Curriculum

1. Crystal Norwood
Leah Pasquesi
Let Your Life Speak:
The Call to Purpose, Calling and
Exploration

2. Intended Audience
Student Affairs professionals that:
● Interact with students
● Supervise students
● Advise students
Students who:
● First years
● Struggle with transitioning
● Want to find their passions

3. Why a Seminar?
To provide the space for students to answer Big Questions, such as:
• How can i make a difference in the world?
• Is there really more to life than what I now know?
• Where do I feel belonging and community?
• Who am I?
• Whose am I?
• Who am I called to be?
• What do I really value?
• How can I make the world a better place?
• What do I deeply love?
• Do I need religion or spirituality to live a meaningful life?

4. Our Motivations
• We believe in the power of allowing students to follow their
calling
• Students are often pressure to decide what they want to do
with “the rest of their lives” beginning at an early age
• Conversations are often focused on selecting the “right”
major or choosing a career path without reflecting on one’s
passions and values
• The questions we fall back on in reflecting on this are:
• If you could do anything that you knew you couldn’t fail, what
would it be?
• What wakes you up in the morning?

5. Seminar Outline
Week 1- Journey of Transformation
• Life Map
• Alumni Panel
• Vulnerability TedTalk
Week 2- Finding Value in All Things (Incorporating your Loyola Experience)
• One minute Reflections
• Spiritual Buddy
• This I believe Essay
Week 3- Soul Care through Life Changes
• Student Affairs Panel
• StoryCorp
• Eulogy
Week 4- Finding Your Calling- Looking Deep Within
• Discovering Your Red Rubber Ball Activity
• Wrapping up (What does this all mean?)
• Affirmations
• Letter to future Self

6. A year after this seminar is
over, we hope students
will….

7. Learning Goals
Foundational Knowledge
1. Students will be able to understand discernment as a tool to make an appropriate
decision about career choice and will understand that discernment is a life-long
process.
2. Students will remember that there is a universal human hunger for connectedness,
purpose, and meaning.
3. Students will understand the big questions and the reason for asking and delving deep
into them.
Application Goals
1. Students will use storytelling and reflective dialogue to explore, make sense of, and
hear their own and others’ diverse narratives.
2. Students will imagine themselves as a whole person committed to their own and
others holistic development.
3. Students will use faith development theories and vocational discernment tools to
make sense of their own vocational story reflecting on their why, their values, and
their passion areas.

8. Learning Goals
Integration
1. Students will connect with what they are learning about Fowler’s faith development
theory and vocational discernment to their own life and work in the future.
2. Students will integrate their values system and discernment efforts into everyday
practice.
3. Students will connect together meaningful ideas and practices.
Human Dimensions
1. Students will come to see themselves in any career that authentically combines soul
with role.
2. Students will become aware of their own vocational story, what their calling is, and
the gifts and values that accompany it.
3. Students will interact sensitively, compassionately, and confidentially with
participants in the seminar by listening with love and care.

9. Learning Goals
Caring Goals
1. Students will be ready to engage with others holistically and authentically.
2. Students will value critical thinking and self-reflection as vital to one’s development
and exploration.
3. Students will be genuinely interested in other participants’ stories because these
stories shaped and will continue to shape their lives.
4. Students will be excited to connect their own values with the potentially rich
contributions they can make to society.
Learning how to Learn
1. Students will be able to identify important resources for their own continued
learning.
2. Students will be able to construct knowledge about what means to be their whole
self.
3. Students will live their lives in ways that promote ongoing learning and development.

