaus’s Walls, the Berlin Wall coming down in 1989—and then to the autobiographical, intertextual discourse of Gustavus chapel itself as a place where misunderstandings come down. An author’s note added after the March 29 F3 tornado reports the closing line (“LET’S MAKE THOSE WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN”) as eerily prescient: roofs, windows, and 90% of campus trees were lost, but the Chapel walls and the eternal flame in the red glass lantern stood firm.
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Article
Called to Compassion over the Course of a Life: A Buddhist Perspective
Florence D. Amamoto
No. 47 · Spring 2018
Amamoto, an associate professor at Gustavus Adolphus shaped by Jodo Shin Shu Buddhism, argues that although Buddhism has no “caller” God, it has a strong sense of calling — we are called by the world to respond to the suffering around us with mindfulness, egolessness, and compassion — and that this lifelong journey is enriched by encounter with the Lutheran vocational tradition.
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Editorial
From the Editor
Robert D. Haak
No. 33 · Spring 2011
Haak frames the issue by asking how Lutheran colleges and universities understand the changing landscape of religious identification on their campuses, and argues that Lutheran theological commitments — including the work of the Spirit and the Incarnation — call institutions to create places where the voice of “the other” is heard and valued.
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Article
The Perils and Promise of Privilege
Guy Nave
No. 50 · Fall 2019
Nave argues that privilege is always used in one of two ways — to preserve privilege by promoting inequity, or to challenge privilege by promoting diversity, inclusion, and equity — and uses examples from Indianapolis Catholic schools, Martin Luther, and equity-mindedness research to call Lutheran institutions to address the racist practices and policies that reproduce whiteness on their campuses.
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Editorial
From the Publisher
Mark Wilhelm
No. 31 · Winter 2010
Wilhelm traces his decades-long enthusiasm for the Lutheran doctrine of vocation from his St. Olaf days reading Luther’s Open Letter to the German Nobility, notes Parker Palmer’s lecture-circuit ministry and Mark C. Taylor’s reflections on calling, and argues that ELCA colleges should claim vocation as the defining mark of Lutheran higher education—yet warns that vocation risks becoming “the program du jour” rather than a permanent hallmark.