So much has changed.

”In about seven days, we converted it to an online environment with faculty who had largely never taught in that environment and students who had largely never learned in that environment,” says Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies Jonathan Cavellero.

But some things haven’t changed, say these �ֲ���ý professors, who, from their new off-campus workspaces, share insights and takeaways after two weeks of teaching their students remotely.

Video by Theophil Syslo.

The strong bond between students and their professors hasn’t weakened.��“I still care about my students — as individuals, people on an intellectual and personal journey,” says Su Langdon, visiting assistant professor of psychology. “I still want them to succeed.”

And the students are still diving into schoolwork.�� “I am still teaching a community of students that are enthusiastic about learning the Japanese language,” says Lecturer in Japanese Keiko Konoeda.

Assistant Professor of Biology Lori Banks is impressed. ”I’ve got to give it to them,” she says of her students. “They’re pulling through … They are absolutely stepping up to the plate.”

The faculty who appear in this �ֲ���ý News video, in order, are:

• Rebecca Fraser-Thill, Visiting Instructor in Psychology
• Joshua Rubin, Lecturer in Anthropology
• Keiko Konoeda, Lecturer in Japanese
• Michael Rocque, Associate Professor of Sociology
• Jonathan Cavallero, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies
• Lori Banks, Assistant Professor of Biology
• Su Langdon, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology
• Aleksandar Diamond-Stanic, Assistant Professor of Physics
• Stephanie Pridgeon, Assistant Professor of Spanish

A year ago this week, �ֲ���ý and the polling firm Gallup announced findings from a new survey that confirmed the premise of the college’s Purposeful Work program: that achieving a sense of purpose in work gives us an overall sense of well-being and meaning.

In a world turned upside down by a global pandemic, a sense of purpose — in all parts of our lives — is now more important than ever, says Rebecca Fraser-Thill, a visiting instructor in psychology at �ֲ���ý who is director of faculty engagement and outreach for Purposeful Work.

In August 2016 Rebecca Fraser-Thill talks about Purposeful Work with parents of students in the Class of 2020. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“When life is uncertain and old rhythms and routines have become memories we mourn, it can be easy to slip into a sense of ‘Why bother?’” she acknowledges.

“But we need a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and we need that motivation to stay front of mind. Staying purpose-minded not only benefits our mental health but — extremely important during the COVID-19 outbreak — our physical health, as well.”

Here at �ֲ���ý, the college’s Center for Purposeful Work — which uses mentoring, internships, and curricular and co-curricular opportunities to give students the skills to find purposeful work — continues with urgency, remotely supporting �ֲ���ý students, especially seniors.

In this Q&A, Fraser-Thill talks about Purposeful Work in a time of crisis; teaching psychology remotely; work-life balance; and how we’re living in “extremely purposeful times.”

In what ways does the philosophy of Purposeful Work relate to the current crisis?

The staff of Purposeful Work, as well as faculty who infuse their courses with discussions of meaning, purpose, and work, are making room for a lot of reflection. Reflection is and always has been baked into everything that’s Purposeful Work.

Senior Associate Dean Allen Delong, who leads the �ֲ���ý Center for Purposeful Work, introduces a student panel discussion on Purposeful Work during Back to �ֲ���ý in October 2019. (Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College)

Reflection is invaluable at all times, but it’s especially important during a time of uncertainty. Being able to meaningfully reflect on what’s happening around you, what you’re learning from what’s happening, and what it means to move forward thoughtfully based on both of those answers is absolutely critical right now.

Some of the questions that times of big change inspire include what new needs are emerging in the world, which avenues that previously seemed important or feasible no longer do, where our strengths meet with the challenges that are becoming amplified, and so on.

How has the change to remote learning affected your teaching?

It’s been quite the learning curve. I have two kids, 4 and 9, who are now being home-schooled. My home office is partly home to their toys. So I wait until my kids are asleep, and at about 10 p.m. head to the basement to record my lectures for Psychology 101 so that my loud voice doesn’t wake up my children upstairs.

We’re a community at �ֲ���ý. It’s a real thing. And we genuinely do care about one another, and we miss each other.

But despite all that has changed, there are things that haven’t changed about the way I’m teaching and the way I’m engaging with my students.

No. 1, we care about each other quite deeply. We’re a community at �ֲ���ý. It’s a real thing. And we genuinely do care about one another, and we miss each other. I had some Google Hangouts today with some of my Psych 101 students, thesis students, some students from my seminar, and we were so happy just to see each other even though it’s through virtual means.

How are you personally approaching this crisis?

I feel what it’s like to have a work-life blend, which I’ve often . I’m getting to live that in a whole new way now!

The No. 1 thing I’m focusing on is that we all need a reason to wake up every day right now, more than ever, we need to feel like there is a purpose to what we’re doing.

This is actually a psychological issue that’s going on right now, in real time.

And so it’s been really fascinating in many ways to have two kids now home all the time: a third-grader who’s trying to home-school and a pre-K child who is not able to do a lot of what you do in pre-K, which is socialize with peers. And to also try to do my teaching and work, and on top of that, just make sense of all that’s going on around us.

What does it feel like to teach psychology to your students in this crisis?

In our virtual classroom, it’s about putting our intellectual curiosity at the forefront of what we’re doing — being able to think about why it matters that we study psychology, for instance. What we’re seeing and hearing over and over again is that human behaviors matter most for what’s going to happen with this pandemic.

And that is what psychology studies, right? We’d like to know: Why do people act the way they do and how can we change behaviors for the better? So this is actually a psychological issue that’s going on right now, in real time.

How does remote learning affect your and your students’ sense of purpose?

Continuing our learning and teaching has been a key source of purpose, which helps us feel a little more stable during very chaotic times. I miss the classroom immensely, as do my colleagues. I miss my students’ faces as they have insights, and the way we build off one another in a classroom setting.

That said, I’m amazed how much Google Docs is working for us to have virtual conversations asynchronously. We have been building off of each other’s thoughts in a rather amazing manner in the infancy seminar, “talking” back and forth to one another, even though we’re all logging into the document at different times over the course of a week.

Yet remote learning is not the same. It’s not ideal. I love residential liberal arts more now than ever before. However, we’re making the most of this, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to give it a shot.

Speaking of the upper-level seminar on infancy, did anything change in how you approached teaching that class as the crisis unfolded?

