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On Faith
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The Faith Divide: what brings us
together and drives us apart
Will Work for Meaning
By
Eboo Patel
As
graduation season looms and I think
about giving commencement speeches,
I am struck by how the combination
of the Obama administration, the
economic recession and what my
friend Michael Brown of City Year
calls "part of the DNA of this
generation" is combining to lead
college students and recent
graduates to seek meaningful work.
In a New York Times piece about the
"recession generation", Kate Zernike
writes, "members of the recession
generation will most likely be
shaped by a return to Things That
Matter, a re-definition of values."
In a
recent USA Today
piece, Michael Hais, who
co-authored Millennial Makeover:
MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of
American Politics with Morley
Winograd, said, "Other generations
were reared to be more
individualistic. This civic
generation has a willingness to put
aside some of their own personal
advancement to improve society." The
article also nods to the
overwhelmingly positive response of
Millennials to Obama, and their
answer to his call for national
service.
Indeed, I see this in my own staff,
many of whom decided to work at the
Interfaith Youth Core instead of
pursuing careers in consulting or
finance like their peers after
graduating from elite universities.
Becca Hartman, a 2007 graduate from
Northwestern, spent a year at IFYC
as a
Northwestern Public Interest Program
Fellow. She says, "I consider it
a profound privilege to serve. I
spend the majority of my day
engaging my academic and personal
passion, that is, working with
people from all traditions to etch
away at systemic injustice."
I have
no doubt that a generation of
graduates like Becca will transform
the world. It is our responsibility
to engage them as partners and
support them as leaders.
