Coaching Students Through Career and Calling | Krista Autrey

On this episode of Anchored, Soren is joined by Krista Autrey, director of the Center for Career and Calling at Geneva College. The two discuss the role faith played in Krista's life when she discovered the career and calling that married her passions for campus ministry and the international church. They dive into how to improve the conversation surrounding the value of a college degree. They also discuss how Krista uses the idea of deciding what is next, not what is forever, to alleviate pressure when discerning the future. 

Transcript

Soren Schwab (CLT) (00:00.83)
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast, the official podcast of the Classic Learning Test. My name is Soren Schwab, VP of Partnerships here at CLT, and today we're joined by Krista Autry. Krista currently serves as the Director of the Center for Calling and Career at Geneva College in Pennsylvania. In her role, she works with students and alumni to discover how they can meaningfully contribute to the world around them through combining their individual strengths and experiences within their current life context.

Krista earned her bachelor's degree from Auburn University and a master's degree from Wheaton College. And we're so delighted to have her on the Anchored podcast today. Welcome, Krista.

Krista Autrey (00:38.615)
Oh, thanks, Sora. I'm excited to get to spend some time with you.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (00:42.206)
Yeah, likewise, likewise. As our listeners of Anchored know, we always start the podcast by talking about our guests own educational journey, their own background. So talk to us a little bit about that. What kind of schools did you attend K -12 and beyond?

Krista Autrey (00:57.431)
Yeah, so I grew up in a really small town and so I went to a really small public school, a pretty rural, honestly, public school. So it was size -wise probably the size of a private school for a lot of people, but it was public. And I actually, I mentioned I went to Auburn. I was a third generation Auburn student. And so I grew up in a Christian home, grew up going to church and that was really important. But...

going to faith -based schools was just not a part of the conversation at all. It was always, hey, we'll go to Auburn. Like that's what our family does. So that's where I went. I considered a small Christian school for about a week and my family was like, wait, what? What are you thinking? So I went to Auburn. I loved it. I was part of an amazing campus ministry there that really developed my faith. But from there, I decided to go to Wheaton College, which was my first experience with faith -based private education, which was just revolutionary.

It was a very different way of doing education than anything I'd experienced, particularly in regards to like life on life with faculty members and even the shared life purpose and values with the people I was learning alongside. So I loved all of that. It was all really good, but very different along the way too.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:13.918)
Yeah, how big is Auburn? Do you have a sense just student wise? I mean is it like 30 ,000 or more?

Krista Autrey (02:19.799)
Yeah, it's around I think 30 ,000 now. When I went it was probably 23 to 25. So still big, but not as big as some for sure.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:24.19)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:27.87)
Right. Right. And now comparing it with, obviously, Wheaton, you're at Geneva now, you were at Grove City, they're all kind of in the 2000 probably range.

Krista Autrey (02:36.119)
Yeah.

Krista Autrey (02:39.927)
Yeah, roughly somewhere between probably one and one and three or four thousand or something like that. And I think every time you add a thousand, it does shift. It shifts the experience a little bit.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:45.118)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:50.782)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And so did you choose Wheaton mainly because it was a Christian kind of you wanted to go into Christian higher ed?

Krista Autrey (03:03.287)
Yeah, so I, whenever I was at Auburn, like I mentioned, I was a part of a really like a wonderful, a pretty established campus ministry that was a part of the church that I attended while I was there. And I interned with the youth ministry of that church and then eventually interned as a campus ministry intern there and loved doing ministry. And I learned that probably my sophomore year of college, but there really isn't like a ministry degree.

at most state schools, usually like religious studies, which is a little different. So I knew I'd probably go on and get my master's somewhere. I knew that it would either be ministry or missions based. And someone I knew mentioned Wheaton. And honestly, I didn't grow up in the context of faith based school. So I didn't know a lot about Wheaton. But I looked up their programs and I thought, wow, this sounds like exactly, you know, maybe what I want to do. And I went up to visit, met professors.

and just fell in love with it. So I wasn't necessarily looking for a school. I guess I was looking for a school where I could grow in this desire to pursue ministry admissions in some way.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (04:14.622)
So I assume that it was not just the adjustment of big, big campus to small, but also growing up in the South to spending winners in Illinois and now Pennsylvania.

