From President Clayton Spencer
This major fundraising endeavor — the largest in our history — will strengthen the college for decades to come.
More than 80 percent of college graduates say it’s important to derive a sense of purpose from their work, according to a new study by Bates College and the polling firm Gallup — but less than 50 percent actually find such purpose in their jobs.
The discovery of a significant “purpose gap” among college graduates today was among the major findings of “Forging Pathways to Purposeful Work: The Role of Higher Education,” released in a major media event on April 10 at Gallup World Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Media outlets locally and nationally are reporting findings of the Bates-Gallup study.
Presented to more than 100 attendees at Gallup plus a livestream audience, the morning announcement featured an overview of the report as well as an interview with Bates President Clayton Spencer by Carolyn Ryan ’86, assistant managing editor at The New York Times. Ryan also moderated a discussion among academic and industry experts.
Representing the views of nearly 4,000 respondents, including college graduates, hiring managers, and parents of college students, the report was commissioned by Bates as a way to test the premise of the college’s Purposeful Work program: that helping students find purpose in work allows them to achieve agency, adaptability, and, ultimately, a sense of well-being and meaning in today’s world.
The so-called purpose gap between what graduates seek and what they are finding is a problem for both graduates and employers because there is a strong correlation between employees’ engagement in work and an organization’s bottom line.
“We heard overwhelmingly from employers that hiring candidates with a sense of purpose is critically important to them, too,” said Helen Stubbs, a senior consultant at Gallup who oversaw the study.
“Purposeful work is work that aligns how you act in the world with your deepest interests, values, and strengths,” Spencer told Ryan, adding that the key to closing the purpose gap “is to make sure you are producing students who have agency and adaptability throughout a lifetime.”
The report found that the purpose gap is a particular problem for millennials — the largest single segment of the American workforce — because millennials are more likely than older graduates to seek purpose from work than from other sources.
The report noted that colleges can provide four key experiences that equip graduates to find purpose in their work by:
The study also makes clear that students should not simply chase jobs or careers that have superficial appeal. Reflection and self-awareness play a vital role in launching graduates into work that will bring them meaning:
“Previous Gallup studies have identified the college experience as critical to the path graduates’ lives take,” said Stubbs.
“Our research with Bates adds a new dimension that elevates the individual’s psychological and emotional alignment with their chosen career path. Where colleges can apply these new findings to their work with students, they stand to accelerate pathways to meaningful work and to produce graduates who are thriving as individuals.”