Bloomsburg University’s Joan Miller and Mary Katherine Duncan on “Good Work”

By Daniel Mucinskas

Over the past several years, our colleagues Dr. Joan Miller and Dr. Mary Katherine Duncan (along with Dr. Jennifer Johnson) have been working on a set of Good Work-related endeavors at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. We spoke with Joan and Mary Katherine about the latest news from their respective projects and their enduring commitment to encouraging “good” in the world. In the Q&A below, we discuss Bloomsburg University’s Good Work Initiative, a planned study of Good Work in nursing, a multiple intelligences curriculum for young people, and more!

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Q: Mary Katherine, we previously discussed the Bloomsburg University Good Work Initiative, which strives to help students understand excellence, ethics, and engagement (the 3 Es) as pillars of doing academic work that is “good.” The Good Work-related summer assignment for all incoming students is now in its fifth year. What are you envisioning for this year’s assignment?

MK: Good Work is now embedded into the core of Bloomsburg University’s identity; many faculty members and administrators are excited by the Good Work frameworks and incorporate the ideas into their own classrooms, projects, and goals. We have a high degree of institutional support and are excited that we can offer a Good Work assignment to incoming freshmen once again this year. It is an important part of our community to have our students understand the meaning of doing good both at the university and beyond.

This year, incoming students will read a two-page introduction to the concept of Good Work and complete a brief quiz to check their understanding of the 3 Es. Then, students will watch a YouTube video of Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture and write an analysis of factors that influenced Dr. Pausch’s pursuit of Good Work. Students will next reflect on factors that influenced their own pursuits of academic excellence, ethics, and engagement during their junior and senior years of high school. Finally, students will be directed to the BU Good Work Initiative website to learn more about campus-based resources designed to support their academic and professional Good Work.

Q: Joan, your major focus has been on the encouragement of Good Work in the nursing profession. What is the latest on that front?

Joan: I am planning an international qualitative study of Good Work in Nursing that I hope to start this year, using the same interview protocol that was used in the original Good Work study and also in my own previous study (see my article “Opportunities and Obstacles for Good Work in Nursing”). Through this new line of research, I hope to gain a cross-cultural perspective from several different countries concerning what values and beliefs brought people into the nursing profession, what opportunities/supports and obstacles they have, and how they overcome challenges.

Q: You have each been involved in a “Playing with MI (Multiple Intelligences) Smarts” curriculum that you have created to teach students about their intelligences and doing good. How has this been used?

MK: The curriculum was engendered by the Bloomsburg University Toy Library, a lending library of literacy and play resources that I founded in 2010 after Howard Gardner visited our school to talk about MI theory and the Good Project. The library has been popular with faculty, students, professionals, and paraprofessional working with individuals of all developmental ages and abilities. One of our central objectives for the Toy Library is to help people understand that everyone is “smart” in different ways, and we should each have the ability to appreciate our own smarts and those of others.

Using some of the toys, games, and resources from the library, we have worked with elementary school children in after-school care in what we call “Playing with MI Smarts,” facilitating an exploration of their unique intelligences and strengths through shared reading and play. We then have a discussion together with the children about how they can use their discovered abilities to help people in their communities. For example, students have made greeting cards and scrapbooks for children in foster care and handmade interactive children’s books for new and expectant mothers.

Joan: Playing with MI Smarts was also used with children of parents who were enrolled in “Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin’-By World,” a program for individuals who are in or close to poverty. They explore personal and community resources available to help them break the poverty cycle. We really saw that the young people were engaged and happy to be participating in “Playing with MI Smarts.” Currently, we are exploring ways to integrate the “Getting Ahead” and “Playing with MI Smarts” programs into the local school system.

Over spring break, with students from the Bloomsburg University Honors Program, we took “Playing with MI Smarts” to two elementary schools in Jamaica. It was challenging to implement the lessons with large numbers of students in the Jamaican classes. Now we are thinking about how to adapt in the future to accommodate larger numbers of students.

Q: What other related activities can you share with us?

Joan: I recently returned from the University of Pécs in Hungary. I have been teaching a joint course with a professor from the University of Pécs. Together, we explore the 3 Es of Good Work and minds needed to navigate a global community. We anticipate continued collaboration. In the fall, I will give a guest lecture focused on Good Work and ways to cultivate respectful minds as the international students from the University of Pécs adapt to cross-cultural communication.

