The Purposeful Graduate - by Tim Clydesdale (Paperback)

About the Book

American higher education is more expensive than ever and the rewards seem to be diminishing daily. Sociologist Tim Clydesdale s new book, however, offers some rare good news: when colleges and universities meaningfully engage their organizational histories to launch sustained conversations with students about questions of purpose, the result is a rise in overall campus engagement and recalibration of post-college trajectories that set graduates on journeys of significance and impact.
The book is based on a study of programs launched at 88 colleges and universities that invited students, faculty, staff, and administrators to incorporate questions of meaning and purpose into the undergraduate experience. The results were so positive that Clydesdale came away from the study arguing that every campus (religious or not) should engage students in a broad conversation about what it means to live an examined life. This conversation needs to be creative, intentional, systematic, and wide-ranging, he says, because for too long this core liberal educational task has been relegated to the margins, and its attendant religious or spiritual discourse banished from classrooms and quads, to the detriment of higher education s virtually universal mission: graduates marked by thoughtfulness, productivity, and engaged citizenship."

Book Synopsis

We all know that higher education has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Historically a time of exploration and self-discovery, the college years have been narrowed toward an increasingly singular goal-career training-and college students these days forgo the big questions about who they are and how they can change the world and instead focus single-mindedly on their economic survival. In The Purposeful Graduate, Tim Clydesdale elucidates just what a tremendous loss this is, for our youth, our universities, and our future as a society. At the same time, he shows that it doesn't have to be this way: higher education can retain its higher cultural role, and students with a true sense of purpose-of personal, cultural, and intellectual value that cannot be measured by a wage-can be streaming out of every one of its institutions.

The key, he argues, is simple: direct, systematic, and creative programs that engage undergraduates on the question of purpose. Backing up his argument with rich data from a Lilly Endowment grant that funded such programs on eighty-eight different campuses, he shows that thoughtful engagement of the notion of vocational calling by students, faculty, and staff can bring rich rewards for all those involved: greater intellectual development, more robust community involvement, and a more proactive approach to lifelong goals. Nearly every institution he examines-from internationally acclaimed research universities to small liberal arts colleges-is a success story, each designing and implementing its own program, that provides students with deep resources that help them to launch flourishing lives.

Flying in the face of the pessimistic forecast of higher education's emaciated future, Clydesdale offers a profoundly rich alternative, one that can be achieved if we simply muster the courage to talk with students about who they are and what they are meant to do.

Review Quotes

"An impressive, large-scale mixed-methods, and richly qualitative examination of a program funded by the Lilly Endowment. . . . Clydesdale usefully points to the institutional exigencies that make higher education both a difficult and a fruitful place for change. He finds that these programs, with the right institutional location, leadership, and focus, can make an extremely positive impact on student resilience, engagement, and mental health and on faculty and staff connections to their work and their professional communities. . . . Clydesdale's book holds higher education to its potential and its promise to nurture our search for purpose on our campuses and--with an important optimism--concludes that this is within our reach."
-- "American Journal of Sociology"

"Clydesdale brings good news: a deliberate attempt to talk about the purpose of human life improves the academic and social life of students while in college, improves the subsequent lives of college students, and also makes colleges more pleasant places to work in for both faculty and staff."
-- "Historically Thinking"

"In this book, Clydesdale employs his knowledge of social research and evaluation, higher education, and the sociology of religion to argue that colleges and universities can provide an institutional setting that will enable students to develop a sense of long-term purpose in life. Although exceptions exist, he finds these institutions culpable 'in not creatively and systematically engaging students in a wide-ranging conversation about living lives of purpose in a complex, globally competitive, and deeply unjust world.' The book comprises Clydesdale's evaluation of research (including data, campus visits. focus groups, interviews, and surveys) from an 88-campus, eight-year initiative of the Lilly Endowment, representing schools with a range of Christian affiliations from evangelical to nominal. He concludes optimistically, inviting readers to join him and others among higher education's 'grounded idealists.'. . . Recommended."-- "Choice"

"With amiable charm and a refreshing lack of pretense, Professor Tim Clydesdale has penned a more-than-hopeful volume with the message that the Big Questions can be back on the academic table. . . . Clydesdale's research uncovers immense educational benefits--not just for students, but for faculty and staff as well--who engage Big Questions with theological (or, in some cases, merely spiritual) resources."
-- "First Things"

About the Author

Tim Clydesdale is professor of sociology at the College of New Jersey. He is the author of The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens after High School.