Krista Autrey (04:21.847)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Krista Autrey (04:30.231)
You know what, the winter is, school -wise, I think I figured that out. But the winter is really, that was, it's hard to prepare yourself for, I'm from Florida. So winter is just, it was foreign. And I think my second winter there, my first winter everyone said in Chicago, like, oh, this is really mild. And I thought, who? What are you talking about? And then my second winter was their third harshest winter in history.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (04:35.774)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (04:42.942)
Oh wow, yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (04:53.054)
you're talking about.

Krista Autrey (04:58.935)
So I feel like I got a really good, you know, both sides of that spectrum and it prepared me well for Pennsylvania, which is never as bad.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (05:06.942)
Yeah, I went to school in Michigan and was it miserable at times? Yes, it was, but I always said, you know, the harsh winners were definitely conducive to a high GPA. So I feel like at those times, I'd as well go to the library and study. Yeah, exactly. So obviously, now I mentioned the bio you serve kind of as director of calling and careers. And so with that added perspective, I'd love for you to kind of go back to

Krista Autrey (05:10.839)
Oh yeah.

Krista Autrey (05:18.615)
There you go. You're forced inside.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (05:36.094)
How you chose your career, your calling, I think it'd be interesting for our listeners to kind of see that perspective and are there maybe things that now with a title that you have and the work that you're doing where you look back and say, yeah, I didn't do any of that, but I still ended up obviously following God's calling.

Krista Autrey (05:56.439)
Yeah, and I think because of the situation I was in where I came into college thinking, really, I don't know that I would have said it this way, but looking back, I was interested in prestige and money. Like, I want to find something that's impressive, something that's challenging, and something that will be a really good career. And then I got to college and I became involved in that campus ministry eventually.

And my faith just, you know, just started sinking deeper and deeper and deeper. And I'd always had this developmental bent. I loved, I was, you know, I was in sports growing up. I loved, I loved mentoring younger teammates. That was always something that was really important to me. So that, that development piece was always there. But whenever I, my faith started deep and I started to realize, no, like this is the way I think I've been made. Like I've been made with this bent towards helping people develop themselves and growing alongside of them.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (06:27.934)
Hmm.

Krista Autrey (06:53.463)
And then I entered with youth ministry and I love that type of environment and helping people really start to make faith their own. And then I loved doing that with college students too. And then eventually I started leading like short -term mission trips with those college students. And I fell in love with what happens when we get to interact with the global church and believers from other parts of the world and how different.

their faith can look from ours and how formational that was for myself and other students. And so I love the college age. I love that international element. So all during college, I thought, I wish I could blend these two somehow. I wish I could do campus ministry internationally. I don't know that that really exists. But the one thing that I, in prayer and kind of just,

relationship with the Lord, I thought, okay, like he's given me these two loves. And so I'll just keep pursuing both until he makes me choose. And, and I did that. And so I, you know, that led me to, I, I was overseas for about six months working with refugees in Austria, actually in Vienna, Austria. So I was like, I need to try that out. So I went and tried that out and that was hard, like very, very hard and a beautiful place and you know, really, really wonderful.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (07:55.998)
Yeah.

Krista Autrey (08:18.103)
world city, but it was just it was challenging. And it was a bit of a wake up call. And so then I went to Wheaton and I studied intercultural studies and TESOL, so teaching English to speakers of other languages, which was trying to get at that student international student type mindset. I was trying to marry my two loves. Like I was trying to force it and study that the whole time. I took like half of Wheaton's program in Christian formation and ministry while I was there, which was not a part of my program at all. But.

It was the student piece. And when I finished Wheaton, I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I still was thinking, maybe I should do like get another master's. I don't know. I feel like this isn't it. And this perfect position opened up at a really young organization back down in the South in Georgia. And it was it was leading college students internationally and developing international partnerships. And it was it was like the job description was made for me.