As we were preparing to go to remote learning, I shifted all of the readings from the topic of play to the topic of how the coronavirus is impacting our population of interest.

So we read up-to-date articles about how pregnant women and newborn babies are faring in this crisis. Also, what does it mean for schoolchildren to be home, both for the children themselves and their parents? What does that mean for the kids’ developmental process and what feels normative to them, but also for their family members who are now doing this whole different role with their children 24/7?

We were able to engage that topic right in real time in our seminar, which was really valuable and puts a point on the importance of this intellectual process that we’re all engaged in at �ֲ���ý.

Our society is being told that productivity should not be our goal right now as we social-distance to flatten the curve and save lives. How does being purposeful dovetail — or not — with that shift?

Purpose and productivity are by no means mutually exclusive, but they are also not synonyms. Certainly, feeling a sense of purpose — a direction that is meaningful to us, has an impact beyond ourselves, and motivates our actions — often leads to productivity.

We often underestimate how “productive” we’ve been during hard times.

But the question is, what do we mean by “productivity”? Our society is rather obsessed with tangible evidence as a symbol of productivity. We have a harder time seeing actions that don’t yield a tangible outcome as being “productive.”

For instance, meditation is extremely valuable during times of stress, as is being present for the emotional needs of loved ones, colleagues, students. But meditating and being emotionally present doesn’t result in something tangible we can point to and say “I did that” or “I made that” — the outcomes are hard to see, and the impact might be noticeable only months or years later.

So we often underestimate how “productive” we’ve been during hard times, when much of our purposeful behavior is about less tangible, less “production-oriented” activities.

As we all recalibrate nearly every aspect of our lives, what role should purpose play?

Purpose pushes us out of complacency and into proactivity, resulting in healthier decisions and richer experiences, even amidst isolation, anxiety, and sadness.

Studies have found that adults who have a stronger sense of purpose have improved chances of longevity than people who have a weaker sense of purpose. Scientists don’t yet understand the mechanisms that drive the connection between purpose and mortality but whatever the cause, the relationship is clear and robust. We need purpose now more than ever.

We’re all so focused on the essentials, from buying toilet paper to eating three meals a day at home and taking walks to get exercise. How can we benefit from that and carry that forward?

In psych-speak, what you’re noting is that we’ve collectively moved down .

Abraham Maslow, a psychologist, believed that we have basic needs — physiological needs and safety needs — that need to be met before we can move on to higher-level needs including love, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization, which is being the best version of ourselves.

Right now, we’re being forced to focus on the physiological and safety needs; they’re salient because they’re genuinely threatened.

Caring for the health and wellness and financial security of ourselves, our loved ones, and our community members gives us a very genuine sense of purpose.

But I disagree with Maslow’s notion that we can’t work on higher-level needs at the same time as lower-level needs, and a good deal of research supports me in saying that. Purpose, for instance, is generally considered to be a self-actualization need — something we can focus on only when every other need is met.

But caring for the health and wellness and financial security of ourselves, our loved ones, and our community members gives us a very genuine sense of purpose.

A house on 31st Street in Des Moines, Iowa, shares some messages with passing motorists. Caring for others offers a genuine sense of purpose, says Rebecca Fraser-Thill. (Photograph by Phil Roeder)

And, in an academic context, being present for our students’ crucial needs — cognitive stimulation, deep engagement, esteem, and belonging —�� during their emerging adult stage is absolutely critical. That’s something �ֲ���ý staff and faculty are doing so thoughtfully and with so much commitment.

Living in this moment and meeting the needs that we’re being called upon to meet right here and now — I can’t think of a better example of living with purpose. These are extremely hard times. They are also extremely purposeful times, as a result.

Michael Rocque

Megan Rapinoe did not stomp on the flag. Here’s why people got outraged regardless — Newsweek

In Newsweek, Associate Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque argued that a recent Twitter flareup — in which World Cup-winning soccer player Megan Rapinoe was accused of stomping on the American flag, when she’d done no such thing — is part of a pattern of often-uninformed outrage on social media.

“The temptation to jump to outrage is especially strong on social media, where our virtual communities of the like-minded, created by choosing our ‘friends’ and whom to follow, reinforce our preconceptions and can block any facts that get in their way,” Rocque wrote.

Michael Rocque, associate professor of sociology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Anger spreads more easily online than other emotions, and collective anger paradoxically leads to feelings of affirmation and unity, Rocque wrote. “We’re wired to crave that collective anger.”

So before taking part in an online mob, he suggested, wait a second to get the facts.

“When we see a meme, post or tweet that sparks that familiar tingle of outrage, take a minute to look into it, verify sources or, better yet, wait to see how the story unfolds once more information is gathered.”

Read the story:

• “,” Newsweek, July 12, 2019

Joyce White Vance ’82

Prosecutors pick their battles. I chose not to pursue an ICE raid in Alabama — The Washington Post

Best-known these days for her legal insights into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and report on the 2016 elections, Joyce White Vance ’82 recently turned her attention to the massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid of food processing plants in Mississippi.

Former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Joyce White Vance ’82 speaks at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Mueller Report on Capitol Hill in June. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

A former U.S. attorney for Alabama, Vance once declined to pursue an ICE raid in her state because she failed to “see how it would be a wise use of our resources to pull away from crimes that were affecting our community in visible ways to arrest people who, while they might have lacked legal immigration status, were going to work every day.”

Noting that it took months to plan the ICE raids, Vance wondered if there aren’t other prosecutions that might have “better served the community” than “removing parents from children — children that the parents were hard at work for, so they could help them grow into productive citizens.”

Read the story:

• “,” The Washington Post, Aug. 9, 2019

Scott Allen ’84

These doctors risked their careers to expose the dangers children face in immigrant family detention — CNN

For years, Drs. Scott Allen and Pamela McPherson did their work — inspecting facilities where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains immigrant families — quietly.

But in 2018, the two doctors, who are medical consultants for the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, became whistleblowers.

Since then, Allen and McPherson have appeared in myriad media outlets, including The New York Times, 60 Minutes, and The Washington Post, to call attention to the harm children suffer when confined, with or without parents, to detention facilities, such as the ICE centers at the Southwest U.S. border.

“Each passing day of continued detention of children — and no acknowledgment of the risk that we have reported — alarms me,” Dr. Scott Allen ’84 told CNN in May.

