Two-year grant helps put new focus on career exploration, discernment in the humanities

Lawrence University is the recipient of a nearly $48,000 grant to support faculty in strengthening career exploration in humanities courses.

The two-year NetVUE grant from the Council of Independent Colleges, in collaboration with Lilly Endowment Inc., will assist faculty in building tools to help students discern their values, passions, and skills as they consider potential career paths.

“Faculty are aware that humanities courses help to prepare students for life after Lawrence in important ways, but we do not always explain this to students in ways that are readily apparent,” said Constance Kassor, associate professor of religious studies and special assistant to the president. “Many students only come to recognize the benefits of their humanities training—learning how to think critically and communicate effectively, exploring issues from multiple viewpoints, working as part of a team—long after they have moved into careers after graduation. The work that we are doing with faculty through this NetVUE grant aims to make those skills more explicit while students are still in the classroom.”

The two-year grant extends through spring 2026, with plans being built to continue the project beyond the grant window.

Kassor will lead the project in its first year. Stephanie Burdick-Shepherd, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and associate professor of education, will assume leadership in the second year. Kevin Gaw, Riaz Waraich Dean of the Career Center, and Garrett Singer, special assistant to the president, joined Kassor and Burdick-Shepherd on the planning team that developed the program. Gaw, a career exploration and development professional, will assist Kassor and Burdick-Shepherd across the two-year grant cycle.

“Spending time deeply considering one’s values, interests, and motivations, among many other factors, is critical for the career discernment process,” Gaw said. “Experience lends significantly to this, as well, and this especially includes career exploration and discernment experiences they have in academic courses with faculty.”

The first year includes the creation of a cohort-based faculty development program that prepares faculty to embed vocational discernment activities and course content in existing courses. Eight faculty, representing disciplines across the college, have been selected as the first cohort—Elizabeth Becker, psychology; Claire Chen, Chinese; Jake Frederick, history; Alexander Heaton, math; Victoria Kononova, Russian; Rosa Tapia, Spanish; Brigid Vance, history and East Asian studies; and Petra Watzke, German.

While the planning committee is focusing on humanities faculty for the project, they have included a couple faculty from outside of the humanities because programming is so intertwined.

“The humanities are an important part of the liberal arts education that students receive at Lawrence, and we want to help students understand the real-world impacts that their humanities courses have on their futures,” Kassor said.

The first year will include regular meetings as a cohort to examine ways career exploration fits into existing classes; an intensive one-day retreat in Fall Term; each faculty member redesigning part of at least one existing course to infuse career exploration; and programming to engage faculty across the university.

The second year will focus on broader implementation and the preparation for a new cohort to expand the training.

It’s part of a growing emphasis on career preparation and discernment at Lawrence, in partnership with the university’s commitment to the humanities.

“To give a hypothetical example,” Kassor said, “suppose that a student who is on the pre-health track also takes courses in Chinese and religious studies during her time at Lawrence. In those courses, she learns that while her pre-health courses give her the skills to work in medicine, her passion for helping others and her strong interpersonal strengths make her well-suited for a career as a medical interpreter. This might be a career path that was not apparent to her when she began her pre-health journey at Lawrence.”