Vocation, Values, and Taboo Topics

As we mused on themes of values and post-Olaf life, we realized that there was a crucial element missing. The typical college student in our generation is career-focused, vocation-seeking, and professional-future-oriented, and it is seen as detrimental, archaic, or unambitious to also pursue a life partner during our college career. How did we feel about this as a community?

Sudip sent us two fascinating articles to read. This one explores the modern trend of women embracing career-driven roles and avoiding romantic relationships in college, and this one discusses the advantages to marrying young, offering a perspective with which many of us were unfamiliar. After reading each piece, we had a discussion about our perceptions of the culture of dating, hooking up, and relationships at St. Olaf and about our own personal visions for how we see this incorporated into our lives.

In general, we found that the New York Times piece was too binary and assumptive. Does one have to completely sacrifice one's dating life in order to be academically and professionally successful? We certainly hope not. Many of us see ourselves eventually being married/having a life partner and/or starting a family. As a group of students hoping to lead a holistic and balanced life, this seems counterintuitive. Also, we generally found that the cases mentioned here were on the far end of the spectrum. While we acknowledge that the St. Olaf campus still does foster a certain element of a need to be in a relationship, we thought that this practice may be more unhealthy.

At the same time, we all believe that most St. Olaf students have very little experience being independent outside of campus life, perhaps some time a abroad, and maybe a summer or two at a summer camp. And we feel that these experiences really aren't enough of an exposure to a non-cushioned life to give us the perspective we need on what matters to us in a life partner. While we acknowledge that it can be valuable to find long-term relationships in college, it may not be wise to commit to them in the very long-term before living after graduation.

We posed several other questions for ourselves. Why do many women our age reject the feminism term? What are things everyone would not bend on when it comes to selecting a life partner? How is love for a partner different than the deep love in a close friendship? How do we balance being passionate about service with wanting to raise a family?

Talking about something that is generally taboo to personalize made us think critically about how we've evaluated our values this summer and how we tangibly see them as present in these sorts of situations.

Ethics and values

We at the St. Paul House have often talked of the importance of enacting our values in all sectors of our lives. This integration is a key component of social change. For us, it is an enormous privilege to have internships that are meaningful often align with our values. There may be times where we will have to find a paycheck just to survive, but we will keep our values and our passions close, finding venues to express them. 

Artes Liberales: Alma Mater*

A reflective response to Donald Kagan’s Farewell Speech, "Ave Atque Vale"

Having little or no sense of the human experience through the ages, of what has been tried, of what has succeeded and what has failed, of what is the price of cherishing some values as opposed to others, or of how values relate to one another, they leap from acting as though anything is possible, without cost, to despairing that nothing is possible.

The Great White Conversation

The liberal arts have been known for their teaching of the "classics" - Plato, Socrates, Shakespeare. By appreciating the classics, we can learn from history... only with such a background can we create informative and innovative ideas that progress us into a "good life" and a more beneficial future. I experienced this firsthand through St. Olaf's Great Conversation program my first two years of college - or what we liked to call it: The Great White Conversation.

Class room learning can be very theoretical. The books we read and topics we cover in our courses can be very abstract.

Allegiance and Devotion

As students of the liberal arts, we are driven to enhance our understanding of the world, to seek truth, to foster discussion and productive criticism, to question what we have been taught is reality, to avoid taking things at face value, and to enrich our own education experience. We select majors, degrees, concentrations, focuses, and studies to prepare ourselves for a specific career or life path, and we expect that our liberal arts education will enable us to be effective, successful, fulfilled, and contributive individuals.

Free and Humble

Liberal arts education is supposed to make us free. Its also supposed to make us creative. Think of the most bizarre thing you can think of- an alien, say. Now go back to the figure you have on your mind and think about what constitutes the alien- I bet all the things you have used are the things that you have seen before.

Ave atque vale... et te contradic?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, what really sparked me into thinking about the liberal arts recently was a job posting I stumbled upon (or as a liberal arts professor might phrase it, a job posting upon which I stumbled).  The posting was for a government agency in Vermont, and it advertized an entry-level position for a student just completing either a graduate or an undergraduate degree in planning.

For changing lives

In the Phillips neighborhood, there is a building on Park Avenue--newly built, bright, and modern. It was named the Center for Changing Lives--it houses a Somali-owned daycare, a Lutheran pentecostal church, an affordable cafe, Refugee Services of Lutheran Social Service (LSS), and other social services. I take my laptop over there from the main LSS administrative building in St. Paul every week or so to work in the space with Pastor Mary, one of my supervisors. We go there because, we say, we want to get our lives changed.

"Sit down, shut up, and listen."

I can barely begin to think about all the theory and methodology that has gone into all of the lessons I've received from teachers since age 3. I had always assumed that teachers just had natural tendencies that enabled them to effectively communicate with even the most difficult child, break up fights between stubborn youth, and manage to have an entire room of squeamish and impatient elementary students focus politely on what they were saying.

Roots and Tops

Over the last few days, I have learned much about how my organization functions in the public sphere.  I met (well, encountered) two of its board members in the real world, learned about its role in transit legislative coalitions, and spent some less-than-captivating time with the online member database.

"I believe consenting to society is an active choice, unless you’re Mountain Man Walden or something."

Over zucchini spaghetti and cookie dough cheesecake, our community discussed  David Brook's New York Times op-ed "The Way to Produce a Person", which was written in response to Dave Matthew's "Join Wall Street. Save the World" this week. The articles are about Jason Trigg, who works at a hedge fund on Wall Street and gives back the majority of his money to charity.

Community Conversation on Community (St. Paul House)

Sonja got us off to a rousing start this week, sharing some examples of the local rules and regulations sometimes passed in the name of community, such as codes on building appearances and the sale of alcohol.  From there, we moved back to address some of the fundamentals in talking about community...

Real Talk with the St. Paul LSC-ers

During our discussion, when Mike was describing his organization, he said: "I feel like I hit that nail on the head there. And, also, probably missed a couple of them too."  In other words, we are still getting a feel for our internships - we learned a lot in the past week, but also still have some stuff to figure out (how many times have we gotten lost biking or busing? You don't want to know).