“The medical community is quite unified in opposition to the detention of children. Decades of research have shown that detention is harmful to their medical and physical health,” Allen told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in June.

For their work, Allen and McPherson, along with Scott Shuchart, received the 2019 Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling.

Read and watch:

• “,” CNN, May 23, 2019
• “,” The Washington Post, Dec. 19, 2018
• “,’�ĝ The New York Times, July 18, 2018

Stephanie Kelley-Romano

If the Democrats master this single strategy, they can defeat Trump in 2020 — Newsweek

Stephanie Kelley-Romano, associate professor of rhetoric, film, and screen studies, watched the second set of Democratic presidential primary debates in late July and concluded, in a Newsweek op-ed, that the candidates need to work on framing — defining the issues they’re talking about and the limits on their solutions.

Stephanie Kelley-Romano leads a “Television Criticism” class on March 6, 2019. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

For example, debate moderators often framed discussions of universal healthcare as “taking away” private insurance in favor of government-funded care. It was only toward the end of these discussions that several candidates argued that universal healthcare would be a gain, not a loss.

“In the lead-up to 2020, Democrats must remember to take control of the framing of issues early, so they can focus on what it is they are trying to explain and why,” Kelley-Romano wrote.

Read the story:

• “,” Newsweek, Aug. 1, 2019

Dan Mills

An Artist’s Maps of Imperialism and Greed — Hyperallergic

Carl Little reviewed in��art news site Hyperallergic an exhibit at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art by Dan Mills, director of the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art.

Recently named by Maine magazine as one of 50 Mainers who are “creating a brighter future for the state,” Mills creates “collaged maps,” displays of numbers related to war and colonialism overlaid on vintage maps.

“Mills delves into the devastating numbers and then converts them into chaotically beautiful cartographies,” wrote Little, a well-known Maine art critic and historian. “The central paradox of his map pieces is that, even as they record the woes of the world, they are stunning and seductive. The visuals engage; the numbers appall.”

Read the story:

• “,” Hyperallergic, Aug. 10, 2019

Rebecca Fraser-Thill

The five biggest myths about meaningful work — Forbes

Backed up by a recent study by �ֲ���ý College and Gallup on purposeful work, Rebecca Fraser-Thill explained in Forbes that meaning in work and a meaningful life go hand in hand.

Rebecca Fraser-Thill is the director of faculty engagement and outreach at �ֲ���ý’ Center for Purposeful Work and a lecturer in psychology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Dispelling several myths, Fraser-Thill, a visiting instructor of psychology and the director of faculty engagement and outreach at �ֲ���ý’ Center for Purposeful Work, argued that meaningful work is subjective and individual — it does not have to be a helping profession, high status, low paying, or even different from what you’re doing now.

“Whether it’s simply asking a co-worker about her weekend or bringing a smile to customers in a coffee house, any act that makes us feel more connected to others also makes our work — and our lives — more meaningful,” she wrote.

Read the story:

• “,” Forbes, Aug. 7, 2019

John A. Elsesser ’80

Conversation with: John Elsesser — Journal Inquirer

Tim Leininger of the Manchester, Conn., Journal Inquirer sat down with John A. Elsesser ’80, who has been the town manager of Coventry, Conn., for more than three decades.

Elsesser, who over 30 years has improved Coventry’s trash and sewer systems as well as its school and recreation programs, mused that he took to local government, in part, because of his upbringing, as the son of a Baptist minister.

“We always had company over,” he told Leininger. “We were taught that you should do good for others, try to make an impact. There was a lot of pressure for me to become a minister, me and my brother and sisters actually. None of us did, but I think the issue of trying to make a positive difference was the core of that.”

Read the story:

• “,” Journal Inquirer, Aug. 3, 2019

Sarah Strong

Across space and time: translating Night on the Galactic Railroad — Metropolis

Kenji Miyazawa’s masterpiece Night on the Galactic Railroad is exceedingly difficult to translate, wrote Eric Margolis of English-language Japanese magazine Metropolis. The novel, about a lonely Italian boy who rides to heaven on a magical train, contains surreal imagery and sound effects, made-up words, and regional dialect.

In taking on the task of translation in 1991, Sarah Strong, who is now professor emerita of Japanese language and literature, sought to represent in English the emotions of reading the novel in Japanese.

“If something was weird, I wanted the reader to think, ‘That’s weird,’�ĝ Strong told Margolis. “What was funny? What was happy? What was sad? I needed to get as close as I could to really understanding the writing.”

Read the story:

• “,” Metropolis, Aug. 2, 2019

Stephanie Wade and Megan Guynes ’11

River story workshop held in Lewiston — Sun Journal

In early August, Stephanie Wade, assistant director of Writing at �ֲ���ý, ran a writing workshop at Tree Street Youth through the Androscoggin Land Trust.

Children at the youth center went fishing in the morning, then came back to write a story about their experiences, which Lewiston Sun Journal photographer Daryn Slover documented. Also on hand was Megan Guynes ’11, program director at Tree Street Youth.

See the photos:

• “,” Sun Journal, Aug. 1, 2019

Emily Kane

Winners overlook rigged games’ lack of fairness, study finds — Associated Press

For context on a Cornell study about winning and fairness, Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein turned to Professor of Sociology Emily Kane.

In the study, nearly 1,000 people played a card came in which winners could throw out their worst cards and take other players’ best cards. The winners attributed their winning to talent and only acknowledged the unfairness of the game after they were allowed to exchange cards a second time.

The study “tells us something about privilege and about society,” Kane told Borenstein. “It reminds us how powerful perceptions are — it’s not just what is happening that matters, it’s often more a matter of what we think is happening,”

Read the story:

• “,” Associated Press, July 17, 2019

Mara Tieken

Despite West Virginia education reform, the extraction of rural youth to continue — The Register-Herald

Associate professor of education and rural education expert Mara Tieken spoke with reporter Erin Beck of West Virginia’s Register Herald about the state’s struggle to both promote college education and keep young people in the state.

Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken teaches “Community Organizing for Social Justice” in May 2018. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Tieken said that few high school graduates in West Virginia are getting college degrees — there aren’t a lot of jobs in rural areas that require them, even as traditional jobs like coal mining are declining.

