Quest for Purpose, The

Demonstrates how students and educators can resist narrow, utilitarian views of higher education’s purpose.
While the search for meaning and purpose appears to be a constant throughout human history, there are characteristics about our current time period that make this search different from any other previous time, particularly for college students. In this book, Perry L. Glanzer, Jonathan P. Hill, and Byron R. Johnson explore college students’ search for meaning and purpose and the role that higher education plays. To shed empirical light on this complex issue, the authors draw on in-depth interviews with four hundred college students from different types of institutions across the United States. They also analyze three sets of national survey data: the National Study of Youth and Religion, College Students Beliefs and Values, and their own Gallup-conducted survey of 2,500 college students. Their research identifies important social, educational, and cultural influences that shape students’ quests and the answers they find. Arguing against a utilitarian view of education, Glanzer, Hill, and Johnson conclude that colleges and universities can and should cultivate and aid students in their journeys, and they offer suggestions for doing so.
Perry L. Glanzer is Professor of Educational Foundations at Baylor University and a Resident Scholar with the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. His books include Restoring the Soul of the University: Unifying Christian Higher Education in a Fragmented Age (coauthored with Nathan F. Alleman and Todd C. Ream). Jonathan P. Hill is Associate Professor of Sociology at Calvin College and the coauthor (with Christian Smith, Kyle Longest, and Kari Christoffersen) of Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults In, Out of, and Gone from the Church. Byron R. Johnson is Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University and the author of More God, Less Crime: Why Faith Matters and How It Could Matter More.