Weltanschauung and the Autobiography: Transforming the Jesuit Business School Experience Through Sharing Personal Stories

Sharing personal stories among a small group of student colleagues involves multiple acts of courage, trust, and being vulnerable and transparent. These are difficult stretches for our students, but the effort creates a transformative experience that changes how students see themselves, how they see their colleagues, and how they see the world (weltanschauung). For our university, this sharing, via a structured autobiography exercise, has helped us create a campus culture that is more socially aware, more empathic, more understanding, more civil and more humane. In addition, the program incorporates the reflective traditions of the lgnatian Examen, thereby offering a vehicle for connecting participants to our Jesuit heritage.