“If we’re really trying to support kids to go to college, we also need to make sure that there are jobs in rural places that can use that college education,” Tieken said.

Read the story:

• “,” The Register-Herald, Jul. 14, 2019

Karl Alexander ’12

Getting Bike Share Right Is a Balancing Act — U.S. 1

Karl Alexander ’12 spoke with Princeton, N.J., newspaper U.S. 1 about how bike-sharing companies can establish themselves responsibly in communities.

Alexander, marketing manager for Zagster, told reporter Diccon Hyatt that the bike-sharing company tries to move into places — like Princeton — that will already be receptive to more bicycles, and promote bike-friendliness from there.

“You have to take the time to look at what works best for the community, whether that’s bikes or scooters, or if it is something else entirely, like increasing walkability,” he said. “You have to think before you act. You’ll probably be better off in the long run.”

Read the story:

• “,” U.S. 1, July 10, 2019

Elizabeth Rynecki ’91

A crusade to recover Jewish art lost during the Holocaust — Haaretz

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed Elizabeth Rynecki ’91 ahead of the premiere in Jerusalem of a documentary about Rynecki’s quest to track down the many lost paintings of her great-grandfather, a Polish artist who died in the Holocaust.

“My great-grandfather’s paintings were survivors…with no voice,” she said.

Moshe Rynecki, who lived in Warsaw, was able to hide some 800 of his paintings before the war. Though members of his family survived, including his wife, only a fraction of his paintings have been recovered.

Elizabeth Rynecki ’91 holds her great-grandfather’s self-portrait at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. (Photograph by Sławomir Grünberg)

Attracting widespread media attention, Elizabeth’s efforts to recover more of her great-grandfather’s paintings include a database of his works and the book Chasing Portraits: A Great-Granddaughter’s Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy.

The paintings “are a powerful reflection of life in Poland before the war that not many people are aware of,” she said. “I felt that I could rescue that legacy and share it with the world.”

• Read the story: “,”����Haaretz, Nov. 25, 2018
  
• Related: “,”��New York Times, Aug. 18, 2016

Edmund Muskie ’36

Muskie’s 1968 vice presidential campaign recalled at �ֲ���ý College forum — Sun Journal

Steve Collins of the Lewiston Sun Journal covered a �ֲ���ý panel celebrating the 1968 vice presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ’36, featuring experts and people who had worked with Muskie on the campaign trail.

Edmund Muskie ’36 and supporters at a 1968 campaign event. The location is perhaps New York City; third from left is perhaps Shirley Chisholm, then running for her first term as a Congresswoman. (Burton Burinsky / Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

The panelists described a politician who worked to bridge divides and calm clashes, “reaching out to both sides,” said Charles Micoleau, a campaign staffer and later Muskie’s chief of staff.

Hubert Humphrey and Muskie lost the ’68 race to Richard Nixon by less than 1 percent, and Muskie lost his own bid for the presidency in the 1972 Democratic primary. But his high profile and prestige was “a real driving force, a hammer pounding the Clean Air Act through the committee and the Senate” in 1970, said Eliot Cutler, who was Muskie’s assistant press secretary.

“We are the lucky ones who are still here,” Cutler said. Muskie’s role in the history of the 20th century “shaped all of us.”

• Read the story: “,” Lewiston Sun Journal, Nov. 29, 2018.
• Related: “8 reasons why Edmund Muskie ’36 was an amazing political candidate in 1968,” �ֲ���ý News, Dec. 5, 2018

Rebecca Herzig

To shave, or not to shave? How a new generation of women are embracing body hair — Vogue

Women are taking an increasingly laissez-faire approach to body hair, wrote Maya Singer of Vogue. For a historical perspective on women and shaving, she turned to Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies Rebecca Herzig, author of Plucked: A History of Hair Removal.

Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies Rebecca Herzig discusses a field project with a student in 2016. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Hairlessness didn’t become a beauty standard until after WWII, Herzig wrote in Plucked. Some second-wave feminists in the 1970s revolted against this standard by condemning shaving entirely, whereas the early 2000s were given to the “Brazilian wax tyranny,” Singer wrote.

Singer characterizes the present age as one of, “I’ll shave if I want to,” and razor companies are taking notice.

“One way to characterize what we’re seeing may be that women are now encouraged to ask—and increasingly expect—brands to fulfill their needs,” Herzig said.

• Read the story: “,”���մDz��ܱ�,��Dec. 10, 2018
• Related: “‘Plucked’: Race, gender, science, medicine converge in history of hair removal,” �ֲ���ý News, Feb. 4, 2015

Rebecca Fraser-Thill

Should you go back to work for your old company? — MarketWatch

For a list of factors to keep in mind if you’re thinking about returning to a previous workplace, MarketWatch writer Meera Jagannathan turned to Lecturer in Psychology Rebecca Fraser-Thill, a Pivot career coach.

Lecturer in Psychology Rebecca Fraser-Thill speaks about �ֲ���ý’ Purposeful Work initiative at the 2016 new student Orientation. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Fraser-Thill recommended asking friends and family what you were like at your old job, thinking about the relationship you had with your old boss, comparing your current workplace to your old workplace, and — if you decide to make the move back — framing the decision positively.

“You’ve taken a moment to really consider your path, and you are intentionally and actively choosing this former employer,” she told Jagannathan.

• Read the story: “”��MarketWatch, Oct. 15, 2018

Nathan Tefft

‘It’s Just Math’ — Mainers recreate ranked-choice voting results to test the process — Maine Public

When some argued that Maine’s new ranked-choice voting process is an inaccessable “black box,” Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft replicated the election results on his own and sent his calculations to Maine Public.

Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft teaches a class in 2016. (Josh Kucken/�ֲ���ý College)

Using publicly available voting data and a common open-source programming language, Tefft exactly replicated the results of the election, which used the innovative ranked-choice format for the first time to proclaim Jared Golden ’11 the winner. (Another Mainer did the same using Microsoft Excel.)

“It’s an important idea for me to support trust and confidence in the vote counting process,” Tefft told reporter Steve Mistler. “So I certainly wanted it to be as transparent as possible.”

• Read the story: “” Maine Public, Dec. 2, 2018

Vicki Losick ’01

MDI researcher will use fruit flies to study macular degeneration — Bangor Daily News

The Bangor Daily News covered Vicki Losick ’01, a researcher at the MDI Biological Institute who received a $50,000 grant to use fruit flies to study age-related eye diseases.