And so what I learned from that was the only option I had that whole time was to be faithful with what the Lord had given me. And I didn't even know if I would ever be able to do it. I thought I'd just be forced to choose. And he was preparing me that whole time for something that I couldn't have, I could have guessed. And so that idea of faithfulness and just being faithful to what the Lord has given you, even if you don't have the full picture, it is woven so much in the work that I get to do with students here.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (09:42.334)
I have to ask, you were in Austria, do you speak a little German?

Krista Autrey (09:47.575)
Ah, a little, yeah. I'm actually, I'm trying to learn it again right now. I learned some of it. I picked up pieces of it, but I'm actually, for the past two or three years, I've been trying to learn it more intentionally. It is, you know what, if I, because I've worked in Brazil a lot, and so I would pick up Portuguese too. And what I learned was, I think the best language learning is when you're learning it, and when you're immersed. Like that double, it's really hard to do it outside of that, but.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (09:59.55)
It's still hard to retain, right?

Krista Autrey (10:17.655)
Yes. Yes. I mean you have to. You have no choice. Yes. Exactly.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (10:18.43)
It sticks more when you're actually forced to not just learn it at home, but then also for survival reasons, right? You have to use it. Oh, how wonderful. Now, of course, in your current role, you work with college students, but I know a lot of our listeners are homeschool parents, teachers, school leaders, and some high school students themselves. So when we talk about college and career, I think right now there's certainly even a question about should...

Does everyone have to go to college? Is college still worth it? What about trade school? What about other opportunities besides that? So what advice would you give a high school student right now who might be thinking about this kind of decision in life? What is my career going to be like? Do I need college for it? Is this the right path for me? What would you tell them?

Krista Autrey (11:10.295)
Yeah, I love talking to students about this. I was talking to a incoming student and her mother yesterday with the same conversation. And I think the reason I love this conversation is because I think we have it culturally really poorly and in a way that puts a lot of pressure on 16, 17, 18 year olds to decide on something.

that theoretically will follow them their whole life. And I don't think life works that way. I think we, you know, our lives are, are seasonal. They change, they shift. Some things are constant, but in many ways they're not deciding what they're going to do with their whole life right now. They're deciding what they're going to do next. And that's a very different perspective than saying, Hey, I'm

I'm going to choose to study math and I guess I'll be a mathematician or a math teacher for the next 40 years and then retire. Life doesn't typically work that way anymore. I think it worked more that way historically, but people shift what they do. Career fields change. I mean, some of them are changing fast. And so taking that pressure off and saying, hey, we don't need you to decide forever. We just need you to decide for now. And I think even in regards to, you know,

the college component. I think it's really wonderful for students who choose to go onto college immediately. I worked at a gap year program for students between high school and college for a while. And the growth I saw in just one year where students had space just to figure some things out, they were still in a very structured environment. They were still learning, but there was no

Soren Schwab (CLT) (12:45.502)
Mm -hmm.

Krista Autrey (13:01.207)
no pressure to decide. They just had the space to learn, to explore, to learn about themselves, to learn about God and the world around them. The maturity that came from that year was so significant for students who then most of them went on to college after that a four -year college. But I think there are different ways of doing it. And I think people really have to sit down and think about their own circumstances and where they are and what does it look like to be faithful and to be intentional with the choice regardless of where that puts you immediately after high school.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (13:30.942)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that itself could probably be a whole podcast episode. And the idea of college and career readiness and kind of the cookie cutter approach. But if nothing else, obviously, COVID has put a lot of these questions back to the forefront. Why are we doing this in the first place? And I think asking the question, what's the point of colleges? Not necessarily a bad question, right? Because if it's really only to get a better higher paying job, then...

Krista Autrey (13:35.255)
Sure.

Krista Autrey (13:40.567)
Yeah.

Krista Autrey (13:54.871)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (13:59.678)
you're probably going to go out of business because they're going to be in different ways. And I think Geneva and the folks I know at Geneva, you have a much different value proposition. And it's really about formation, like forming you as a human being that in this ever -changing world, you'll be able, like you said, if things happen. I mean, we're shifting careers much faster.

