Alumni Seminar with Nancy Hill
We’re excited to launch our Inaugural Alumni Seminars Series!
"What does it mean to grow up: #Adulting across time and contexts"
THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT!
Tuesday, March 24
4:00 PM PT / 7:00 PM ET
via Zoom
Debates about when adolescence ends and adulthood begins often lead to judgements about how long youth today are taking to reach adulthood and uncertainties about what it means to become an adult. The transition from adolescence to adulthood is often fraught with anxieties about realizing one’s dreams, getting into college, succeeding in the job market, and finding a life partner. Have the definitions and markers of adulthood changed across generations? Should these conceptualizations change or adapt to the times? Are young people today trapped in an extended adolescence? Some experts and the popular press contend that young people today are coddled and more resistant to growing up than were those who came of age a generation or more ago. Conversely, other experts and many young adults today find that growing up is harder—harder to launch a career, burdened by student loan debt, harder to find a compatible life partner—in general, harder to achieve the life their parents have. Amid these debates, it is unclear what is meant by adulthood and whether it can or should be defined by the same markers as have been used in the past. Today’s young adults are charting their own path…or are they?
In this seminar, we will discuss/debate markers and definitions of adulthood and coming of age. Using a historical lens, we will also examine and understand the contexts that elicit longer and shorter pathways to adulthood, including the role of the economic context, educational and occupational opportunities, gender, and the need to co-construct adulthood with others. Depending on interest and time, we may discuss my more recent work on the ways in which globalization is impacting the transition to adulthood across national contexts.
Spots are limited to maintain an intimate discussion format.
HCAS Members: $5.00 per person REGISTER HERE
Non-members: $50.00 per person REGISTER HERE
About our speaker
Nancy E. Hill, Charles Bigelow Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
She is co-author (with Alexis Redding) of The End of Adolescence: The Lost Art of Delaying Adulthood (Harvard University Press, 2021), which makes the developmental and historical case for a more intentional, supported transition into adulthood. Her scholarship has been widely published in leading journals, and she currently leads longitudinal and research–practice partnerships focused on diverse and immigrant youth.
Hill’s work speaks deeply to questions of formation, vocation, and how communities can faithfully support the next generation as they grow into purpose-filled adulthood.
About the Alumni Seminar Series
Modeled after the beloved freshman seminars, this new series creates space for meaningful conversation, intellectual engagement, and spiritual reflection among alumni. Each seminar gathers approximately 12 alumni for a virtual, 90-minute “class” with one of Harvard’s Christian faculty members.
This is more than a lecture — it’s a conversation. Come ready to reflect, ask questions, and build community.