Chickering, Arthur W. and Reisser L.
Education and Identity. Jossey-Bass; 1993.
AbstractA current theoretical context for student development -- Developing competence -- Managing emotions -- Moving through autonomy toward interdependence -- Developing mature interpersonal relationships -- Establishing identity -- Developing purpose -- Developing integrity -- Clear and consistent institutional objectives -- Institutional size -- Student-faculty relationships -- Curriculum -- Teaching -- Friendships and student communities -- Student development programs and services -- Creating educationally powerful environments.
Clydesdale T.
The Purposeful Graduate: Why Colleges Must Talk to Students about Vocation. University of Chicago Press; 2015.
AbstractWe all know that higher education has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Historically a time of exploration and self-discovery, the college years have been narrowed toward an increasingly singular goal—career training—and college students these days forgo the big questions about who they are and how they can change the world and instead focus single-mindedly on their economic survival. In The Purposeful Graduate, Tim Clydesdale elucidates just what a tremendous loss this is, for our youth, our universities, and our future as a society. At the same time, he shows that it doesn’t have to be this way: higher education can retain its higher cultural role, and students with a true sense of purpose—of personal, cultural, and intellectual value that cannot be measured by a wage—can be streaming out of every one of its institutions ... The key, he argues, is simple: direct, systematic, and creative programs that engage undergraduates on the question of purpose. Backing up his argument with rich data from a Lilly Endowment grant that funded such programs on eighty-eight different campuses, he shows that thoughtful engagement of the notion of vocational calling by students, faculty, and staff can bring rich rewards for all those involved: greater intellectual development, more robust community involvement, and a more proactive approach to lifelong goals. Nearly every institution he examines—from internationally acclaimed research universities to small liberal arts colleges—is a success story, each designing and implementing its own program, that provides students with deep resources that help them to launch flourishing lives.
Coehlo P.
The Alchemist. HaperOne; 2014.
AbstractPaulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories can, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, above all, following our dreams.