A church college professor tells his vocational story and how he tries to shape the vocational dreams of students in the communication arts field.

Some years ago, the research think tank Public Agenda conducted a survey to find out why K-16 educators chose teaching as a career. The study was funded by the Fordham Foundation. Public Agenda, founded in 1975, has long attempted to answer questions that exist between American leaders and what the public really thinks about issues, with topics ranging from education to foreign policy.

While focused primarily on newer teachers entering the K-12 teaching field, the findings overwhelmingly revealed that many of us, including, I suspect, those of us choosing to teach in undergraduate colleges of the church, teach "to make a difference."

I once read someone's comment to the effect that "Good teachers don't find their job, their job finds them!" In my decade of teaching at Wartburg College I would say that this is most certainly true, although I wrestle daily with efficacy, as I would hope others humbly do. I graduated from a midsize state university in the Midwest, worked in the mainstream media, sought my first graduate degree, returned to the media profession again, and then pursued a doctorate before finally discovering the full-time classroom. My circuitous route to the classroom in higher education, to living, teaching, and serving at Wartburg College, an ELCA college of the church, is an evolving gift I continue to receive and be blessed by daily.

Frederick Buechner's "intersection" of "deep gladness" and "world hunger" (Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC [San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1973], p. 95) greets me almost daily as I work here with tomorrow's emerging leaders, the majority from rural areas across Iowa and elsewhere in our nation and others from the many countries represented in our student population. Parker J. Palmer's words from an early essay on callings also resonate with me: "Vocation is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received" (Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation [San Francisco: Jossey-Bass], p. 10).

Intentionality and Connectivity
More curious observations could be made regarding the church's role in my vocation and concerning higher education in general, especially among the ELCA-affiliated colleges and universities across this country. I cannot say, although I married into the Lutheran church many years ago and have served in a variety of capacities ranging from church elder to churchwide advisor, that there has always been intentionality to the journey. Therein lies Palmer's "gift," perhaps. My greatest sense of vocational connectivity occurred recently through my relationship with the Rev. Steven L. Ullestad, bishop of the Northeastern Iowa Synod, located in Waverly, Iowa, home to Wartburg College, and through his assistants, Pastors Gerrietts and Anderson. This last decade of teaching has allowed for innovative, entrepreneurial partnerships between the synod's 183 churches, the college, my classroom, and ultimately my students. Wartburg is host to its own Institute for Leadership Education, of which I am the assistant director, and the Center for Community Engagement (CCE), where such vocational work is vetted.

Martin Luther himself understood calling as a service in the midst of a Christian's work, hopefully extending to a neighbor, although it was not tied solely to occupation per se. My academic disciplines are in the areas of integrated marketing communications and leadership development, and that has allowed my students and me to do experiential learning projects through the Institute and CCE for organizations — projects as small as the neighborhood church down the road and larger ones affecting the entire synod. This symbiotic relationship, between my own vocation and the many needs of the local and area churches, is an area where we have helped each other, much like Luther envisioned. In this way I have come to better understand my own vocation as being integrated and multifaceted. And the church has helped me to "discover and claim" the calling, as we at Wartburg sometimes refer to it.

Asking the Right Questions
However, this introspective examination of my own vocation has another lens, one that must peer outward toward my students and their own "lives of leadership and service as a spirited expression of their faith and learning" — key tenets of the Wartburg College mission. Do I challenge them to seek "vocation" over a mere "career"? Do I impose my own sense of calling on them? Frankly, is there vocation to be found in communication and leadership studies? Yes, yes, and yes. However, I answer these questions in such a way that allows students to discover vocation through their own inquiry and experience. And they must see it in me. Matthew 23:1-4 serves as a reminder and challenge not only to me but to all of us who claim to be Christian educators, especially those called to vocations in the liberal arts colleges of the church. Are we Christian teachers living out the call?

Martin Marty was interviewed a year or two ago for the University of Chicago Chronicle and was asked, in what is now a time-sensitive question, was there one question needing to be posed to politicians before they might be voted upon to serve? His brief response was telling. He said he would ask candidates, "Do you have a vocation to human service, and, if so, how would you exercise your responsibility to be a steward of what belongs to others?"

At the end of the day, I am a steward of the four years I am allowed to spend with each young man or woman as part of my calling to Wartburg College. This time is not mine; it is entrusted to me by the families of my students through hard work and often sacrifice and debt. Was this my original or even now final vocational destination? Only God knows. However, like so many others in this chosen field, I wish to "make a difference" in this "job that found me."

William Withers is the chair of the Communication Arts Department and assistant director of the Institute for Leadership Education at Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa.