Syllabus for Lilly Interns Reflection Group

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Timesheet

FWRK 3850
Spring 2008

Instructor: Raymond Clothier
Phone: (601) 974-1470 (office)
Office: Murrah Annex 212
Email: clothrs@millsaps.edu
Meeting time: Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m.
Meeting place: New South Lounge

Course Description
Lilly Internships are an opportunity to connect academic learning to exploration of vital issues of meaning, purpose, vocation, and service. Building upon “The Meaning of Work” course, Lilly Internships add a professional workplace as an additional learning environment and offer a new framework for examining the connection between meaning and work. Lilly Internships offer opportunities for learning in at least three contexts: 1) work experience in a profession of interest, 2) a mentoring relationship with a professional who is interested in exploring issues of work and calling, and 3) a reflection group for making connections between coursework, internship experiences, and personal and vocational growth.

Students engaged in Lilly Internships will work 120 hours in an internship site, meet with a mentor for at least three times to discuss questions of meaning, purpose, and calling in relation to the work at hand, and meet in a reflection group once a week with other Lilly Interns. Structured reflection and a mentoring relationship are keys to making the internship experience an opportunity to explore vocation. Reflection group activities and assignments will open diverse avenues to greater understanding of self, the connections that form between the self and broader contexts of meaning, and the call that emerges from this intersection.

Course Objectives
The objectives of Lilly Internships are to:

• Offer concrete experience in a profession of interest.
• Increase reflection upon previous and current experience as a guide to understanding vocation.
• Increase the number of partners in an ongoing conversation about vocation.

The objectives of the Lilly Internship Reflection Group are to:

• Reflect upon the internship experience.
• Connect internship experience to academic learning in the Meaning of Work Course.
• Facilitate exploration and articulation of meaning and purpose by seeking points of connection between a growing body of knowledge and experience, and the wide array of needs and opportunities in the world.

Required Text
Schwehn, Mark and Dorothy Bass, eds. Leading Lives that Matter: What Se Should Do and Who We Should Be (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eeardmans), 2006.

Interns will be provided with a reading from Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass), 2000.

Teaching Committee
In each internship, a teaching committee will be formed to assist in mentoring and advising the Intern. The committee will be comprised of the Mentor, the Associate Director, a Lilly Fellow (in fall and spring semesters), a faculty person from the relevant field if needed, and others deemed necessary by other members of the committee. The committee will communicate throughout the semester as needed.

Expectations/Requirements*
Reflection Group Participation (10%)
We will meet nine times during the semester to reflect together on issues of meaning, faith, values and vocation in relation to the work you are doing at your internship site. Since reflection is what sets this internship apart from others, it is vital that you be present for each and every meeting of our reflection group.

In addition to punctual and regular attendance at reflection group meetings, you are expected to make constructive contributions to each class session.

Weekly Writing Assignments (30%)
During the course of the semester, you will complete a portfolio consisting of seven assignments designed to make connections between your work experience and your personal, spiritual, and vocational development. Assignments are articulated under the Daily Schedule. All of the assignments except for the final paper are expected to be 500-750 words. Please follow instructions for posting assignments and turning papers in as e-mail attachments. Please talk to the instructor if you have a need to write by hand. Assignments and papers are due at the beginning of class on the assigned date. One late assignment will be accepted; other late assignments will be graded down one letter increment (e.g. from B to B-). Please plan accordingly.

Mentor Evaluation (30%)
An evaluation will be completed at the mid-term and end of the term. This evaluation will be both quantitative and qualitative.

Internship Hours (pass or fail)
Interns and Fellows are responsible for making sure that they have completed the 120 hours that are required for the internship. In most internship sites, this will not be a problem. A timesheet is attached to provide a means of keeping track of hours, and a record of your hours in the first few weeks will be due at the third meeting of class and with the final paper. This is intended to address the issue of hours early so any problems obtaining sufficient hours can be addressed. Additional timesheets may be requested by the instructor. Failure to complete 120 hours will result in failing grade.

Timesheet due February 19th

Final Paper (20%)
Informed and inspired by Mary Catherine Bateson’s essay “Composing a Life Story” set to work composing your own (in five pages). Feel free to write in first person or in third person. Use your imagination and creative abilities to pull together parts of your life into a story. Is there continuity? Discontinuity? Who are the major characters? Does the audience matter?
Begin wherever you like, but primarily focus on how you would like it to read ten years from now. Don’t hint at it or talk about what you might write if you decided to, but write it out in first or third person (for example: I wake up to the smell of burning coffee, my publicity photos are strewn about the dresser where I threw them after the opening last night. . .) What are you doing, what choices have you made, how have you come to these choices, what matters the most to you?

Conversations with a Lilly Fellow (10%)
Throughout the semester, you will be conversing with your Lilly Fellow. The Fellow will check-in with you about your internship six times during the semester. E-mail exchanges should be substantive (400-500 words) or face to face meetings should last about a half an hour. E-mail exchanges will be copied to Raymond or the Fellow will make a brief report of the conversation.

Conversation with the Associate Director (0%)
Around the mid-term point, all Interns and Fellows will need to have a telephone conversation with the Associate Director to discuss the internship, the reflection group, and emerging understandings of vocation.

Evaluation
The instructor will award the grade for this course based upon an evaluation of the quality of on-site work and vocational exploration in the internship site that will be completed by you and your Mentor, combined with an evaluation of participation and quality of work in the Reflection.

The Millsaps Honor Code
All work completed in this course should comply with the letter and the spirit of the Millsaps Honor Code. Suspected violations of the Code will be forwarded to the Honor Council for consideration.
If at any point in the semester you or anyone you know has questions about the Code or its relation to a given assignment, please do not hesitate to contact the instructor. Ignorance and the absence of malice are not acceptable excuses for violating the Honor Code.
For a fuller explanation of the Code, see here.

Disability Disclosure
If you have special needs related to a learning disability, please see Sherryl Wilburn in Student Affairs.

Daily Schedule*

Tuesday, January 29th: In the Flow

• Writing assignment
  In 2-3 pages, write about discovering something that you love to do. Is there anything that you do that you enjoy so much that you lose yourself, forget about the clock, focus completely, and feel successful doing it? Can you identify any characteristics of this experience? Is it goal oriented, is it mental or physical, do you lose a sense of self, does it feel effortless, do you get any feedback? Does the outcome matter? These experiences have been described as “flow” experiences by the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.
• E-mail all writing assignments to Raymond Clothier and be prepared to talk about your paper in a small group.

Tuesday, February12th: Starting Points

• Reading: Leading Lives, “Making the Match: Career Choice,” pp. 90-100, and “Choosing”, pp. 101-107.
• Writing assignment:
  In a 2-3 page paper, present your understanding of vocation and how one goes about finding it. Does it exist ready-made somewhere (God, your true self) and you need to find it? What have you found to be the best guides to what feels most true? Does it emerge and change as your unique characteristics are discovered and expressed through experience? Does it change over time? Do we have to worry about missing it?
  These questions are intended to get you thinking and you do not have to address them all. Think it out for yourself.

Tuesday, February 19th: Job and Identity

• Reading Assignment: Muirhead, Russell from Just Work, pp. 188-191 and Dorothy Sayer, “Why Work,” pp. 191-195 in Leading Lives That Matter.
• Writing assignment: In two to three pages, discuss two insights drawn from the Muirhead and Sayer essays. Does work factor too large in the calculus of identity? Is work the primary way in which we give ourselves to what we love?
• Complete and turn in a timesheet of all your hours at your internship site.
• The first Lilly Fellow Dialogue Report is due (see expectations section).

Tuesday, February 26th: What Are You Hearing?

• Writing assignment: Frederick Buechner once described a call as “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Parker Palmer has said that vocation at its deepest level is experienced in this way: “This is something that I can't not do, for reasons I'm unable to explain to anyone else and don't fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling.”
  
  This week’s reflection will focus on our encounters with the world’s deep hunger. In a three page paper, reflect on where and how the needs of the world are impinging upon you. What about your world gives you a sense of dis-ease? Where have you felt needed? What or who has called out to you? What experiences have you had that were difficult to shake and made a claim upon you? Imagine what your ideal response to this problem would be. If there were no constraints, what would you do about it? Then, reflect on what the constraints may be and how they hold you back. Conclude by articulating ways that you can begin to respond or prepare yourself to respond. How can you work within the constraints to respond in a way that is genuine to you at this point in your life?

Tuesday, March 4th: Is What I’m Good At My Vocation?

• Reading Assignment: Damon, Matt and Ben Affleck, from the screenplay of Good Will Hunting, , Jane Addams, “Filial Relations”, pp. 303-307, and Wendell Berry, “An Invisible Web”, pp 281-294.
• Writing assignment:
  The question posed by the readings is whether or not one is obligated to use their talents for the betterment of others. Underlying this question is another more specific to the exploration of vocation, “Do my talents provide a map of my calling?” Can our talents sometimes lead us in directions that are not of much service to others? Can a calling sometimes spur us to develop new abilities?
  
  In two to three pages discuss the relationship between talents and vocation. Is it clear to you that what you are good at is steering you towards the life you want to lead? Is it what you have to offer to others, or are you possibly called to offer something else that you need to develop?
• Second Lilly Fellow Dialogue Report due.

Tuesday, March 11th: Living a Balanced Life

• Reading Assignment: Miller-McLemore, Bonnie, “Generativity Crises of My Own, pp. 263-272, Arlie Russell Hochschild, “There’s No Place Like Work, pp. 272-277, Abigail Zuger, M.D., “Defining a Doctor,” and Philipson, Ilene, “On the Difference Between Eggs and Bacon,” Ch. 4 in Married to the Job, pp. 112-147 (hand-out from instructor).
• Writing assignment:
  In 2-3 pages address the questions posed by these readings: Is living a balanced life possible (251)? If it is possible, is it preferable to giving yourself fully to a passion and achieving significance (252)? Which is more important to you, balance or significance? Whichever one you prefer, how do you intend to achieve it?

Tuesday, March 25th: The Meaning of Success

• Reading Assignment: Aristotle from Nicomachean Ethics, a scene from Homer’s Iliad, and Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” in Leading Lives That Matter.
• Writing assignment:
  In 2-3 pages discuss the question, “What makes a life that matters?” In other words, “What makes a successful person?” What would a significant or successful life look like to you? To whom do you want your life to matter? Are there people who live in a way that helps you picture what success or significance looks like? What are the qualities of their lives that give them significance?
• Third Lilly Fellow Dialogue Report due.

Tuesday, April 1st : Competing Voices

• Reading Assignment: Weaver, Will “The Undeclared Major, Amy Tan, “Two Kinds”, Lois Lowry, The Giver and Vincent Harding, “I Hear Them. . . Calling” in Leading Lives That Matter.
• Writing assignment:
  Two options for a three page paper:
  • Discuss three voices that are competing in your life:
    • One that is telling you to be something that feels familiar.
    • One that is pushing you to view yourself within a new context.
    • If you were standing on the beach (think sandy peninsula, towards dusk, very few people around), and you wanted to yell something true into the wind, what would you yell? Or, if you felt compelled to stand up in a public square and declare yourself to the world, what would you say?
  • 2. If you could burn away all of the crap that doesn’t matter, what would be left? What could you do in this world? For example: Would you chase butterflies through fields of flowers? Would you throw money from the back of an open truck? Would you read with kids? Would you scrapbook with your Mom? Would you write poetry all day? Would you build houses? Would you help the kid with a lemonade stand next door start a worker’s cooperative that gives everyone work with dignity?

Tuesday, April 8th: Telling My Story

• Reading for final paper: Bateson, Mary Catherine, “Composing a Life Story” in Leading Lives that Matter.
• Writing assignment: Mentors often wish to hear about how interns have developed throughout the semester. Complete a two page summative statement of what has happened in your exploration of vocation this semester. Feel free to cut and paste from the writing assignments.
• E-mail final paper by Friday, December 14th.
• Bring a thank-you note for your mentor to class.
• Fourth Lilly Fellow Dialogue Report due.

* Assignments are subject to change at the group leader’s discretion.