MK: Dr. Jennifer and I worked with a team of undergraduate students on a study examining motivators and challenges to psychology majors’ pursuits of excellent, ethical, and engaged academic work. Findings were presented at the Eastern Psychology Association Conference in March 2016.

I also still teach my annual Good Work seminar, structured around the 3 Es, to junior and senior psychology majors. As the Distinguished Professor of Good Work, thanks to the generosity of Joan and her husband Fred, I will continue to expand Good Work into other arenas

Students Consider the “Good Life” at the University of Florida

By Daniel Mucinskas

At the University of Florida, Jennifer Smith, Director of the Office for Faculty Development and Teaching Excellence, and Andrew Wolpert, Good Life Course Director and Associate Professor of Classics, have been spearheading a course titled “What Is the Good Life?” This multi-disciplinary course, required of all first-year undergraduate students, explores how people have thought about the meaning of a “good life” for thousands of years and the ways in which we seek, fight for, and celebrate it.

We recently chatted with Smith and Wolpert about this course and particularly its incorporation of The Good Project’s Value Sort as a core class activity. A summary of our conversation is below.

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Q: How did this course originate? What do you see as its purpose and hope that students learn?

Jennifer: “What Is the Good Life?” is a component of the University of Florida’s “UF Core,” a series of general education courses. This past year, nearly seven thousand freshmen have completed the course, which is required for students in all colleges at the University, regardless of topic of study.

Andrew: The UF Core focuses on the themes of “meaning-making” are “purpose exploration.” In “What Is the Good Life?”, we want students to delve deep into the ideas and concepts that we discuss in class and to realize that this course is indeed applicable to their own lives. By examining a wide range of works from the arts and the humanities, students come to realize that the “good life” is a complex concept that has little to do with ephemeral pleasures. It is about what you must do for yourself and others in order to live a meaningful life. We try to crack the term open and examine the “good life” across time and cultures.

Jennifer: In course feedback, some students report that they don’t understand the relevance of this course to their areas of study or wider lives. We want all of our students to realize that the question of what constitutes an ideal life is important to everyone and that what we value affects the decisions we make every day and eventually the trajectory of life. Even though it may seem abstract and unimportant, the way you think about a “good life” does have a real impact. This course allows first-year students to explore and put into words their own personal values, laying a groundwork of self-knowledge before they move on the following year to consider the values of society and their place within it.

Q: How is The Good Project’s Value Sort implemented as a part of this course?

Jennifer: We start the semester with our Career Resource Center’s “Valuing Your Values” activity, which is similar to The Good Project’s Value Sort. Students are asked to pick ten values from a list that are important to them. They must then narrow the list to five values and discuss the trade-offs they face in narrowing that list.

Andrew: The list includes items like “power and authority,” “achievement,” “family,” “autonomy,” “location,” and “challenge” and is meant to focus on values that relate to a wide range of careers. Many first-year students (and their parents) are concerned about starting a career, but they don’t take the time to consider whether their envisioned professions are compatible with their values. We try to get them to sit back and consider big questions like, “What do you want your life to look like?” and “What happens when you pick a career that does or does not align with your values?”

Later in the semester, we ask students to complete The Good Project’s Value Sort in order to help them answer questions about what they prioritize and why. By ranking the values found in this activity, they get an even better sense of what is most important to them. We also ask them if any value is not listed which they find personally meaningful.

Jennifer: I have found that The Good Project’s Value Sort is easy to use and provides clear results to students. They then choose one value or belief in particular and record an audio essay explaining its importance in their own lives. Students are asked to relate their personal value or belief to one of the course readings.

Q: One of the unique aspects of this course is the audio essay. Tell me a little more about that.

Jennifer: The inspiration for the audio essay, the final product of the semester, was the “This I Believe” audio essay series, which was broadcast on NPR from 2005 to 2009 (see thisibelieve.org). Students record themselves talking about a dearly held value or belief for three minutes. We have a competition in which the writers of the best essays of the semester have the opportunity to be chosen as finalists for a scholarship. Moving forward, we hope to use these finalist recordings as examples for future students to emulate. Faculty members can bring these audio essays and multimedia into “What is the Good Life?” as well as their other courses. I think it helps students to create a personal emotional connection with the material.

Andrew: What’s neat about this assignment is that it gives students the time to reflect on their values; they often don’t have the opportunity to engage in such an activity until they enroll in the course. The “This I Believe” audio essay allows UF students to express their ideas of the “good life” in concrete terms and see how their own ideas relate to the works that we have studied. Overall, students have responded positively!

