Jason King on God, Work and Money
In this Kosmos Online podcast, Dr. Jason King of Saint Vincent College talks about a course he teaches, titled "God, Work and Money".
Jeanne Hoffman: Welcome to this Kosmos Online Podcast, I'm Jeanne Hoffman; my guest today is Dr. Jason King, associate professor of theology at Saint Vincent college who is here to talk about a unique course he offers called God, Work and Money. Welcome Dr. King and thanks for being on our podcast.
Dr. King: Thanks for having me.
JH: First what made you decide to combine these subjects into one course?
Dr. King: I just was looking around at a bunch of my students and they were graduating. They had really neat majors and were really neat students but they just hadn’t reflected on how their work and their jobs and their career goals, how did that fit in to the rest of their lives? And they almost never been given a chance to think about it. They knew what they wanted to do, they were driven but they didn't know so why it was important or to think about it and so I wanted to provide at least a context for them to think about their job and their work and the money that they receive and how they use money and particularly at St. Vincent's college some of the students have a Catholic or Christian background, but this how is this fit in to their faith and I was really primarily trying to find some way to do this.
There’s also this assumption I think that at least the only way to serve God was just give up all of your money and walk around like St. Francis did and I have great respect for that but most of us serve other people by working at our job and doing good jobs and making good products and running good businesses and so I wanted then to think about it in those terms and get them at least to push them to think about why their job might be important for their family and their society and so that was really a sense to try and find a space for students to really think about it and talk about it and reflect on it, read a bunch of people that had written on this subject as well so that was I think really out of concern for our students.
One of the things that I do I think in all my classes is I think about what I keep coming back to is that there our students spend a lot of time doing some big things and I get worried that academics sometimes focus on these small minutia, fringe kind of issues. they criticize the medievals for sometimes debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin and I sometimes think that we continue to do these kind of debates in the 21st century and so I try to focus all my courses on big issues, what are students going to spend most of their life on well, I get them to talk one of the things they are going to spend most of our life on are lot of hours in a week and a lot of hours in their lives is on their jobs and they work and lot of things they going to do is figure out how they are going to spend their money and so I wanted to drive them a time to be reflective about how they're doing that and that's really I think where the course came out of it.
JH: Did you have trouble pitching the course to your department?
Dr. King: No I was fortunate for this, that the previous chair -- I'm currently the chair by default almost -- the current chair was just a wonderful person and he really hired me to come in and teach really what I think it was ethics courses, more theology courses and he said , "have at it, do what you think you needs to be done, develop it we really don't have a lot good course offerings," so he gave me a lot of leeway, let me to follow what I thought was the important things to teach even courses that they had in the books that I didn't think were being taught the way that I would teach them, he let me change them around so he was really who brought me on and hired me to teach, to develop that curriculum so I was really fortunate, I didn't have lot of trouble pitching it.
Even at that sort beyond the college too we have a really strong in business school, business economics, political science school and they already had bunch of majors that are in those areas and so you get a bunch of people that are interested in thinking about those terms, so there was already a need here and I had subsequently been hired to develop these kinds of courses so I had lot of support both in the department and outside the department. That being said, it seems it strikes me as unique thought I didn’t have any problems pitching the course, so I can easily see other areas where you would be hemmed in by department chairs or people having preferences or a curriculum long since established and people not wanting to change. The guy I wrote my dissertation on who was a Jesuit, someone asked him, he did it a lot on psychology and conversion and change but somebody asked him how the institutions change and his line was “People retire.”
So I didn't have a lot of problems here but I can imagine I might have problems elsewhere and sometimes it might just be you have to wait till certain people retire but I have no problems here I have lots of support.
JH: Who is the course directed towards and what are some other topics you cover?
Dr. King: Yeah the course, like most of our courses the course has a twofold function its primarily for the core. Our students have to take three theology courses for the core, the first one mandated its an overview of scriptures and the second one is kind of an ethics course and the third one is like world religions and Christianity kind of course so this feels lots of a second course so its open primarily to just about any students.
We have lot a large number of theology majors and so they tend to gravitate to the course so every time I have offered it’s I don't know forty sixty split forty percent majors sixty percent core students a lot of the business students take it although I mean I'm happy to have them in it but it really was geared for anybody thinking about their profession and their career but that they, they are business students who take it are really a huge asset to the course they really help it out.
So the course is offered to pretty much everybody, anybody that can sort get into it the result really is that tend to get up a class even though but some majors and a lot of people from the core.
The class itself there's a bunch of different kinds of topics that are discussed. One of the things we do is the gospel of Luke and that particular gospel is often referred to money gospel because he deals with a whole bunch of parables, dealing with the rich man and the poor man and the great reversals and ideas of last things first and the first being last and sort looking at what this entails and what this might mean 2,000 years later in a different context and different time and a totally radically different kind of economy so to get them just to think about those stories and look at them in a new way.