Vicki Losick ’01

The grant, awarded by the William Procter Scientific Innovation Fund, will allow Losick to model the “cellular dysfunction” that occurs in age-related macular degeneration, among other causes of blindness. She’ll use fruit flies in her work, since macular degeneration takes hold more quickly due to the creatures’ shorter lifespans.

“With the aging of the population, age-related macular degeneration is increasingly being viewed as an impending epidemic,” Losick said in a press release. “I am deeply grateful to the Procter Fund for supporting research that could lead to the identification of the genetic and cellular causes underlying retinal dysfunction.”

• Read the story: “,”��Bangor Daily News, Nov. 30, 2018

Lisa Utzschneider ’90

Lisa Utzschneider becomes CEO of ad-verification firm — Variety

�ֲ���ý alumna and trustee Lisa Utzschneider ’90 has been named CEO of Integral Ad Science, a company that measures the value of digital advertisements and helps prevent fraud, the entertainment trade magazine Variety reported.

Lisa Utzschneider ’90 speaks during a �ֲ���ý Boston Business Network panel on women in leadership in 2017. (Paige Brown ’96 for �ֲ���ý College)

Utzschneider was most recently chief revenue officer at Yahoo and has held executive roles at Microsoft and Amazon. Last year, she was on a �ֲ���ý panel about women and leadership.

“As CEO, Utzschneider will focus on expanding IAS into new global markets and pushing into new ad formats, including over-the-top video and audio,” according to Variety.

• Read the story: “,”���ղ�������ٲ�,��Dec. 12, 2018
• Related: “To be an effective leader, be prepared, speak up, and aim big, �ֲ���ý panelists say,” �ֲ���ý News, Oct. 5, 2017

Martin Benes ’07

Wednesday Workout: hitting the trails with U.S. Para-Nordic and Head Coach Martin Benes — FasterSkier

Writer Gabby Naranja reached out to Martin Benes ’07, who recently joined the coaching staff of U.S. Paralympics Nordic skiing. U.S. Paralympics is a division of the U.S. Olympic Committee

An assistant ski coach at �ֲ���ý from 2009 to 2011 and most recently the Nordic ski director at Sugar Bowl Academy, Benes��told Naranja that the coaching philosophy for a para-athlete is the same as for a non-disabled athlete.

“The training principles don’t really change,” Benes said. “Yes, there are things to be aware of physiologically, but in terms of the core principles, it’s not that different.”

“With this level of athlete,” he added, “you’re helping guide them and giving them the framework to be successful and helping them be their own best coaches.”

• Read the story: “,” FasterSkier, Dec. 5, 2018

Larry DiGiammarino ’82

Catching up with…Larry DiGiammarino — The Boston Globe

The Globe’s Marvin Pave chatted with Larry DiGiammarino ’82, who holds or shares �ֲ���ý football records for career and single-game receptions, as well as career and single-game touchdown receptions. He was named a Kodak Little All-American, the ECAC and New England Football Writers Player of the Year, and a Scholar Athlete of the Year by the Maine Sports Hall of Fame.

Now, DiGiammarino is a real-estate attorney in Marblehead, Mass., where he’s on the school committee and the youth football and softball boards.

“I learned through sports to never give up and stay as positive as I can,’’ he told Pave. “If things don’t work out today, there’s always tomorrow.”

• Read the story: “,”��The Boston Globe,��Nov. 29, 2018

Kristy Andrews ’12

Young camp professionals: choosing careers in Maine, fulfilling commitments to kids — Bangor Daily News

In the Bangor Daily News blog Summer in Maine, Kristine Millard talked to Kristy Andrews ’12, assistant director of Camp Wawenock in Raymond, Maine.

Andrews spent her childhood summers at Camp Wawenock and later became a counselor, working there before and after a stint as an English teacher in Chile. Now, she’s one of a few year-round employees at the camp.

Andrews spoke to the community the camp offers girls, allowing them to “be their true selves.”

“There’s a whole group of people who love you and support you,” she said.

• Read the story: “,”��Bangor Daily News, Nov. 13, 2018

Paul Erickson ’74

Don’t Mess With Me: The Strange Lives of Venomous Sea Creatures — Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus reviewed the latest book for middle grades by Paul Erickson ’74: Don’t Mess With Me, which catalogs 28 venomous sea creatures from the deadly blue-ringed octopus to sea jellies.

“He goes on, now following the phylum order, to introduce a variety of other sea creatures including bloodworms, the blind remipede (the first known venomous crustacean), the crown of thorns sea star, the bluespotted stingray, the reef stonefish, and the lionfish,” the review says.

“Though the text in this entry in an admirable series may be challenging for young readers, the subject has guaranteed kid appeal,” it added.

• Read the review: “,”��Kirkus Reviews,��Dec. 4, 2018

Liberal arts watch: Colleges appeal to students with ‘purposeful work’ — The Christian Science Monitor

�ֲ���ý’ signature Purposeful Work program was central to a in which reporter Noble Ingram explored how liberal arts colleges are changing the way they prepare students for lives of meaningful work.

These colleges disrupt “the older view of career planning and academic development as separate priorities,” Ingram wrote. “And unlike in the past, when the process was often relegated to upperclassmen, now students are exploring future aspirations from their very first moments on campus.”

Kasey Anderson ’20, who interned at McLean Hospital this summer, poses with supervisor Elena Chartoff and William Carlezon ’86. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

�ֲ���ý is leading the way, with Practitioner-Taught Courses offered during Short Term, funding for summer internships, and a host of other programs that connect coursework and career preparation.

“It’s about bringing to consciousness in our students and in the broader public … the power of liberal arts in preparing students for life and work,” President Clayton Spencer told Ingram.

‘AeroStars’ shows students that the sky’s the limit — NBC Nightly News

As part of its “Inspiring America” series, NBC Nightly News�� with the AeroStars Aviation Institute to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

Michael Hogue ’20 takes off during a field trip to Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Hogue, a licensed pilot, is a graduate of and an instructor in AeroStar, a program that encourages young people to pursue careers in aviation. (NBC Nightly News)

On hand for the field trip was Michael Hogue ’20, an alum of the program that encourages African American youth to pursue careers in aviation. Hogue, who earned his pilot’s license in high school, is now an instructor in the program

Tammera Holmes, founder of AeroStar, said she was inspired to go into aviation when she rode in a plane with a chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, an organization that honors the black military pilots who fought in World War II. Hogue is helping her “pass the torch” to the next generation of black pilots, she told NBC.