Krista Autrey (14:02.295)
Yes.

Krista Autrey (14:13.399)
Yeah. Yes.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (14:23.678)
The one constant, I guess, is you're going to be a human for the rest of your life. And so how about developing you as a human? I mean, it seems maybe a little idealistic, but are those conversations that families are receptive to when you talk about putting off some of that pressure of you have to know everything just yet?

Krista Autrey (14:26.935)
Yeah.

Krista Autrey (14:46.871)
You know, it's yes and no. I think there's a tension there. There's always a tension with this desire for your son or daughter to be able to support themselves even financially. I think sometimes that's a big stressor is, you know, I just I just don't want my kid to have to worry about finances forever. And I think that is so valid. And I I never I'll say this. I always try and have this conversation with students or with students and parents, regardless of how that

happens with the reality of finance as being a part of it. Because I think if we pretend like finances don't matter, we're fooling ourselves because they do matter. The question is, how much emphasis do we put on it? And how much do we let that drive the decision? Remind me of your original question really quick because I forgot where I was going with that.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (15:37.598)
Well, just, yeah, if the idea of college only being for to get you a high paying job, right? Like that, I think we're starting to see a shift there that it should college be about something more. And is that value proposition maybe even easier at Geneva than it might be at Harvard and Yale?

Krista Autrey (15:42.999)
Oh yeah.

Krista Autrey (15:46.423)
Yeah, yes.

Krista Autrey (15:58.807)
Yes.

Yeah, okay, so the formation piece, I think that was, I remember now, that's where I was heading. So what's interesting about parents to me is when I have this conversation with them, it's usually either like a preview day where they're here with their prospective student or summer orientation. A lot of the time they're here and so they're part of these conversations too. And what's always fascinating is when I have this conversation about, I always have, I paint this picture and I put up a,

Soren Schwab (CLT) (16:18.59)
Mm -hmm.

Krista Autrey (16:31.287)
You know, this image of the way we're taught to view life and it's a zero to five years old is like the preschool years. And then you hit five to 18 and those are, you know, the traditional school years. You know what's coming next every year. You don't really have a choice. You have to be in some type of school, you know, regardless of what that looks like. And then once you hit 18, you have some agency, some people more than others. And but you're probably going to enter into some type of like transitional or training or college or something like that for probably.

three to five years, depending on what it is, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. And then you just work for like 40 or 50 years and then hopefully you retire and then, you know, like that's it. And I always ask students like, hey, who's really excited about this? And they're like, they're all, and I do this in classes sometimes too. And they're like, I'm not, like, I'm not excited at all, but I do think that's the way it's supposed to be. And then I put up a different kind of,

almost like map to some degree. And I say, this is what I think life looks like. And it's broken down into shorter seasons. And it's, you know, it's a constant, constantly reevaluating. What are my values? How do I want to live? Hey, now I have children. How does that shift the way I'm looking at the world? Hey, I thought I really cared about this, but actually it doesn't matter as much as I thought it did. And just the shift in how there's a book called Designing Your Life by two professors out of Stanford and.

One thing they talk about is that we actually live our whole lives in seasons of about three to five years. That pattern never ends. And so trying to give them something that is more what I think realistic and the people who always respond the deepest to that are actually parents. And they say, yeah, that's it. You're right. This is the way life has worked.

But getting that to sometimes connect back to, okay, so what does that mean for your student who's now having to decide? How does that inform the way they make their decision? That's sometimes a shift because we're always looking back saying, well, I wish I would have maybe done a few things differently. So that's one part of the conversation. The second part of the conversation is the formation part, which I think Geneva does incredibly well. So we can still talk about that if you want to, and I would love to at some point.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (18:44.414)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I would love to hear that approach. Yeah.

