Staff Seminar Participants 2024-2025

Bio

I am a Washingtonian who loves the outdoors, being active, and cooking.

What’s one thing you’ve learned from the seminar?

I have learned you cannot discern vocation in isolation and am grateful to have the opportunity to do so with the cohort through the seminar!

Bio

I’ve lived in Puyallup all my life and am grateful to live in such a scenic, eventful place. Outside work, I enjoy being at home with family, going on walks, writing, being at the YMCA, dining out, shopping, and attending musicals. I cherish scrapbooking and preserving memories collected over time. My sweet dog, Charlie (a Havanese Yorkie), brings me endless joy!

What’s one thing you’ve learned from the seminar?

The reiteration of how important it is to take time to have deep moments of reflection, in order to get a better grasp of what is truly important to us and what we are aiming for in life.

Bio

I am a dog-lover with a variety of nifty crafting skills under my belt. Outside of work I like to engage in pottery, embroidery, garment construction, weaving, and miniature painting.

What’s one thing you’ve learned from the seminar?

Vocation should not only benefit other people, but also yourself.

Bio

I’m passionate about fostering meaningful connections and following my creative curiosities. I enjoy staying active, exploring new places, acting in and crafting stories, and gaming with friends.

What’s one thing you’ve learned from the seminar?

I’ve learned that vocation is relational in nature. We cannot discover our vocation alone—we need others to help us come to an understanding of ourselves.

Bio

Katie was born and raised in San Diego, California and moved to Tacoma in 2019 to pursue her bachelor’s degree in economics and Spanish. Outside of work, she likes to do arts and crafts, play video games, and curl up with a good book next to her cat, Luna.

What’s one thing you’ve learned from the seminar?

In this seminar, I have learned that one’s calling can come from many different places and can exist in many different forms.

Bio

What’s one thing you’ve learned from the seminar?

One thing that I have already felt from our single seminar meeting (so far) is the glimmer of hope that it might not be too late for me to reclaim my purpose.

Bio

What’s one thing you’ve learned from the seminar?

• What gets you up in the morning?

I love helping people and all of the roles I’ve had apply to that in some way or another. It’s my main priority.

• How does your work at PLU impact the PLU community?

Over the years, I’ve had many different positions. Patrolling PLU and responding with care is a great path for me and to help others. Now, I mainly train others to do the security work at PLU. Although it’s a little more indirect, it’s helping direct others to create a safer campus for everyone.

• How do you think you are currently still exploring your calling?

I didn’t initially think I was still exploring my calling until I started doing this seminar. I check in with myself everyday to make sure what I do aligns with what I want to do and what helps the community.

• How do you see yourself applying information from these seminars into your daily life?

One of the biggest takeaways is not only learning about vocation but how to talk about it with other people and use it as a support network to help discern what you want to do. I used to think of vocation as something you had to figure out by yourself, but what really shapes it is the people around you and the community and talking about it with other people.

• What is your biggest takeaway so far?

I think my biggest takeaway would be learning the different definitions of vocations and specifically the difference between what I want to do and what serves the greater good. What can I do, but also, how can it help the world?

• What gets you up in the morning?

I get my greatest sense of purpose by going to work.

• How does your work at PLU impact the PLU community?

My job has grown over the years and I’ve been able to learn how to guide our faculty, create ideas, and take in their ideas. If faculty had a student that was panicking in their class, I would be the one to listen to what other folks have to say, get them something to eat or drink, and when they start calming down, you can engage with them and give them resources. I really enjoy the students I run into and I have been impactful in their lives, especially with my student workers. I have always been someone to help you find the right answer, not to school, but to everyday stuff.

• How do you think you are currently still exploring your calling?

Like I tell my student workers, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up! I didn’t realize there was so much more to a calling. I just took a calling to be, like, religion, or be a pastor or a nun. This has opened my eyes more to what I am and that I help people. I think my purpose is doing for others. Everyday I’m doing something for someone else.

• How do you see yourself applying information from these seminars into your daily life?