Philanthropy as a Profession? Four Approaches

Twenty years ago, my colleagues Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Bill Damon, and I launched the GoodWork Project (originally called “the Humane Creativity Project”). The goal of the project was to describe “good work” in various professions and to determine how best to foster good work in the future. Our story has been told in many places, and this blog is one of many fruits of that collaboration.

For each of the sectors that we studied, we had to raise funds. Somewhat unexpectedly, we found it easy to raise funds to study philanthropy. And, in accordance with the research design, we interviewed many involved in the philanthropic sector and reflected on what it meant to be a good worker therein. Our findings were reported in various articles and also in a book edited by Bill Damon and Susan Verducci called Taking Philanthropy Seriously.

As the study unfolded, Mihaly floated an intriguing idea; he said, “Philanthropy is a field, but it’s not a domain.” Let me unpack this phrase. According to our terminology, a field is any organized activity in which there are participants, careers paths, and gatekeepers who decide who can participate and who gets rewarded. A domain entails a higher bar. A domain is a sector of society dedicated to the pursuit of a clear set of values—values that are publicly stated, carefully monitored, and directed toward a recognized public good. Any occupational area can be a field, but as a rough approximation, we restrict the use of the word domain to organized professions. In 19th century America, it was relatively easy to call oneself a lawyer or a doctor: the field was wide open. In the 20th century, these fields became professionalized: there were clear standards of preparation, a set of ethical principles, and, importantly, criteria by which one could be ostracized from the profession or domain.

And so, in Mihaly’s term, anyone could call herself a philanthropist or (to use another term of art) a philanthropoid—someone who gives away money accumulated by someone else. As long as one obeyed the law and, so to speak, dressed in a suit, one could not be expelled from the practice of philanthropy. It is a field, but not a domain.

In the decades since our work was launched, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many individuals whom we could term philanthropists and/or philanthropoids. Two of their approaches are quite familiar and have been around for a long time:

–Charity. In this oldest form of philanthropy, one gives money or other kinds of support to those most clearly in need: those who are ill, those who are destitute, those who are helpless, or those who beg.

–Standard “SOB” Support. Much of philanthropy consists of giving money to those community organizations that have most visibly relied on such support. The playful acronym “SOB” refers to symphonies, opera, and ballet. But I would extend that characterization to other organizations—many of them quite worthy—that have been around for a long time: annual community drives, The Salvation Army, The Red Cross, and—in the sector that I personally know best—Save the Children or Doctors without Borders. One does not need to scrutinize their activities annually; barring scandal, one assumes that these well-known “do-good” organizations are going about their work in a reasonable fashion.

In the case of my own fundraising, I have dealt primarily with two other forms of philanthropy which, for the sake of this essay, we might think of as “discretionary” philanthropy. One was quite dominant when I began to raise funds decades ago; the other has become dominant in recent years.

–Twentieth Century “Taste” Philanthropy. In this style of philanthropy, funders place bets on individuals or projects that seem promising. Funders focus on the track record of the fund seeker; the importance of the project being put forth; the thoughtfulness with which the case has been made; and the nature of the personal relation between the funder and the funded (often one of candor and trust). For those of us on the GoodWork Project, 20th century philanthropoid John Gardner (no relation), President of the Carnegie Corporation, represented the prototype of this form of philanthropy. Gardner and those like him had excellent taste and many of the projects that they supported—for example, Public Television—were highly successful. The risk of this form of philanthropy was that it relied too much on personal relations between certain individuals and certain institutions; and if you were not part of an “old boy” or “old girl” network, the chances of securing funding were much smaller.

–Contemporary “Accountability: Philanthropy. Partly in reaction to the limitations of philanthropy of decades ago, another form of philanthropy has arisen in recent years. Much influenced by the modes of operation of management consultancies like McKinsey, this form of philanthropy focuses heavily on the specific goals of the project, the methods being used, the steps taken along the way, and the criteria by which success will be judged. It is highly reliant on strategy, on numbers (constantly monitored), and on accountability or “return on investment.” If the applicant does not have much experience in thinking along these lines, or if her project does not lend itself to such matrixes, her chances of securing funding are low.

About a decade ago, I attended a meeting in which a well-known philanthropoid—representing a foundation with billions of dollars—discussed the foundation’s shift from 20th century to contemporary approaches to funding. “No more betting blindly,” he declared, “from now on, we will know exactly what we are funding, whether we are succeeding, and how to cut our losses.” He was wildly cheered by the audience, composed of successful individuals representing various sectors of society.

