Intersections is a program that helps Boston College students explore the connection between their talents, their dreams, and the world's deep needs. It encourages students to find the answers to such questions as: Who am I? What am I passionate about? Am I good at it? Will what I do make a difference in the world? What resources can help me on this journey?
The first conversations that led to the creation of Intersections occurred in the summer of 1999 when an invitation came from the Lilly Endowment to Boston College and 40 other universities to design programs that would encourage students to engage in reflection on their life choices from a faith perspective. The following year, Lilly gave BC $50,000 to plan and write a formal proposal. Based on the merits of this proposal, Lilly awarded BC a $2 million grant in the fall of 2000. Intersections came to life in January 2001 and the first program was offered in June of that year.
The starting point of our proposal to Lilly was that a liberal education challenges students to think about the meaning of their lives and about career choices that will respond to their deepest desires and values. We realized that during their undergraduate years at BC students often report that certain experiences have dramatic effects on them, even change their lives; these might be particular academic courses, friendships with teachers and administrators, volunteer service experiences, internships, or retreats. How, we wondered, can we help students integrate these experiences and gradually fill in a meaningful picture of the choices they are making and the direction of the life journeys they are undertaking?
Our conversations led us to design three main student programs: Halftime, a weekend of looking back and looking ahead, for students just before they begin their junior year; a program of church-ministry internships; and an interactive web site to help students in all four undergraduate years think about their lives. These original three programs have expanded to include a range of new programs.
In addition to the undergraduate programs, the Intersections Seminars give faculty and administrative staff the opportunity to reflect on their own role in students' vocational discernment.
The novelist and theologian Frederick Buechner describes vocation as "the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Intersections is aptly named because the project helps students tie together the various elements of their undergraduate experience so they can forge this link between their gladness and the world's needs.