Krista Autrey (18:48.567)
So one of my favorite stories of one of our like alum who he's a former president of a large global corporation. I'll just, I'll say that much. And he always says he worked that corporation his whole career. And he says the first maybe like five or so years I was using my training as an engineer. And then after that, it was all the core classes that I used the rest of the time and actually leading. And so I think,

We think so right in front of us. And when we talk about career, hey, I need to learn professional skills for my first job. And that's true. That's not untrue. We do need to know those. And you have to be competitive. But you also have to understand when things are shifting and to be able to read the world around you and say, oh, now it's time to shift. Or hey, I've been promoted and now I have to use different skills now. And...

That's where I think the Geneva education, it is, I mean, one of the first papers a student writes when they come to Geneva, this always blows my mind. But they actually, they study like the whole life and they study death and they actually have to write a paper on death, which is, sounds really morbid. But they just start thinking very differently at the beginning saying, hey, okay, this isn't something I ever think about. I don't have to think about it.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (20:06.398)
Yeah.

Krista Autrey (20:16.439)
very much, some of them do, you know, for different reasons, but most of them, they're not thinking about their whole life, they're thinking about what's in front of them. And so it's this call to say, hey, in terms of this idea of calling, like you might be an engineer, you know, a certain type of engineer, or you might, you know, be an accountant, or you might be an environmental scientist for five years, you might be one for 40 years, but for sure, like you said, you'll be a human for your whole life. And so what does that mean to develop?

myself for my whole life and not just myself for a portion of my life. And so that it is it is so a part of I would almost I mean all of the Geneva's core classes which are extensive but they're getting that in their professional classes too. How do we think about this from a broader perspective? And it it it really does make a difference. And so students always come back like five years later and they say oh I get it now I'm so thankful for that.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (20:51.07)
Mm -hmm.

Krista Autrey (21:15.735)
because now I'm set up for a long time and not just for the immediate.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (21:19.134)
Yeah, I'm gonna ask you and I'm hoping I can piece it all together because I've scrambled thoughts right now.

Krista Autrey (21:23.671)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (21:28.638)
I'm reminded and I think they're, I think it's Arthur Brooks or David Brooks. Anyways, it talks about eulogy, virtues or values, right? And like what would remember you for, but I'm also thinking about our current culture. And we hear a lot about kind of like relativistic, right? Your own values, create your own values, whatever you find valuable, your lived experience, like all these things.

Krista Autrey (21:35.191)
Hmm. Yes. Yeah.

Krista Autrey (21:49.015)
Yeah, yes.

Krista Autrey (21:54.455)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (21:55.326)
And then I'm also thinking about, and I'm sure we've all done them, right? Whether in high school or in college, we filled out these surveys to find a career path, right? And so how do you navigate all of that, right? Where you probably have students that are, in a way, the world tells them one thing, right? And then, you know, we or their faith, you know, or maybe just common sense, in a way tells them a different thing. How do you weave that together and still value their lived experience, right? In the context in which they live.

Krista Autrey (22:00.407)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (22:25.79)
but also have like you said that longer term perspective, right? Of this isn't everything, right? How do you have that conversation with students that where you feel like maybe I wanna say you're wrong, right? Or what you're feeling is wrong, but also I do wanna point you to maybe explore other things.

Krista Autrey (22:45.751)
Yeah, okay, wait, give me just I want to make sure I'm understanding that question correctly. Can you kind of give me an example of that really quick?

Soren Schwab (CLT) (22:52.062)
Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking, you know, whether it's a 17 year old or maybe a 21 year old, right? So senior in high school, senior in college. And the world is telling them a lot of things about what their values should be, what they should, you know, what their lived experiences and how their feelings are, which they're undeniably true to them, right? But then you also look at the larger context of objective truth, of calling, of all these things that...

Krista Autrey (23:04.855)
Yeah, sure. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (23:18.846)
You as a career coach probably kind of see the longer term vision. How do you navigate that with students? Where in a way, I guess you want to acknowledge how they feel and what they think, but you also probably want to kind of show them like this isn't everything, right? There's a different way. I don't know. Yeah.

Krista Autrey (23:31.735)
Oh yeah, sure.

Krista Autrey (23:38.487)
Yeah. So I think, you know, with.

Krista Autrey (23:49.015)
trying to think of the best way to address this.