I do a bunch of stuff from Catholic social teachings. The Pope has a bunch of letters called encyclicals really starting with Navarre in 1891 in the wake of industrial revolution and started to think about these things they've recently compiled and what's called the compendium of Catholic social doctrine.
And so I get them to read that each chapter on economic life and there's another huge chapter on just what is called “work” and how it affects people and how it contributes to society so I get them to read church teachings along the way and after that it is just a hodge-podge of articles, just everything I can get my hands on it's pretty interesting, it's pretty provocative, that get's them to think about issues and I try to make sure I got stuff from different ideas, different views, different perspectives, different takes. I try to make sure that they don’t default down into easy superficial solutions, I really want them to think about what they're doing
I don't have any intent like undermine got to undermine their ideas but I want them to have really have solid foundations for thinking what they're thinking. So the bible stuff, a lot of church teaching stuff and then just a variety of articles. The articles tend to the change from semester to semester depending on what's going on and what's weaning.
JH: In addition to those readings what kind of assignments do you give the students?
Dr. King: I give a bunch of different things, one of the things I do with all of my students is I give them like little short quizzes on the readings and I say this, it sounds silly to be saying that as an assignment, but it’s really an incentive to get them to read. I know a lot of my colleagues will complain that the students don't do the reading but you look at sometimes the way the course is set up and there is no real incentive for students to do the reading. You talk about it in class and they or you lecture on in class and there's no there's nothing of value, there's no points for reading.
I give quizzes to kind of incentives for students to read and the benefit is then they come to class and they actually I think I got really good material and the students seem to be very interested in the material so we have some really great discussions as a result of that so that it's a silly assignment but really gets them to read the material which has been for me the most important thing, that's the main thing.
That’s one small piece of it, I have them write papers where they require engaging the course material by trying to get them to apply to very concrete issues, I think I had them do two papers this semester one was generally titled “what do you think of the economy” and the other one was “what do you want to do in the economy” to think about it, but they had the requirement that they have to draw on their sources and that's the other piece, the third piece that's really I think interesting is that I had them go to some really neat places, so it was a lot of churches that were at my food distribution sites for community meals and I wanted them them to go out and see what these institutions were doing and how they were doing it and who was showing up at it and what was their motivation for doing this and the other person I send them to this just to see what's going on and I send them to this local farmer, Neil Palmer who grows corn basically and lots of vegetables but one of the things he also does is he portions off a portion of his land and he grows lots of vegetables that he donates to these churches and then send them out or using this meals or send them out for a food distribution site.
So he a runs a farm and he makes lots of money and he hires lots of workers, he treats workers well and then he also quarters off a piece to donate to other people so it is this interesting character that does this own things, I get them to do that to start to think about if they were to be in a business or they would own and run a business, how can you do these kinds of things and still be a good business and still be connected to your community around you?
So I get them to do those experiences and they have to comment on those in some way when they write there papers and I am really so open ended on that they can come in and say it's the best thing since sliced bread or it's there worst things since the printing press or whatever it is that they think about it and but they really I want them to engage and think what's going on there. So I like those ideas because they're very local so it get's them not talking about what's happening and say in China or Washington DC but what's happening here local and trying to figure out what's happening how do these things work and why do they work here and who are the kind of people that are serving and why are those kind of people the ones that are whose needs come to the forefront in this area.
So those I'm think they are my assignments those quizzes, they get them to read the material which is really important and then they have that in their mind, they go to the service experiences and they start to integrate those readings in the experiences out there and integrate those in a paper and I really want them to argue a particular point.
JH: Is the course content well received by the students?
Dr. King: It seems to be, it seems to be because I have this collection of readings and so there are certain readings that just really grab some students and other readings that grab other students and then some students hate these readings but even if they hate it they are really passionate about hating it so I really like that and they can argue with it and that's my thing, I argue with it.
I tend to have a selection of articles from a bunch of different perspectives and like that's fine if you don't like the article that's fine but here you got here is an article that is taking on that article. Why don’t you explore it's reasoning to understand what this person is saying and therefore you are going to have a real serious way to critique this article that you don't like other than just saying “I don't like it.” You can have been having a real substantive argument for this as well and they like that, even articles that they don't like, they like fighting with them so even they even like that material.
The biblical stuff as well, surprisingly they like it, the students that have grown up in a Christian tradition really like it because they haven’t looked at that material from this economic perspective before. The students they have never had like brought up in a Christian tradition like wow that's really in the bible? And so it's surprising for them. So it gets them to look at that material that they think they know or they don't have any exposure to even look at them and in a new way and the churches teaching is sometimes a harder go for them because it tends to have this kind of a technical language to it but as you walk and through it they start to sort become more and more interested because you can see this ideas playing out and the churches teaching don't really map out like a particular policy like you have to have this policy or we have to look this way but really says here's the value you need to be respecting and that gives them some criteria to start to think about what they want to do with their work or what they want to do in society and they don't feel like it's telling them so much you have to do actions A, B and C but here's some values you need to respect and then now you as the person out in the market place you need to figure out how you going to embody them in your own distinctive way. So I think they basically like that framework I can tell them.
