Center for Vocational Reflection

The Augustana College Center for Vocational Reflection helps students recognize who they are called to be. Vocation is recognized when one's skills, gifts, and talents combine with one's passions to meet the needs of the community. The Center works to create times and spaces for one's vocation to be discerned.

What's Happening

Augustana Student Teaches for America

Julia Lombardo '06, pictured far left, found herself asking the questions "What else? What more?" during Winter Term her senior year. Graduation was just around the courner, and for the first time in a while, she felt like she didn't know what was next. She wanted to continue to develop the values and passions she formed at Augustana - an unyielding desire to serve others, to question the status quo, and to relentlessly be an agent of social change.

She found her answer in a humid and unorganized classroom at Southern High School, Durham, N.C., when she showed up for her first day of school as a high school English teacher as part of the 2006 Teach for America - Eastern North Carolina Corps. To read her story click here.

Celebration of Learning Reflective Essay Winners

Seniors Melissa Johansen and Jaime Fialek were honored at the Celebration of Learning for their reflection essays and awarded with $250 and $100 respectively. These essays were selected from a pool of participants who chose to go the extra mile and submit a personal reflection concerning how their Celebration of Learning project or presentation impacted their understanding of their vocation.

Ms. Johansen, who studied mental health services for Latinos in the US, stated, "While this project did not provide me with any clear answers on what exactly I am called to do, it certainly helped strengthen my sense of who I am called to be. I am a person who deeply cares about the well being of all people and therefore I am concerned about injustices exist in the world." Read her essay here.

Ms. Fialek, whose investigation of the literature and art of Martinique, a Francophone island in the Caribbean sea led her to apply and be accepted for Teach for America said, "My research, along with my newfound calling, urged me not only to understand but to confront issues of race in America. I felt personally fulfilled, and yet not satisfied. More than anything, my research was a starting point, a vital step for me before jumping into an inner city classroom." Read her essay here.

The CVR thanks the many students who submitted essays for their great reflection.