Krista Autrey (23:57.303)
Students have a really small snapshot of life. They don't know that yet. They have the 18, 19, 20 years and whatever perspective they grew up in, which sometimes was maybe a pretty small context. And...

I think there's two parts to that because one of it is helping them think beyond maybe what they've known to be true. And known to be true from like, hey, every one of my family is a teacher, so I'll be a teacher. It's like, OK, well, maybe, but maybe not. I think in regards to the values and the lived experiences, it's funny that we're talking about this because as I think about it,

This doesn't come up a whole lot with Geneva students. And I think it's partly because of what they're learning in their classroom. There's a grounding that's there that I wouldn't say I've encountered with students sometimes at other schools. So I think that's where I'm actually probably, I'm a little taken off guard with this question because it doesn't, that's just not an issue.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (24:49.758)
Okay. Okay.

Krista Autrey (25:15.959)
that I face with Geneva students a whole lot. It's actually, it's very countercultural. I would say it's the exception, not the rule by far. So I probably don't have a great answer for you to be honest, just because.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (25:18.846)
Seems counter -cultural.

Krista Autrey (25:34.711)
It doesn't come up a whole lot here.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (25:37.982)
probably the best advertising you can have for Geneva, right? That's really not, because I, yeah.

Krista Autrey (25:39.895)
You know what? Yes, I'll say this. I was sitting, sometimes I ask myself, you know, we talk about calling and vocation a lot at Geneva. We're the center for calling and career, which is not uncommon in Christian schools, but it's less common. And sometimes I wonder, you know, is what we're doing really different or is it just like a little shift on the norm career wise? And I had the chance to sit with

some other career professionals from another faith based school recently. And I just felt like we were missing each other constantly. Cause I, we, the way we were talking about calling to them, I think felt really irrelevant to some degree because it was, it was much more just career focused. Like, well, yeah, but they have to do these things. They're like, yeah, like they, they do, but like we're, we're trying to give them something bigger than just career.

And I was reflecting later, I was like, why was that conversation so tricky? Like, why couldn't we find a place in the ground to meet, especially being two faith -based schools with a lot of similarities, I would argue. But that conversation of, hey, you are bigger than what you do, but the Lord is bigger than all of that, right? And like, that's our anchor. That conversation is had from the very top to the very bottom.

Geneva. It is fully woven through everything. And so it's not just like a slogan. It's not just something we say to people. It is in our DNA. And when you get here, you recognize that. So it's funny that that question is throwing me off because I'm like, that's like, it's just not a that's just not something we talk about a lot. It is but not with students and that in that regard.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (27:27.358)
Yeah, there's, and I felt that way about, you know, my undergraduate institution, like, oh, you're just in a bubble. Sometimes it's not bad being in a certain bubble, you know, if, if, if, right, they're everywhere. It's what kind of bubble are you having, you know? And so not, not the worst bubble. I'm also wondering, I mean, and I, I understand why colleges, even Christian colleges kind of have to, you know, they have to publish their stats, right? And, and,

Krista Autrey (27:40.311)
Bubbles are everywhere. Like they're everywhere. Yeah. Exactly. Yes. Yeah.

Krista Autrey (27:56.375)
Yeah, sure.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (27:57.374)
of course, it's a point of pride if you have whatever percent job placement and all these things. And it's so interesting because on the one hand, we're kind of criticizing some of the elite institutions, the Ivy Leagues. But if we get someone into Harvard Law School, like, oh, we got to point that out. There's not a good statistic on five years, 10 years down the road, regardless of what the students are doing, they're happy. But how do you quantify, how do you measure that? But to your point, I guess, is

Krista Autrey (28:12.599)
Yes.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (28:26.654)
because they're so grounded, you know, in those students in five or 10 years, they might not be a teacher anymore. They might not be in their initial field, but are they happy? Have they found something that gives them purpose and fulfillment? That study does not exist, I think, and I don't know how you would do it, but isn't that really what matters? They're happy husbands and wives, right?

Krista Autrey (28:40.119)
Yeah.