So they do seem to like it, I mean I like the material too I think it's fascinating and any material in a text that I just don't find interesting I don't put it in there so at the very least even if they are not interested they usually find get a little bit more interested in it because I'm interested in it, so like that framework they like looking things in a new way, they like the idea of certain values that can help to guide their discussions and they like engaging arguments that are similar to there own and fighting with arguments that are different than those and I think both of those practices following those in agreement or disagreeing with those really sharpens their mind to help them think out things.
And at the end of the day I really think students really like to do this. The comment I keep having this that they never had a chance to think about their work and their profession or the economy in these ways or you never had a chance to think about their work, job and the economy at all in a reflective way and so it provides them with the chance to do that and I think they're pretty eager to do this, they like to think, they like to think big thoughts and they like to think big thoughts and have good materials to help them do this and so this I've been pretty fortunate so far. I have to give a lot of credit to the students. Because it's an upper level class students can choose to be in it and I typically get students that really want to engage in this kind of material and really want to work hard and so the students are really wonderful as well.
JH: So what are some of the biggest difficulties with offering in this class?
Dr. King: The biggest difficulty is that they want to default into easy solutions to things and to try to get them to really think a little bit more concretely. I get a whole spectrum of students who might say the government has to fix this problem or the free market fixes this problem. Well, I need them to be more specific and tell me, how is this helping the business that just burned down the street that didn't have fire insurance or whatever is?
And so this forces them to really think about what that looks like and it's details and why do these things work. If you think the free market works, show me why it works. Tell me what's going on in a very specific, concrete level. I think it’s human nature to try and find easy solutions to things, but the problem is sometimes those easy solutions are really good solutions at all and so I try to get them to think very creatively to try draw out those really good solutions, that really attend to the nature of the problem they draw in the resources they have.
I guess like the biggest example for me is that when I ask them, so you have a Christian faith, what do you do and after you get out of college and you have a job? And they say “donate money to charity”. And I’m like well, yeah, but there is more to this. And so I keep on pushing them like , "If you're lawyer, why don't you care about justice?” Don't just go to law school because it pays well and because of its prestigious reputation, not that those are bad things but, if you really care about justice this might be a good reason to do this. Or if you are going to go to business make good products, make good products that people really want. Challenge everything this way. Or if you run a business, figure out how to treat workers well. And I think it surprises them to start thinking about what that might look like.
Another example is, a student was playing baseball a lot, he is here playing baseball at college and he was thinking it would be nice to volunteer coach, and I said coaching can be pretty serious impact on young adults. It’s a very important, it trains people in certain kind of skills that can lead to a successful life. If you take that seriously maybe it will have a huge impact on people and even in college here coaches have huge impact so get them to try to think, not like these things are afterthoughts or to think in terms of like slogans but to really think how does this stuff really work out, why are these things advantageous to you. So get them to just push then and to create a really deep understanding of the issues that are at stake and a deep understanding of solutions that they might come about and propose that kind of creativity. It's hard work to do that I mean, its easy for us academics to default into these easy solutions as well so it’s a constant process. As I’m remind them I am also reminding myself about the these things.
Once I do that, if I don't let them off the hook with easy answers, a lot of times they rise up to the occasion, they really do. They do care about these things and they do want to think these things out and so you just need to see them figuring out what's going on. I ran into a student that had this course about two years ago. He was one of my first students, and he was talking about how he started running his business and he was recounting some of the things that he took away from the course and mentioned really his ideas on whether you can integrate God and money or God, work and money is to run a good business and provide good products and this was his idea and he did in the city that's close by and he was doing a start-up and really so he had experienced this need, this internship in the society he started realize what it was, built a business model around this, generated revenue, capital to start up the business and then hired some people close by and it was really neat. It was a really brief passing conversation in the hallway but was like wow and that's like one of my dreams for the course that students think about how they might do this and take this up on themselves to go out and take the initiative and do these things to make a difference. Again, not as a default kind of give money to charity as the only sole solution, but really starting to make substantive contributions.
So I think that's probably the biggest difficulty I have. They're good students. I think if you give them a chance and give the incentives to think creatively, they're constantly surprising about what they can come up with.
JH: Well thanks so much for joining us Dr. King.
Dr. King: Thank you, thanks again for having me.
JH: Anytime and for more interviews and teaching advice visit KosmosOnline.org, providing career advice and intellectual resources to academics and this is Jeanne Hoffman, signing off.