“Him being able to give back in the way that I gave back, in the way that the Tuskegee Airmen gave back to me, speaks directly to continuing the legacy,” Holmes told the network.

Ivy League schools tackling concerns over concussions with rules changes — WHDH-TV

Jonathan Hall ’83, a longtime reporter at Boston-based television station WHDH, , coauthored by classmate Carolyn Campbell-McGovern, that found that new Ivy League football rules have significantly reduced concussions.

In 2016, Ivy League schools began to move the kickoff line five yards up and eliminate tackling during practices. The changes were informed by years of research conducted by a research collaboration among Big Ten and Ivy League schools. (The NESCAC has also implemented rules changes, including moving up the kickoff line and treating fair catches made within the 25-yard line as touchbacks.)

The most recent study, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association,��

“It was striking that the 22 percent or so of concussions were coming from kickoff plays, but they represented only 6 percent of plays in a game,” Campbell-McGovern told Hall.

Hall knew that Campbell-McGovern, who is the Ivy League’s deputy executive director, was a solid source: He heard her present the concussion data at their 35th Reunion in June.

“Who knew my �ֲ���ý Reunion would land me a key source on an important story regarding the health of student athletes?” Hall said.

10 questions with Michelle Pham, growth strategist at Google — Women of Silicon Valley

Women of Silicon Valley, a publication on the Medium platform highlighting women and genderqueer people in tech, , an account manager for ecommerce and retail at Google.

Courtesy of Michelle Pham

Asked what makes her proudest, Pham said it was her education. A first-generation-to-college student, she had little idea how to apply for college. She decided to attend �ֲ���ý for the “path of adventure and growth.”

Education, Pham said, was her “passport to the world,” allowing her to give back.

“I’m able to give money to classrooms and causes in need,” she said. “I’m able to care not only for myself, but for others. I do my best to leave a positive impact on people and the world.”

How to own your success instead of cringing at it — Moneyish

Especially for women, it can be hard to take public pride in one’s accomplishments or accept praise. Moneyish , Rebecca Fraser-Thill, visiting lecturer in psychology and director of faculty engagement and outreach at �ֲ���ý’ Center for Purposeful Work, for advice on doing so.

Rebecca Fraser-Thill. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“There’s a big social stigma against a female in particular taking public pride in what she has created, in whatever form that is,” Fraser-Thill told reporter Meera Jagannathan. “…I think this is a lifelong struggle for most people, but especially for women.”

Among Fraser-Thill’s recommendations: learn to accept compliments, build your skills through courses or mentoring, watch tape of yourself speaking publicly in order to improve, celebrate with loved ones, and solicit feedback.

How Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs Scaled Without Sacrificing Values — Bloomberg TV

Bloomberg’s “Small to Big” feature , owner and CEO of Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs.

A third-generation egg farmer, LaFlamme brought his �ֲ���ý education back to the family farm after graduation and helped his parents transition to a relatively novel business model: contracting with farms around the country to supply organic and free-range eggs under the Pete and Gerry’s brand. The company’s flagship brand of eggs is now in 53 percent of the country’s grocery stores.

“We found farmers who were just interested in being farms and not marketers or processors or distributors of eggs,” LaFlamme said.

“It ended up being an incredibly mutually beneficial relationships with family farms.”

All in for Tim: Pioneering parents brought autism awareness, education to NH — The Telegraph

The Telegraph in Nashua, N.H. , who “paved the way for autism awareness and education in New Hampshire,” wrote reporter Adam Urquhart.

There were few services available when the Hacketts’ son Tim, who has autism, was born in 1967. Tim’s parents quickly got to work on making sure some were created — they went to conferences, advocated for services in public schools, and formed a New England chapter of the National Autism Society.

“When we started our organization, we had to beat the bushes to find six people in the state,” Louise Hackett said. “Now, we have like six people on our street. It’s grown since the start.”

The Hacketts recently received the Sandy Garrity Award from Gateway Community Services, a Nashua-based organization serving people with developmental disabilities. The couple has long been involved with the organization; the award is given to people who promote inclusion for people with disabilities.

Each spring, college and high school grads throughout the land hear this piece of advice: “Follow your passion!”

But they don’t hear it at �ֲ���ý, and that’s because the advice is bunk, says Rebecca Fraser-Thill.

And she should know: A lecturer in psychology at �ֲ���ý and the director of program design for Purposeful Work, Fraser-Thill is an expert in how our work gives meaning and well-being to our lives.

“Do you want to base your whole future on an emotional state?”

And that’s Purposeful Work in a nutshell. Now in its third year of implementation, Purposeful Work gives students a useful and powerful entry into the world of work by helping them figure out — in a highly intentional and programmatic way, from their first through their senior year — what interests them and what they’re good at.

We talked with Fraser-Thill about �ֲ���ý’ approach to helping students find purposeful work — and what she might offer as better career advice as the Class of 2017 gets ready to graduate on Sunday.

What’s wrong with the typical graduation advice to “follow your passion”?

For one, passion is fleeting. Passion ebbs and flows, just like any other emotional state. Do you want to base your whole future on an emotional state? That seems problematic.

You’ve also said that the call to “follow your passion” can be intimidating for those who don’t immediately have a passion.

Oh, yes. Many students come to me and say they have no passions. And many say they have too many passions. Either way, focusing on a feeling like passion is not going to help students make decisions about majors, or careers, or what they spend their time pursuing.

To say that “you need to have a passion” for any potential interest in order to start exploring it sets the bar way too high for students. But that’s the cultural message we hear: Explore your passion!

Rebecca Fraser-Thill is director of program design for Purposeful Work and a lecturer in psychology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

What is better advice than following your passion?

Follow your curiosity and interests. And that’s what we’re doing with Purposeful Work: supporting and guiding students as they follow their curiosity and interests.

Exploring what interests you is a much more stable course and more likely to lead you toward a path that you can commit to over a period of time, rather than jumping from one thing to the next based on the emotion of passion.

It’s been said that if Steve Jobs had followed his passion early in his life, “we would probably find him today as one of the Los Altos Zen Center’s most popular teachers.”