If I had taken this some years ago, I might have jumped into something different. I have a broader understanding and I’m trying to digest it all. I’m starting to understand the things that do have value and do make a difference. I’ve always preached to my faculty that when they get disgruntled, all it takes is just one person, one person to make an effect. I don’t think we always see how we help people because it may just be in passing or one instance that helps. You don’t see the end result of your actions a lot of times, but it’s about making an impact.

• What is your biggest takeaway so far?

I think my biggest takeaway so far is things that I do bring value to others in certain ways. I enjoy what I do, even if I may complain about it, but I believe I do not regret any of the jobs I’ve been at. They’ve all given me a sense of purpose and let me enjoy working with people. I can be creative, have fun, help others, and this made me think that I do have a purpose and give people the tools they need.

It has really opened my eyes to community and how we thrive as a group when it comes to giving back to community. Everyone has their own way of interacting and giving back.

• What gets you up in the morning?

The desire to help achieve well-being in all aspects of life.

• How does your work at PLU impact the PLU community?

From a practical perspective, connecting students with resources to help achieve their career goals and ideally secure economic stability for themselves and their families. My favorite part of my work is seeing what kind of work students are wanting to take and what the possibilities might look like.

• How do you think you are currently still exploring your calling?

Engaging in thoughtful reflection about who I want to be as a person. I think a lot about injustice that makes me angry and the actions that I can take in order to do something about it. I also think about what makes me joyful and how that can help me do good in the world. I bring them all together to align them.

• How do you see yourself applying information from these seminars into your daily life?

I like to discuss the readings with my partner to understand how we can achieve clarity on how we want to orient ourselves as a couple. 

• What is your biggest takeaway so far?

I gain a more nuanced understanding of what vocation is, where it comes from, and why it matters so much. Vocational discernment is a lifelong process which has taken off pressure from myself to hurry up and figure out what I’m going to do with my life.

• What gets you up in the morning?

Knowing there is a hot cup of tea waiting for me downstairs. Also, trying to find how I can inject what I love into what I am doing.

• How does your work at PLU impact the PLU community?

I wear a lot of different hats. I coordinate summer sessions, help find courses taught, market the classes, and make sure summer classes happen on campus. I think it’d be disjointed if I wasn’t there to tie it all together. Working in continuing education, I get to work with a lot of PLU alumni and the surrounding community to bring professional development courses. Community engagement is my passion, and it helps to bring that passion into my work.

• How do you think you are currently still exploring your calling?

I still take time everyday to learn more about myself and more about different topics that interest me. I don’t feel guilty about wanting to grow and wanting to become more than what I am every day.

• How do you see yourself applying information from these seminars into your daily life?

The seminar is helping me with understanding how my job can help folks that are searching for vocation. I wasn’t initially sure how my job was tied in with that before. It is definitely an aspect of professional development and summer classes that they are both tied into vocation and searching for that calling where students and community members can take that extra time to explore and understand more about themselves and the community. For myself, it is nice to take that time every couple of weeks to learn and think about my own calling. I like processing things my own way while bouncing ideas off of each other where we can both learn together.

• What is your biggest takeaway so far?

It expanded my views on what vocation is. I never thought of vocation as doing the most for yourself and community, but apart from that it doesn’t have to be anything specific; it can be anything. It changed my perspective completely, a whole 360!

• What gets you up in the morning?

My partner’s alarm, sunshine, and coffee get me up in the morning.

• How does your work at PLU impact the PLU community?

Hopefully in a positive way! I support campus life in a variety of ways, including supporting CDs and RAs, Engage Ambassadors, Clubs and Orgs, and selection efforts for student employment in Campus Life! I think, primarily, I see my work here directly impacting students’ experiences and their sense of belonging and finding their way at PLU.

• How do you think you are currently still exploring your calling?

Through discerning my own vocation and listening to what things bring me deep joy and fulfillment!

• How do you see yourself applying information from these seminars into your daily life?

By checking in with myself and listening to how my body, mind, and heart feel.

• What is your biggest takeaway so far?

Biggest take away has definitely been connecting with and getting to know the other fellows in this seminar! It’s been so cool to meet other PLU colleagues who are personally discerning and/or supporting students/professionals who are discerning their vocations! Having conversations with people with so many different perspectives is great.