Their Highest Vocation

Helen Fox teaches about race and racism, human rights, peace activism, and international development at the University of Michigan's Residential College. She is the author of Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing (1994), When Race Breaks Out: Conversations about Race and Racism in College Classrooms (2001, 2009), and the editor, with C. Schroeder and P. Bizzell, of ALT DIS: Alternative Discourses and the Academy (2002), as well as many articles, speeches, book chapters, and rambling notes on future projects.

«I am truly grateful to Helen and excited about this book. I think it should be mandatory reading for anyone serious about the role of and opportunities confronting higher education today. Further, I hope all of us will consider the deeper educational questions Helen raises in relationship to serving the intellectual and moral development needs of the Millennial generation. I come away from her text with a much clearer understanding of this generation of students and what I can do as an educator to support their growth and development. Further, I'm filled with a greater optimism that the world will benefit from this generation of leaders. Through her own reflective educational practice, Fox provides profound insights to those of us who are committed to the notion that the role of higher education is to create knowledge and transform individuals to bring about positive social change toward a more just and humane world. Dr. Fox has written with great insight and clarity about questions that my colleagues and I wrestle with everyday: how do we support students' growth and development as they consider their role in making the world a better place? We toss around words like 'justice, inclusion, mattering, non-violence' as desired out-comes of higher education and the development of an educated person - but what educational structures are necessary to support students' own discovery of the meaning of justice and role in bringing that about? I look forward to the many important conversations this book will inevitably stimulate!» (Susan A. Wilson, Associate Dean for Community Life, Academic Dean's Office, Goddard College)
«This short, radiant, radical book is several things at once. It is a critical but loving assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Millennial generation of undergraduates admitted to the elite American public universities. It is a wise and practical reflection on what faculty can do to encourage their students' flourishing, both as subjects who