What Students Can Learn from Dr. Sharon Parks

by Chris Schlichting
Academic Adviser, Society & Culture Student Community

I recently read an inspiring interview with Dr. Sharon Parks, an author who writes on a broad range of topics tackling big questions like, how do we find meaning in our lives? She is also a speaker, consultant and the associate director and faculty at the Whidbey Institute in Clinton, Washington. She was interviewed by Tony Chambers in the Nov-Dec 2002 issue of About Campus about the ideas addressed in her book, Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith (2000). I found her thoughts to be pertinent and useful considerations for anyone, especially students in college.

One of the things I find so refreshing about Parks's approach is in how personal she thinks education should be. She talks about shifting to a new model of learning in which we ask bigger questions about our place in the world. Don't think about the college experience just as a way to acquire knowledge passed on by an institution, but as a means of engaging with information that is alive and dealing with its complexity to come up with creative new ways to problem solve. Conversations about the value of a college education sometimes underestimate the value of this kind of problem solving and frequently end up focusing only on the bottom line, talking about the ability to make money and how a college education will make you a more worthwhile employee. What about other pursuits? What about your value to society? What about your ability to help sustain communities and environments? These are issues in the world we live in and they are topics that get overlooked sometimes when we think about maximizing our earning power. There is a great deal of research to substantiate the claims that earning power increases with education, there are other valuable results that are too often neglected though.

There has been a shift even in the last decade in terms of justifying the cost of higher education. Why should you spend money on college? What constitutes a good value for your education? Parks addresses the fact that students "are hearing that they're part of an economy that is prepared to pass them by and that they need to be on the fast track." While at the same time students are also being told "this is the time for adventure and exploration." How is this thinking changing the way students interact and experience their education? Is this changing the way students participate in their college experience? I think it does. A preoccupation with the need to get out and earn money right after graduation changes the way students think. If the goal is to get out fast so that you can get in an office and start earning, how does that change the nature of your ability to think in a class room? What is the point in spending hard earned money on an education when there is not the guarantee that a job will be waiting? This concern has become a major distraction. Parks emphasizes the value of helping people learn to think critically and how the ability to do so is critical in democratic societies.

A question in the interview alludes to the changes in the U.S. economy and how uncertainty has changed the way people imagine the future. Can a parent anticipate their child will experience the same economic prosperity that they did? Parks has an interesting response, "we must recognize also that for many in American society this never has been a secure, trustworthy place. What we have now is an opportunity to make common cause across all sectors of our society in asking bigger questions about ourselves and the world we live in." She goes on to say, "We are part of a complex global commons in which the perspectives of many different peoples are colliding with a force that is perilous to all of us. It is not a time to be preoccupied with minor issues. It is a time for `big enough questions' that can evoke authentic, worthy response to unprecedented conditions." When students ask me, "What can I really do with a major in American Studies?" Am I going to say, "Don't be preoccupied with minor issues?" No, I won't. Aren't these conversations a good time to discuss ideas about success and what the word means though? This article asserts some ideas on how far reaching academic pursuits can be, how our ways of imagining the world are not just limited to our ability to function in an already established system, but can extend to how we use our imagination to re-invent new systems and ways to solve the problems of our time. It can be a daunting and inspiring prospect.

One thought that continues to resonate with me is in how Parks describes a definition of "Success" as "finding and living a sense of `vocation.' It is a response to questions such as: Where does my heart's gladness meet the world's deep hunger?" How can we align our pursuits with these kinds of ideas? How do you merge "practical" concerns with deeper questions of identity and meaning? Parks talks about how "the big questions of our time are profoundly practical: How are we all going to live together on this planet?" I notice students can feel uneasy thinking about how their degree is going to offer them security in the future and the answers aren't always simple to point out. Sometimes a student won't be overtly aware of how their skills are being developed, how they are developing new insights. People want to identify with topics that have an immediate application.

Advisers are interested in helping students find uses for the skills they are learning, but to grasp the value of these bigger questions our imagination needs to grapple with abstract ideas. When we develop an ability to think and solve the kinds of abstract problems we are faced with in the liberal arts, the skills are transferable to other types of problem solving. Our ability to imagine ourselves as members of a larger community gives us a context with which to connect the purpose of our efforts. Think how much more meaningful your jobs in the past would have seemed had you been able to visualize how your actions were making a difference. Imagine how differently it would feel if you knew the work you did in a day helped improve a problem in a community, or in the world.

As you make tough choices about how to proceed in your academic careers advisers can help you consider your choices. Parks points out, "The formation of a dream is the hard work of asking `How do my particular talents and interests actually connect with what's needed in our world?' The answer tends to require schooling and the ability to embrace very complex subjects, issues, problems, and agendas." These are questions students don't always get asked, especially when faced with the pressures of anxious parents who want their children to aspire to money making careers and financial security, all valid and reasonable aspirations. Aspire to consider possibilities that embrace quests for deeper meaning though. If you cannot stop thinking about what job you want after college, consider the fact that an important by-product of complex problem solving skills is increased employability. Just look at the characteristic that consistently appears number one in lists of essential employee attributes: communication skills.

You are faced with the difficult task of discovering what your University experience can be. How will you define success? What is important to you will shape how you go about living in the world. Parks suggests, "our patterns of life and discourse become the architecture of the mentoring environment." She asks if our questions and our actions are ". . . going to create the optimal conditions for the future we all want?" The question puts more responsibility in everyone's hands. The realization that our actions and our efforts are helping determine the future of the world we inhabit is a daunting yet empowering thought, isn't it?