10. Assessment
Activities

11. Assessment Activities
Eulogy Activity
o Objective:
 Individuals will reflect upon their long term goals and consider
the legacy they would like to leave on this earth
Life Map
o Objective:
 Individuals will consider how their past and present experiences,
places, events, people, values and environments shape who
they were, are and who they want to be

12. Assessment Activity #1:
Eulogy Activity
Description
o This activity assumes that participants will live full, happy and successful lives. In
framing the activity with this mindset, participants will be prompted to reflect upon
how they would like to be remembered once that moment in time comes when they
are no longer “with us.”
o This is a written assignment that encourages students to consider what they would
like their legacy to be.
o Participants will be invited to approach this assignment from two perspectives:
 Writing a eulogy with the focus of it being the life you’ve lived up to this
moment in time. What have you done? How will you be remembered?
 You can write your eulogy with the focus of it being the nice long life that you
plan on living. You can write from any hypothetical situation. Maybe you lived
to be 90. What did you do in your 90 years that have positively affected those
around you? This scenario can include a little more fiction, but it should still be
realistic and reflective of how you actually would like to be remembered.

13. Rationale for Assessment
Activity 1: Eulogy
Learning Goals Met:
Application Goals
o Use storytelling and reflective dialogue to explore, make sense of, and
hear your own and other diver narratives
o Use faith development theories and vocational discernment tools to make
sense of your own vocational story
Integration
o Students will integrate their values system and discernment efforts into
everyday practice
Human Dimension
o Students will become aware of their own vocational story, what their
calling is, and the gifts and values that accompany it
o Students will become a person who can live free, undivided and whole

14. Rationale for Assessment
Activity 1: Eulogy
Learning Goals Met:
Caring Goals
o A year (or more) after this seminar is over, we want and hope that
students will be ready to engage with others holistically and authentically
o Students will value critical thinking and self-reflection as vital to one’s
development and exploration.
Learning How to Learn
o Students will be able to construct knowledge about what vocational
discernment means to be their whole self.

15. Assessment Activity #2:
Life Map Activity
Description
o This activity requires individuals to reflect upon their past, present, and future self,
in thinking about the ways in which events, places, people, values and environments
have shaped who they were, are, and who they are going to be.
o Using the supplies of a large piece of paper and markers, individuals will map out
their journey through life.
o In addition to the personal reflection this requires, participants will also be asked to
share openly their experiences with others. In an effort to support and encourage
all participants in deep reflection and open sharing, facilitators will model such
vulnerability by sharing their own life maps before participants get started.

16. Rationale for Assessment
Activity 2: Life Map
Learning Goals Met
Application Goals
o A year (or more) after this seminar is over, we want and hope that
students will use storytelling and reflective dialogue to explore, make
sense of, and hear their own and others’ diverse narratives.
Human Dimensions Goals
o Students will become aware of their own vocational story, what their
calling is, and the gifts and values that accompany it.
o Students will interact sensitively, compassionately, and confidentially
with participants in the seminar by listening with love and care.

17. Rationale for Assessment
Activity 2: Life Map
Learning Goals Met
Caring Goals
o A year (or more) after this seminar is over, we want and hope that
students will be ready to engage with others holistically and
authentically.
o Students will value critical thinking and self-reflection as vital to one’s
development and exploration.
o Students will be genuinely interested in other participants’ stories
because these stories shaped and will continue to shape their lives.

18. Assessment for Life Map: Rubric

19. Teaching & Learning
Activities

20. Teaching and Learning Activities
Vulnerability TedTalk and Reflective Dialogue
with Self and Others
o Objective:
 To encourage students to reflect upon the power of
vulnerability and authenticity and to consider how connection,
worthiness, and compassion can lead to whole-hearted living.
Additionally, our hope is that students will reflect upon what let
themselves be deeply seen,how to live with their whole hearts
even when there is no guarantee, to practice gratitude and joy
and believe the we are enough.

21. Teaching and Learning Activities
Discovering Your Big Red Rubber Ball
o Objectives:
 Participants will reflect upon the ways in which we can discover
our passions and embrace creativity.
 In being provided the space to reflect on big questions
surrounding vocational discernment, we hope students will
understand the value of constant reflection in order to find their
heart’s content which will in turn lead to prosperity, peace and
happiness.

