Transcript The Hero’s Journey— Your Journey

Adventurers and Allies on
Campus: The College
Experience Through The Lens of
Joseph Campbell’s
The Hero’s Journey
Nancy Goodman, MSEd, LPC
Idaho State University
Central Academic Advising
[email protected], http://vocatusidaho.wordpress.com
NACADA Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, 2013
What We Will Cover Today
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“Theoretical Cluster”
What is a metaphor?
Who is Joseph Campbell?
What is the Hero’s Journey?
What are students doing in it?
What am I doing in it?
How can this inform my academic
advising?
Transpersonal
Psychology
Depth
Psychology
Comparative
Religion
Anthropology
Hero’s
Journey
Appreciative
Advising/
Inquiry
Career
as
Calling
Monomyth
Quest as
College
Experience
Happenstance
Theory
Existentialism
All Roads Lead to (Carl) Jung
• Collective
Unconscious
• Archetypes
• Metaphor
• MBTI
• Synchronicity
• AA
• Vocatus atque non
vocatus deus aderit
Metaphor Definition
• A figure of speech in which a term or
phrase is applied to something to which it
is not literally applicable in order to
suggest a resemblance
• something used, or regarded as being
used, to represent something else;
emblem; symbol.
• Joseph Campbell interview
Hero’s Journey Tour Guide—
Joseph Campbell
• Sarah Lawrence College
• Mythology and Comparative
Religion
• George Lucas and Star Wars
• “Follow Your Bliss”
• “Incubate Your Destiny”
• Power of Myth with Bill Moyers
• The Hero With a Thousand
Faces
• Joseph Campbell Foundation,
Pacifica Graduate Institute
Who is a hero?
Who else is a hero?
Types of Heroes
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Physical
Spiritual
Military
Willing
Hero-in-training
Reluctant
–Serendipitous
Student Heroes
Traditional Students
• Rite of Passage
• Differentiation
process—who are
YOU?
• fear
• Doing it with cohort
• Choosing Adventure
Nontraditional Students
• Journey has led them to
college
• Don’t like current job,
divorce, job loss, raised
kids first
• FEAR
• Doing it alone
• Adventure Choosing You
• Warrior Heroes
The
Hero
The
The
Student Advisor
Leaves the crowd to venture out
alone
Leaves comfort zone to
attend college
Meets student at the
“gate”—Early Registration,
class advising
Has aides, allies, and tools to
assist in the journey
Has many academic
resources at their disposal
Provides information,
recommends campus
services, invites questions
Confronted by things that are
strange, foreign, and scary
Confronted by things that are
strange, foreign and scary
Answers questions, validates
feelings, “cheerleader”
Values and identity are tested
time and time again
Values and identity are
tested time and time again
Assists student in critical
thinking process for college
choices
Has something to offer world as
result of adventure
Will gain values, knowledge,
and skills to offer society that
they don’t have now
Helps students persist to the
boon of college graduation
What is the Hero’s Journey?
World of
Common Day
Call To
Adventure
Return with the
Boon
Refusal of the
Call
KNOWN
Threshold
Crossing
UNKNOWN
Claiming the
Boon
Dragon-Slaying
Refusal of the Call = The Abyss
Road of Trials and Revelations
“Trials and revelations are what it’s all
about”
Joseph Campbell, Power of Myth
Threshold
Crossing
The World of Common Day
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Student’s hometown
Student’s old friends
Student’s parents
High school study skills
Social norms and groups
Pre-job loss, pre-divorce,
pre-life changing event
that spurred college
entry
The Call to Adventure
• Hooray! I’m going to
college!
• Oh no, I’m going to
college!
• “You might not get that
which you seek”
• New calls or old calls
• Vocation=Calling
Refusal of the Call
• The voice of NO
– No I can’t visit a professor
– No I can’t change my major
– No I won’t take less credits
• The “yeahbuts”
• Fueled by fear, uncertainty,
lack of self-trust and
confidence, external locus of
control
• Occurs at beginning and
throughout adventure-lament
Threshold Crossing
• “Guardian at the Gate”—
Admissions
• Where the hero picks up
tools for journey
• Where the hero meets
people familiar with new
world
• Academic Advising, First
Year Experience, New
Student Orientation,
College Learning
Strategies courses
Tools for the Journey
• INTERNAL (The Force)
– Belief system, sense of self
– Healthy attitude, resiliency
– Flexibility, discipline
• EXTERNAL (Light Saber)
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Degree plans, study skills
Weekly planner
Time management
Appointments, support
system
Entering the Land of Oz
Threshold Locations
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Academic Advising
Student Success Center
Career Center (x2)
Adult Basic Education
First Year Seminar
College Learning
Strategies
• Student activities
Threshold Guardians
• Academic Advisors
• Tutors
• Counselors
Allies
• Faculty!
• Supporters
• Like-minded people
• How can students be
their own ally?
Road of Trials…and Revelations
• Getting lost, deadends, receiving help,
improving skills
• Ups and downs
• Challenges elicit
hidden strengths
• Evolution of personal
attitude
• Role of advisor?
“Trials and revelations are what it’s all about”-What will mark the student’s adventure?
Trials
• Discomfort,
humility
• Fear, insecurity
• Existential
questioning
• Fight for
authenticity
• Isolation
Revelations
• Skill-building
• New
opportunities
• Knowledge
• Personal insight,
epiphany
• community
The Abyss
“It is by going into the abyss that you discover the treasure of life.
Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” –Joseph Campbell
• The darkest times, but
ultimately the most
enlightening times
• Exhaustion, hopelessness,
fear, uncertainty
• Patience and Ego battles
• Question purpose, selfdoubt, feel alone
• Student may be in abyss
when…
“Slaying the Dragon”
• Dragons are internal
• The bound ego
• Epiphanies, insight, selfawareness, conquering
fears, challenging old
ideas, surrendering,
acceptance, patience,
restoration of faith
• Students are slaying
dragons when…
The Return
• Return with boon to share
with those around you
• New center, new “home
state,” new way-of-being
• What will this adventure
have taught you for the
next one?
• College student “return” is
also “call to adventure” of
a new career!
The Boon
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Bachelor’s Degree!
Long-term career flexibility
Enormous accomplishment
Intellectual knowledge and
insight
Connections and experience
Growth that will last a
lifetime
Expanded sense of self
Work ethic
Mythic Advising
• Reframing challenge as
growth experience
• AI questions—Dream,
Design, Deliver
• Support of student
from “depth” approach
• How does it feel to be
in this role in a
student’s story?