. I completely agree with his thesis, which is that as we try things out and get better at what we do — as in the case of Steve Jobs — we develop more enthusiasm for what we are doing.

What should �ֲ���ý grads focus on in the next year?

The coming year is a time of immersion and exploration. For most, it’s the first time they’ll be working for pay on a full-time, long-term basis.

It’s a time to gain a better sense of who you are in the context of work — what truly interests you, what works for you, and what doesn’t. You’re gathering data that you couldn’t gather in college.

When Purposeful Work is implemented across a four-year student cohort, is it the idea that the exploration habit becomes a formal part of the student experience, so they hit the ground running at graduation?

Exactly. Through Purposeful Work, we want students to get better at and more involved in the intentional decision-making process about their work while at �ֲ���ý. We want them to be aware of how the choices they make — about classes, majors, co-curriculars, athletics, internships, engagement in the community — help them align��who they are and what they want to do.

The goal is for them to get good at making these decisions, so when they’re in the work world they can say, “I’ve done this before. I am self-aware. I can make good decisions about what my next job will be.”

How does Purposeful Work do that at �ֲ���ý?

In the first year, students explore thoughtfully, with support from faculty and staff, what they are interested in.

We all have to explore at some point. Research on identity development tells us that people who do not go through an exploration stage in their lives are much more likely to have a lower sense of purpose than those who have explored and discovered what they are interested in.

“Students test the hypotheses they’ve formed about themselves based on their interests, values, strengths.”

By “thoughtfully,” we mean that we don’t want students to explore everything. It can be helpful when parents or other adults reflect back to our students what excites them. It might be as simple as saying, “Remember that physics class you took as a whim, and you were really excited by it?” This results in selective exploration based on where a student has been already.

Sophomore year begins the processing of narrowing their interests and gaining depth. For instance, you choose a major.

Junior year is about testing interests, trying things out. Students engage in off-campus study and have meaningful summer experiences, including Purposeful Work internships. They develop ideas for senior thesis. Students test the hypotheses they’ve formed about themselves based on their interests, values, strengths.

In July 2016, Purposeful Work interns Fan Dong ’17 (second from left) and Michael Varner ’17 (right) work Associate Professor of Economics Nate Tefft in the offices of Looking Glass Investments in Brunswick, a peer-to-peer investment firm where Tefft is executive vice president and chief economist. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Then comes senior year. That’s the time for students to talk to people. Students now have a sense of all their pieces, but they don’t know how they all fit together. They may be grappling.

Talking with other people is also how people get jobs.

We gain a sense of ourselves and create our narratives through social relationships. That’s how we learn where we’ve been, who were are, where we want to go. We want our seniors to talk to people — family, friends, and especially �ֲ���ý staff, faculty, and alumni — who’ve had these same puzzles and fit them together in different ways.

Talking and having conversations will serve them internally and externally. It will further their self-knowledge and will be invaluable in interviews and cover letters and other pragmatic ways.

Talking with people is also how we get jobs. It’s been found that about 80 percent of jobs are gained through networking. Talking is about progressing.

When you hear that �ֲ���ý is helping students find “purposeful work,” it sounds like work that has a social benefit.

Purposeful work is not a type of work.

For example, in 2013, when President Clayton Spencer first outlined the idea of purposeful work at Convocation, she quoted an oral history from a Lewiston shoemaker, who talked about learning to hand-sew shoes: “I used to watch, and I’d say, ‘I can do the same thing.’ And then from there I picked up the tricks that my dad used to show me, then I picked up some others, then after that, I loved it.”

So that’s an example of purposeful work because it has meaning for the individual.

Some people believe that finding purposeful work would just be icing on the cake of their lives. But there’s more at stake, isn’t there?

Yes, and the most compelling research is by Gallup. They surveyed thousands of people in 150 countries to dig into what creates well-being, what makes a person feel good. They found four types of important well-being around the world: physical, financial, social, and community well-being.

Finding purposeful work in our lives is not icing on the cake. It is not even the cake. It is the meal; it is the sustenance.

That makes intuitive sense. But Gallup wanted to know how we get those four qualities. Well, they found a fifth type of well-being, which they initially called “career well-being” and now call “purpose well-being.” It is defined as the endeavors that fill our day, paid or not, and Gallup found that a person’s purpose well-being is highest when they like what they are doing every day and are using their strengths every day.

Here’s the kicker: People who were high in purpose well-being are twice as likely to be high in these four other types of well-being. So, finding purposeful work in our lives is not icing on the cake. It is not even the cake. It is the meal; it is the sustenance. Purpose matters.

I’m curious about the link between finding meaning in work and finding pleasure in work. Can someone say that their work is meaningful but not always pleasurable?

Absolutely. That’s key. Pleasure in work does not equate with finding meaning in work. Sometimes your most meaningful activities can be low in pleasure. Parenting is an example. A day with the kids can be incredibly meaningful but not always pleasurable, especially if there’s bickering!

A sense of purpose is greater than pleasure. There are two concepts of well-being: hedonic and eudaimonic. The former is about finding pleasure, but there’s the “hedonic treadmill.” We can’t get enough. We want more and more pleasure.

During Orientation last August, Rebecca Fraser-Thill talks about Purposeful Work with parents of students in the Class of 2020. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Eudaimonic well-being, on the other hand, is about meaning, purpose, richness, and life satisfaction, and it comes from building a life that has a variety of layers and textures to it. We know that doing purposeful work that is aligned between who you are and what you do is at the core, too. And that well-being is lasting; you’re not chasing it.

Why are the liberal arts the perfect launching pad for �ֲ���ý’ brand of purposeful work and the alignment of self and work?

I believe this to the core. The liberal arts allow you a space to try out a variety of interests and skill sets and explore things you didn’t even know existed until you came to campus.

You get to explore with incredibly engaged faculty members who know the content deeply because they have explored and followed their interests and curiosities so far that they are — I’m not going to say “passionate”! — deeply driven. It wakes them up in the morning to teach, do research, and work in the community.

The liberal arts enable self-reflection on an ongoing basis and exploration to test that self-reflection and see where it takes you.

Where does the �ֲ���ý motto, Amore ac Studio, “With Ardor and Devotion,” come in?