I then asked to speak. I acknowledged the appeal of the message he was delivering. But I then added, “I’ve been raising funds for nearly forty years. By most accounts, the work that I’ve done has been of quality. I have to say that, under the ground rules that you outlined, I’d never have been able to raise a penny.” And this is because, in my own fundraising, I at most had a promising idea and a reasonable track record. But I never knew ahead of time what I and my colleagues would discover and how we would make sense of it.

I thought back to what John Gardner said to Mihaly, Bill, and me back in 1995, when we first talked with him about what ultimately became the GoodWork Project and today is the Good Project: “It’ll take you five years to figure out what you are trying to accomplish.” And then he helped us to secure our first grant—from the Hewlett Foundation.

In an upcoming blog, using philanthropy as a case study, I’ll discuss how a field can become a domain—or, in lay terms, how does an occupation become a profession, and what might cause it to lose its professional status.

What Makes a Good Teacher? First-Year Reflections

By Victoria Nichols

Victoria Nichols, a former member of our team, has recently completed her first year as a middle school teacher in California. Last year, she shared her thoughts on the meaning of “good” teaching in a previous blog post. In this new contribution, Victoria provides some reflections on the difficulties of being at the head of the classroom and whether she feels she has yet become a “good teacher.”

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As of 2am on Friday, June 3rd, after a 12-hour field trip to Six Flags, I officially survived my first year of teaching. I teach English Language Arts to 8th grade students at a public charter middle school in South Los Angeles. And as rewarding as this first year was, it was also mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting; at times, it was even demoralizing.

Thus, I have spent a good deal of time reflecting on what went well, what went wrong, and what I can do next time to become a better teacher. I have a strong background in English, psychology, and education, and graduated from an acclaimed Masters in Teaching program, but like so many before me, I was not prepared. I was not prepared to serve as innovative educator, pedagogical expert, Common Core specialist, disciplinarian, advocate, counselor, therapist, nurse, friend, enemy, confidant, and surrogate family member, all at the same time. This, of course, raises the question of where I may have went wrong, and more importantly, what really makes a good teacher?

According to the findings of the Good Work Project, work that is “good” is defined as excellent, ethical, and engaging. Teaching was, without a doubt, engaging. I was fully invested in teaching, meeting with my colleagues, calling parents, tutoring, grading, and planning, often from 7:00 in the morning until 9:00 or 10:00 at night. What I enjoyed the most, however, was finding new, innovative ways to teach concrete reading and writing skills to my often-apathetic students. From comparing Langston Hughes to Tupac Shakur, to analyzing commercials as an introduction to rhetorical devices, what I found most engaging was making the lessons engaging in turn for my students.

I am also confident that the work I am doing is ethical and that I have a strong ethical compass to guide me. My school’s mission is to educate future leaders who will transform their community by closing the socio-economic, ethnic, and gender gaps in STEM-related fields. The school places an emphasis on the importance of scholarliness, advocacy, perseverance, and kindness, in hopes that my scholars will one day return to their communities both academically and morally strong, thus ending the cyclical effects of poverty, racism, and sexism. I personally saw some of my students transform in the nine short months we worked together. One student, who began the school year striving to get kicked out of class every day by any means possible in order to avoid reading, sought me out at graduation to apologize for his behavior and to make a promise that he would seek help, not avoidance, in high school. I feel fully aligned with my school’s vision and am assured that I am having a lasting impact not only on my students’ lives but also on the community as a whole.

The question of excellence, however, still remains. What makes a master teacher? Is it experience? Or is it the grit, tenacity, and perseverance required to achieve that level of experience? Currently, in the United States, the majority of teachers quit before five years on the job, thus never reaching a true level of mastery. But who can blame them? Very few jobs ask one to accept the possibility of being screamed and cussed at, lied to, ignored, talked over, and even stolen from on a daily basis. You just need to decide if that thank you note from one of your most difficult students or being bombarded with hugs at graduation will be enough to sustain you.

For me, the fleeting moments of recognition, inspiration, and understanding far outweigh the drudgery of moderating teenage angst. Therefore, I hope that I can learn from the mistakes I made this first year so that I can continue to strive for excellence in teaching, and hopefully, one day, become a truly “good” teacher.