Krista Autrey (28:46.647)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, good parents, you know, attentive, willing to see the people in front of them and get to know people at a deeper level than just the surface and call people around them to something deeper than just, you know, the superficial lives we often lead. I was actually I was talking with our our VP of enrollment and marketing recently and we were we were talking about how Geneva's unique value proposition and I was like, how do you

Soren Schwab (CLT) (28:50.814)
Yeah.

Krista Autrey (29:16.055)
How do you help people understand that what's going to be helpful for them is something way bigger than they can understand at this point? And we can't promise it's immediate and we love immediacy, right? We love things that are like, you get it now, right? Because it is a seed that just keeps growing throughout life. I think like the gene of education, which I think like I've been at several.

faith -based institutions. And I came to Geneva because that's what I found in the people that I met who had come from here. Like every time I met someone from Geneva, they were just these people with a deep faith, just substantive humans. And I thought, man, like, I wanna work with those people. You know, like I wanna be a part of that. And it's just proven to be true. Like it's just continuously proven to be true. And it is hard sometimes to help people see that long -term vision, but.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (30:01.246)
You

Krista Autrey (30:12.567)
And it's a different way of living and it is a good way of living, not always easy and not always happy. Right. Like it's sometimes it's hard, but it's the meaning and the purpose and the understanding that the world is bigger than you and God is, you know, God is just infinitely bigger than you. And he's created this world with an infinite number of things to be discovered. And how cool is that? How cool is that? We get to be a part of that.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (30:34.462)
Yeah, oh, absolutely. And, you know, we employ a lot of liberal arts majors, you know, from institutions like Geneva and others, and they're just different, you know, and, you know, we're a growing company, there's always change. And these students are able to weather that and to find ways to, you know, with grace, but also with diligence and hard work and...

It really is, we like to say, if you want kind of the best marketing for classical education or this liberal arts education is just talk to students that have received it, that have gone to these colleges, because it's noticeably different. So we are so grateful. Shout out to Willem, he's one of my favorite humans. What you're doing at Geneva is really, I mean, it is transformative.

That's what a good education, especially good Christian education does. Christo, of course, I have one more question for you, and I'm really curious about your answer to that. It's always the last question we ask on the Anchored Podcast, my favorite, although probably the most difficult to answer. But if there's one book or one text that you can point to, looking back, that you say, wow, this had probably had was most impactful in my life. What would it be and why?

Krista Autrey (31:38.711)
course.

Krista Autrey (31:43.703)
Mm -hmm.

Krista Autrey (31:55.479)
Yeah, I saw this question and I thought, oh no, I love to read and I read a lot. And so I think always nailing down one book is just, there's always a current book now, right? Yeah. I will say the book I always come back to, and I would say if I'm looking at my whole life and say, hey, what book had the deepest influence for the longest time?

Soren Schwab (CLT) (31:58.974)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (32:08.414)
It's not fair. We agree. It's not fair. Yeah.

Krista Autrey (32:24.183)
in a specific season.

It the book that I always I always say is The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. And. I read it in college or maybe like right after college, so a long time ago, and I've I've read pieces of it since then, I've not ever reread the full text, but. It just shifted the way I thought about a lot of of my faith. He has a whole section on on heaven and hell and that book that was really helpful and the way that he.

He just framed it in a way I'd never heard before, in a gracious way, but a true way, if that makes sense. And I think when we have that conversation, we tend towards one or the other. And he just, he walked that line really well. And he just called me to something deeper in what he was writing about. So I say that book a lot. And I love Dallas Willard. You know, he has a, he has a.

if you read his book, he's a philosopher, right? So if you read his books, you could you could get into the books that just like, what is he saying? But then he has these deeply practical books, too, and his ability to to write in an accessible way for I think most people was just really beautiful. I don't think all like theologian scholars are always able to do that at the same level.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (33:30.526)
Yes.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (33:49.054)
Thank you so much. Again, we're here with Krista Autry, who currently serves as the director of the Center for Calling and Career at Geneva College in Pennsylvania. Krista, this has been an absolute delight. Thank you so much for joining Anchor today.

Krista Autrey (34:02.135)
Absolutely, thanks for having me.