Purposeful Work is all about making Amore ac Studio motto a lived reality for our students. By exploring widely, based on their curiosity, and then digging deeply into a topic or field based on their developing strengths and interests, students can work with ardor and devotion, both while at �ֲ���ý and long after they leave.

Building your life is more than jobs, budgets, and taxes, says Lecturer in Psychology Rebecca Fraser-Thill. “There has to be some deeper thread running underneath so you know why you’re doing all those things.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

It may sound macabre, especially on the eve of a weekend when the gates to the future will open wide for the �ֲ���ý Class of 2016. But if you want students to think intentionally about the adult lives they’ll lead, you can ask them to envision the future “retrospectively” — by writing their own obituaries.

The idea is that formally summarizing your life, even if that summary is speculative, can cause you to consider what you really want your story to be.

It’s an assignment that Rebecca Fraser-Thill gave in a course she introduced for Short Term this year. “Life Architecture: Designing Your Future” gives students know-how, habits, and — crucially — self-knowledge that will help them make the best marriage of profession and personal fulfillment.

If that sounds like an objective of the college’s ambitious Purposeful Work initiative that President Clayton Spencer instituted at �ֲ���ý in 2013, it’s no coincidence. Fraser-Thill, a lecturer in psychology, also directs program design for Purposeful Work.

And the course, one of several offerings under the aegis of Purposeful Work during Short Term 2016, may be the purest distillation of that initiative to date. Where Purposeful Work is a college-wide emphasis on preparing students for lives of meaningful work, “Life Architecture” takes very specific aim at that goal.

On the one hand, Fraser-Thill has used philosophy and psychology to teach students to harmonize their interests, abilities, and values as they consider career choices now and in the future. On the other, the course has been a cornucopia of practical guidance, much of it from visiting alumni, guests, and �ֲ���ý Career Development Center staff, for life in the real world.

And the students’ final project is a so-called Purposeful Work Blueprint that includes the obituary.

We talked with Fraser-Thill about the course on May 4.

This course merges approaches to reflection and self-awareness with practical instruction. How does that play out?

We’ve been toggling between the two, and it’s a challenge. For instance, we spent part of one day on networking, and then looked at apartment searches and leases, and taxes — so it was just about as pragmatic as you can get.

Then we spent most of the following day looking at personality in relation to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and discussing the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, so that’s just about as philosophical as you can get.

Building a life is about so much more than being able to pay your taxes and to budget properly, and to find a place to live. There has to be some deeper thread running underneath so you know why you’re doing all those things.

This course and the Purposeful Work initiative encourage students to engage with the question of infusing meaning into one’s work. Not everyone in the workforce has, or feels they have, any opportunity for that.

Questions of privilege arise. So Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning [published in 1946] was our biggest foray into that. Here’s a person who was in the Holocaust, in a concentration camp, who basically had every choice taken from him and was in the least privileged circumstance you could imagine.

Yet he makes the case that all of human endeavor is really about finding meaning, and that you can make the choice to create meaning, whatever your circumstance. So even in the concentration camp, he was actively creating meaning for himself, which is incredible. Frankl makes the point that individuals who gave up their sense of meaning in the concentration camp were more likely to die than those who had something to live for.

Podcaster Megan Tan is getting great reviews for , her series about negotiating one’s 20s. You invited her to a class and she’s had a presence in your curriculum.

Yes, we’ve talked about her in a number of contexts. For instance, Tan talks about this concept of “the line,” a composite of your hopes and dreams and goals, as well as your sense of right and wrong, all leading in some direction. Do you have a different line for your personal and your professional? In what ways does the world around you define your line? How do you define it for yourself? What if they’re in conflict with each other?

Megan Tan, whose podcast “Millennial” is increasingly well-known, speaks to students in the course “Life Architecture.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The brain isn’t fully developed until age 25 or so, broadly speaking. In terms of brain development, are your students ready to be grappling with the “Life Architecture” subject matter?

I think they need to be. When you look at identity development in particular, we know that people go through a variety of stages. Here we’re focusing on occupations, and early in life you don’t even think about it, right? Maybe you have a notion, like, “Oh, I’ll be a vet,” but it’s not considered at all.

Then you go through a stage of taking on what other people think is good for you, and what you see modeled by your parents or other relatives. And then you go through a place of crisis, an identity moratorium, where you’re questioning actively, trying different things out.

Developmentally, the early 20s is an ideal time for that questioning period.

And then you move into really knowing what you want to do. So, developmentally, the early 20s is an ideal time for that questioning period, where you are actively trying out different possibilities, considering pros and cons, thinking through how they mesh with your values, interests, personality, skills. And you’re really making some intentional decisions about what you want to try next.

The research is pretty clear that if you don’t complete that problem of searching by your late 20s, there can be a real fall-off in your life satisfaction. So there is a window for doing that searching and doing it well.

You just mentioned the importance of job satisfaction to life satisfaction.

Yes, it’s extremely important. We know from the literature that life satisfaction derives from doing what you like every day and using your strengths every day. And that a sense of career well-being then predicts all other types of well-being — including our physical well-being, financial well-being, social well-being, and community well-being. All of those are predicted by how we feel about our careers.

That is huge.

Isn’t it? So, at the right juncture in your development, if you don’t step back and do this philosophical examination, all of these facets of your life are less likely to function well, which is fascinating.

Now, do I feel some students pushing back and being like, “I don’t really want to go there?” Yes, to an extent. And to get those students from not deeply questioning to a place of examining and even finding answers, five weeks is a pretty quick time.

So it would seem that a big part of your job is to get them into the habit of thinking intentionally about these things.

That’s what I’m trying to do, exactly. Planting seeds and showing them some habits they could use, like journaling. This is a great way to gain insight into what you’re thinking about, see patterns of thought, and reflect on experiences so you can make meaning of them.

And we’ve talked a lot about networking and informational interviewing, and those are great ways of gaining information about the world. So we’re trying to give them tools — talk to other people, journal, reflect, and start to put all this all together.

A key outcome of the course is for students to develop a blueprint for their working lives.

The major idea is for them to reflect on their journals to see what kind of themes are coming out of them, to create some coherence about the self-assessments they’ve done — values, personality, skills, and interests — and to consider the impact they’d like to have on the world around them.

Then, based on all of this, they can think about immediate next steps, and hopefully have this document to look back on as they make decisions, even years after graduating.