“Remarkably Narcissistic”—“Who Could That Be?” and “Who Can’t Say It?”

Note: In December 2015, I posted an extensive essay on the future of the professions, which received extensive and extremely thoughtful responses that elicited many further thoughts on my part. As a result, for the ensuing five months, I have posted my responses here. I also participated in an interview about Good Work in the law, conducted by Harvard Law Professor David Wilkins.

With this week’s posting, I re-commence the blog as it was originally conceptualized. I’ll contribute regularly, and I hope that others will comment and contribute blogs of their own. This week’s blog is a bit unusual because it focuses on events in my own life; some succeeding blogs will further consider various dimensions of what it means to be a professional—today, in the past, and, most importantly, in the future.

Several months ago, well before Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy was being taken seriously by most observers, a journalist from Vanity Fair asked me for my opinion about that candidate. We talked for a while, and at some point in the conversation, I expressed my view that Trump was “remarkably narcissistic.”

I did not think twice about this casual remark, and I was somewhat surprised that this two-word phrase was quoted prominently in the November issue of the magazine. I was even more surprised when I received a lot of email about this remark, found it quoted not only in the United States but also abroad, and even received an invitation to speak on the Glenn Beck show (which I declined). When I last checked, the phrase “Howard Gardner Donald Trump remarkably narcissistic” received over 18,000 hits on google, and “Donald Trump remarkably narcissistic” received 143,000 hits.

I’m not averse to publicity, and yet I regret having made this casual remark. Not that I think the remark is wrong—indeed, I’ve run into few individuals who would disagree with this characterization of the presumptive Republican nominee for President. (I wonder what he would say!)

The reason for my regret: within clinical psychology, the term “narcissistic personality disorder” has a technical meaning. Indeed, it usually foregrounds several features—for example, “believing one is special,” “selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own end,” and “shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors of attitudes.” The official diagnosis entered into the Third DSM Manual (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders); and while its place and definition have been debated ever since, the phrase is still a “term of art” within the clinic and among clinicians.

I am not a clinical psychologist. Moreover, I was using the phrase in a lay way (after all, Narcissus peered admiringly at his reflection thousands of year before the field of psychology was born). And yet, it is not reasonable for me to expect other persons to know those facts. One reason I was quoted is because I am a psychologist, and so one can reasonably infer that I was using the term as a trained diagnostician might use it. And were I a clinician, I should not have invoked the phrase causally—I should only have so characterized Donald Trump if I had studied him carefully and, optimally, if I had examined him myself.

Why discuss this faux pas in a blog devoted to professional ethics? Because professionals should be held to a high standard of conduct. Clinical psychologist or not, I should have anticipated the ways in which my words could have been cited and accordingly declined to utilize any words that smacked of diagnosis whatsoever. And to the extent that I could delete my words—whether or not anyone else would notice or care—I should do that.

I’ve also concluded that, in general, when discussing politicians, we should focus on the truth or falsity of what they say and on the appropriateness of their policy recommendations, not on characterizing their personalities or engaging in armchair psychologizing.

This episode raises the broader question: to what extent should any professional speak to the press? Or email reporters? I do have colleagues who refuse to speak to the press altogether—either because they feel that they should not do so on principle (“I think it is not a good thing to speak to reporters”), or because they feel insufficiently informed (“I don’t really know enough about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders”) or because they have been misquoted or fear that will happen.

In my view, professionals are often the best informed individuals on certain topics, and it’s unfortunate if they/we refuse to interact with the press. Indeed, if professionals do not, then amateurs certainly will! And yet I think that we have a special responsibility to be as Deliberate, Dispassionate, and Disinterested as possible.

Alas, the three Ds are rarely what an American journalist is looking for—rather it’s Drama and Hyperbole. Indeed, sometimes, in speaking to a reporter, I have been so frustrated that I’ve said, “For goodness sake, tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll let you know whether I agree with that.” That’s one reason why I typically answer by email, so that words cannot be put into my mouth or be distorted.

But just because some reporters do not behave in a professional manner, that’s all the more reason why those professionals to whom reporters speak should hold ourselves to a high standard. Yet we are also tempted to act in a less professional way, because it is the more dramatic remark that tends to be quoted and—as I learned in the Trump affair—requoted.

I hope that I’ve learned my lesson. I will not perform lay diagnoses of others. I will desist from providing dramatic headlines. And whenever possible, I’ll write for myself—as in this blog.