22. Teaching and Learning Activity #1
Vulnerability TedTalk and Reflective
Dialogue with Self and Others
Description
o After watching Brene Brown’s TedTalk on “Vulnerability,” we provide participants
with the opportunity to journal about their reactions for about 10 minutes. We will
then split participants into small groups of 3-5 students with an opportunity to
engage in reflective dialogue with others. After participants have had at least 20
minutes to do this, we will invite everyone to come back together for a large group
discussion, hoping that some of the following powerful concepts and messagesare
discussed while also listening to how participants made their own meaning from the
video.

23. Teaching and Learning Activity #1
Vulnerability TedTalk and Reflective
Dialogue with Self and Others
Learning Goals Met:
• Students will remember that there is a universal human hunger for
connectedness, purpose and meaning.
• Students will imagine themselves as a whole person committed to their own
and others holistic development.
• Students will interact sensitively, compassionately and confidently with other
participants in the seminar by listening with love and care
• Students will be ready to engaged with others holistically and authentically.
• Students will be able to construct knowledge about what it means to be their
whole self.

24. Teaching and Learning Activity #2
Discovering Your Big Red Rubber Ball
Description
o In coming prepared to this seminar having read the “Rules of the Red Rubber Ball,”
we hope to provide in this session an opportunity for students to reflect on the
following big questions:
 “If you Could do anything and knew you couldn’t fail, what would it be?”
 “What wakes you up in the morning?
o At this time, we will provide students with an hour to reflect upon these questions
where every they feel most comfortable doing such introspection, whether it be it
staying in the room, going on a walk, visiting a coffee shop, etc.
o This activity will be one that we would facilitate at the end of the seminar so that
students will have had previous opportunities to reflect and therefore will hopefully
feel comfortable engaging in such deep thinking.

25. Teaching and Learning Activity #2
Discovering Your Big Red Rubber Ball
Learning Goals Met:
• Students will integrate their values system and discernment efforts into
everyday practice.
• Students will come to see themselves in any career that authentically
combines soul with role.
• Students will become aware of their own vocational story, what their calling
is, and the gifts and values that accompany it.
• Students will value critical thinking and self-reflection as vital to one’s
development and exploration.
• Students will be ready to actively self reflect upon their values, their “why,”
and their passion areas.

26. Integration of Design
Teaching and Learning Activities
Ted Talk-Brene Brown Vulnerability
Kevin Carroll-Red Rubber Ball Reflection
Assessment Activities
Life Map
Eulogy

27. References
Astin, A.W., Astin, H.S., & J.A. Lindholm. (2011). Cultivating the spirit: How college can enhace students’ inner lives. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass.
B Brown. (2012, March). Listening to shame. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame
Baxter Magolda, M. (2008). Three elements of self-authorship. Journal of College Student Development, 49, 269-284.
Brown, Brene. (2010). The gifts of imperfection: Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and embrace who you are. Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden.
Coelho, P. (2006). The alchemist. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers.
D’Arcy, P. (2011). Red fire: A quest for awakening. Inner Ocean/Innisfree Press.
Fowler, J.W. (2001). Faith development theory and the postmodern challenges. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 11(3), 159-172.
Fowlers, J.W. (2004). Faith development at 30: Naming the challenges of faith in a new millennium. Religious Education, 99(4), 405-421.
G D Menton. (2013, May 13) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHHPNMIK-fY
Love, P. (2002). Comparing spiritual development and cognitive development. Journal of College Student Development, 43(3), 357-373.
Miller, D. (2009). A million miles in a thousand years. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Incorporated.
Nash, R.J. (2001). Religious pluralism in the academy. New York: Peter Lang
Schweitzer (Eds.), Developing a public faith: New directions in practical theology (pp. 15-42). St. Louis, MO : Chalic Press.
Smith, C. (2009). Souls in transition: The religious and spiritual lives of emerging adults. Oxford: Oxford University Press

28. Thank You