Abstract

Chapter 3 focuses on the pedagogical implications of the PTEV’s language of “calling.” In contrast to customary language describing students as individually “driven,” the metaphor of calling stresses responsiveness to context and active engagement with community. Such learning focuses on the cultivation of purpose and self-fulfillment as inseparable from the needs of the larger society. The chapter examines PTEV initiatives at Butler University and Macalester College, campuses marked by a secular approach to education. In these cases, themes of personal exploration, social service, and inter-religious dialogue proved attractive ways to engage students with questions of purpose and practical wisdom. Each campus evolved distinctive emphases, with Butler using core curriculum and an inter-religious center, while Macalester linked vocational exploration to global and local service learning and communal living. These experiments brought secular and religiously inflected approaches to liberal learning into mutually fruitful dialogue.