Life and vocation
Part of Bluffton’s mission is to prepare students for life as well as vocation. This can take many forms, but ultimately, the student experience at Bluffton allows them to lean into their environment.
Faculty and staff impact students’ vocations in and out of the classroom. Angong Dhol Acuil ’05 credits Dr. Perry Bush, emeritus professor of history, with helping Angong explore and find her need for service and advocacy. Several Bluffton employees pushed Angong outside her comfort zone to pursue what she loved, and she ended up applying for Mennonite Central Committee. The position with MCC took Angong to Washington, D.C., where she worked in advocacy for three years before she landed a job in foreign service working for the South Sudan Embassy.
“If I didn’t have that background in MCC, it would be very difficult for me to interact now with the State Department or Congress. It is still the same line of work, but now I’m presenting the interest of my country and my people.”
Dan ’05 and Holly ’05, MBA ’21 Metzger’s world drastically grew and their vocation in relationship building became more prevalent through their Bluffton experience.
They believed as first-year students, their world was much smaller. Meeting others on campus taught them how to create space for relationships. Specifically, Dan was impacted by J. Denny Weaver’s religion courses because it instilled the idea of thinking on your own. It was about challenging the ideas of others while not deteriorating a relationship.
“The relationships people formed with us allowed them to speak truths and allowed
us to say that the world’s big enough for these differences because the relationships
were so important and valuable. It let differences exist.”
- Dan Mezger ’05
Makenzie Speakman ’21, found her vocation through student teaching. As an education major, students have to both take courses on campus and complete a student teaching experience.
“The most important thing Bluffton taught me is balance. You learn that balance is a huge part of life.”
Makenzie found her first full-time position as an educator at the same school she did her student teaching placement. In fact, she is working with her cooperating teacher from student teaching now as a professional in the classroom.
As part of the Bluffton Blueprint experience, students finish their general education curriculum with the course “Enduring Values Capstone.” The material in the course poses this question to students: “What then shall we do?”
Katie Kuntz-Wineland ’13, MDiv., states that this course was a helpful exercise for her as a senior.
“I loved that exercise—thinking about a life that is shaped by simple living and sustainably building a community where you are fostering connection. Those are things, along with peace and justice, that we can’t stop talking about.”
Katie credits that Capstone conversation to shaping her life as it is today. Katie currently serves as the community minister at The Belonging Table and as community outreach coordinator at Bittersweet Farms in Toledo, Ohio.
