Purpose at Work: Working Wise & Living Whys in the Age of COVID and Beyond

1:00-2:00 p.m.ET

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This program introduces techniques for enhancing dignity at work and shows how enhancing dignity and purpose in organizations can help individuals and organizations navigate current challenges. One consequence of the COVID crisis is an emerging awareness of the need for more meaning and more dignity across the full workforce. Informed by experts in formative education and the psychology of working at Boston College, this workshop describes new approaches to enacting purpose within  an organization’s mission, human resources, and talent management.

In this program, participants will learn the key tenets of collective purpose, explore a purpose-crafting framework, and engage in a sample exercise that reinforces these concepts. This session will be led by Professors Belle Liang and Bryan Dik with an introduction to Boston College’s approach to Formative Education by Stanton E.F. Wortham, Dean, Lynch School of Education and Human Development. 

About the Speakers:

Stanton E.F. Wortham, Ph.D. is an award-winning teacher, scholar, and documentary film producer. He is the Lynch School's inaugural Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean. A linguistic anthropologist and educational ethnographer with a particular expertise in how identities develop in human interactions, Wortham has conducted research spanning education, anthropology, linguistics, psychology, sociology, and philosophy. He is the author or editor of nine books and more than 80 articles and chapters that cover a range of topics including linguistic anthropology, discourse analysis, “learning identity”, and education in the new Latino diaspora. 

Belle Liang is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor of counseling, developmental and educational psychology at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Her research explores positive youth development, including mentoring and relational health in adolescence and young adulthood. She is co-authoring a book on Purpose Mindset: The New Science of Navigating School, Career, and Life to be published by St. Martin’s Press. Liang was recognized as an American Psychological Association Fellow, Division 17, for her outstanding contributions to the field of counseling psychology. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Research on Child Development, and the Society for Research on Adolescence.

Bryan Dik, Ph.D., is a vocational psychologist, professor of psychology at Colorado State University, and co-founder and Chief Science Officer of jobZology. Bryan studies meaning and purpose in the workplace, calling and vocation in career development, and the intersection of faith and work. He has delivered keynote lectures on four continents, has published four books (including Redeeming Work and Make Your Job a Calling), and hosts the Purposeful Work Podcast. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and American Scientific Affiliation, and recipient of the John Holland Award for Outstanding Achievement in Career or Personality Research (APA Div. 17) and the Applied Psychology of Religion and Spirituality Award (APA Div. 36). He lives with his wife Amy and their four sons in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.