AU philosophy professor, Claire Peterson, Ph.D., teams up with producer DT Slouffman to offer course for AU alums and friends.
In the midst of the Great Resignation, people from all lines of work are asking serious questions about their calling in life and looking for serious answers. The Great Resignation: Does Your Work Matter? seminar is launched as a lifelong learning opportunity offered by Asbury University to explore the difficult issues of meaning and purpose that so many currently face in work.
Have you had setbacks and dealt with struggles in the workplace? Have you wondered how much meaning a job should provide? Has the pandemic made you rethink your purpose in life or ask what difference does your work make?
The program is designed to offer insights and a framework to think about these questions.
The three-session virtual seminar is to be hosted by philosophy professor Dr. Claire Peterson and 7-time Emmy-winning producer DT Slouffman.
Peterson has served as the 2021-22 Reader for the SEARCH: Good Work Initiatives program. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. Her work has focused on understanding the vice of pride, the virtue of humility, and what human “perfection” might look like lived out in the messy world in which we find ourselves. Her service to the Good Work Initiatives program culminates with an article titled Workism and the Gospel published by Firebrand Magazine.
Seven-time Emmy winner, DT Slouffman catches good stories and releases them into the world. He’s led teams at Sports Illustrated, NBC’s Olympics Group, CNN, and TIME. His short documentaries have earned millions of views on social media platforms and seven International Television and Film World Medals. Slouffman holds a mini-MBA in Social Media Marketing from Rutgers University along with an MA in Digital Storytelling and an MFA in Television and Film Production from Asbury University, where he has taught documentary and storytelling courses.
The Great Resignation seminar is the manifestation of a gathering of seven AU faculty in 2020-21 to read relevant literature and discuss AU’s approach to answering the question of the university posture toward the 21st century marketplace. A philosophy of work resulted from the gathering and together they laid a framework for a related course introduced to AU curriculum and shaped the vision behind a series of videos of alumni and guests who shared their stories on their experience in the workplace. These videos were integrated into the course material and will be used as discussion starters for the virtual seminars.
The three seminar sessions are titled:
One guest filmed for the project was Katherine Leary Alsdorf, co-author with Tim Keller of Every Good Endeavor. This book is sent as a gift to registrants of The Great Resignation: Does Your Work Matter? seminar.
The Good Work Initiatives help all Asbury University students – no matter their major – prepare for an unknown career, clarify calling and identity in Jesus Christ, and finish the interview prompt, “Tell me about a time when you created or improved something and shared it with someone.” SEARCH at Asbury University is the incubator for this new collaborative program through which we will investigate meaning and outcome in the workplace. The program asks the questions, “How should we work?” and “Why should we work?”