[daepp]

I heard this speech, which I thought was fantastic and spot on, given by Joseph Garnjobst. I hope he wont mind me posting it. He is a professor of Latin and the classics.

The Shocking Truth about the Liberal Arts

Parents and prospective Hillsdale students: it is to you that I will be directing most of my comments this afternoon:

It is with a little hesitation that I have entitled my talk as I have, since I know that, first impressions are more often than not lasting impressions, and I don't want you to leave here with the wrong idea about Hillsdale College. You have seen a beautiful, dare I say idyllic campus, lovely, well-appointed buildings, you have seen our friendly, helpful admissions staff, you have been to convocation, and the speech of Dr. Brad Birzer on our responsibilities in our republic during this time of tenebrae, the time of shadows, you have heard our talented choir, heard our president speak about the strength of the college and the principles upon which it stands. You saw Professor Chris van Orman honored for his teaching, and the senior class honored for their achievements. Finally, you have had a nice meal, so you might be asking yourself, "is this place for real"? "Does stuff like this happen every day"? I have to be honest with you, it doesn't. The weather isn't usually this nice. And the choir practices only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Chamber choir on Mondays and Wednesdays, so tomorrow will be an off day. But other than that, things will be as you have seen them.
In the interest of full disclosure, I feel that I have to tell you these things, since, if we encourage you to come here under false pretenses, then in a few years neither one of us will be happy, and that's not what we want. The truth of the matter is that for most of you college will be the last formal, directed education that you will receive. It needs to last you a lifetime. The friends that you will meet at college will most likely be some of the closest friends that you will have--friends which will last for the rest of your life. Such a choice is not to be made lightly, and it may be that Hillsdale College is not be the place for you. Rather than to tear up the campus, vandalize the buildings, make everyone surly and unhelpful (an impossible task) to undo this first impression, I thought I might disabuse some of you of the idea of coming here by telling you the shocking truth about a liberal arts education at Hillsdale College. I will concentrate on only three today, but I must still preface my remarks with a further disclaimer: if you have a medical condition, small children, or just scare easily, I would ask that you excuse yourself now. Those of you who stay, please know that you do so of your own free will, and that I cannot be held responsible for any injuries, mental or physical, which may occur as a result of these shocking truths.


Truth Number One: If we (meaning we the faculty working with you the students) do our job correctly, when you graduate from Hillsdale College after four years, you will not leave here satisfied. Now by that, I do not mean that you will leave here DISsatisfied. There is a world of difference between the two that perhaps needs some explication. A liberal arts education is not simply the accumulation of a specific and defined set of facts and figures, names and dates, though it is certain that before you leave here you will have accumulated a fair share of them. Rather it is a pursuit of the larger questions of who we are, what our purpose on this earth is, and we attempt to answer those questions by consulting the great thinkers of the Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian tradition to see how they approached and answered these questions. We evaluate, weigh, and consider their answers and incorporate those ideas into our own daily lives. Perhaps my description was a bit abstract, a bit detached. In case that it so, I have often found that it is useful to give a physical, concrete analogy which brings the point home. Since we have just eaten, perhaps a food analogy will be appropriate. A liberal arts education is not an all-you-can eat buffet at which we encourage you students to gorge yourselves on any-and everything in sight in the hopes of getting your money's worth before the management kicks you out and you waddle out the door (assuming that you fit). Rather a liberal art education should be an awakening of a hunger that you may not have known that you had before. The piquing of a non-physical appetite that cannot be sated by the mere accumulation of facts. We are not training you to be stars on Jeopardy, though we do have a Jeopardy champion on our faculty. It is not the covetous hunger to possess selfishly, but rather that insatiable curiosity, that sense of awe and wonder of the world that compels us to further inquiry, to further investigation, all the while knowing that the ultimate answer is far beyond our poor powers of understanding. If you are thinking that once you graduate from college you will never have to take another test in your life, read another book, write another paper, then my advice to you would be to save yourself and your parents four years of time and effort and quit now. Get an early start on that freedom. We can't help you here and your resources would better be spent elsewhere (or nowhere). But in the same breath I should also tell you that despite your best efforts you will be tested, you will have to read things you don't want to read, and you will have deadlines that must be met, and I assure you, I have yet to meet a boss who drops your two lowest job evaluation scores or gives extra credit. The point of a college education, a liberal arts education is not that it is the end of your studies, but instead it is just the beginning. We will not build the entire structure of your learning in these four years, but merely lay the cornerstone of what will be a great treasure house of wisdom. Make no mistake. This is no pie in the sky castle in the air, but an edifice grounded upon the firmest foundation that we know: the truth as it is revealed to us. This is as close to bedrock as we can get. We do not build on shifting sands here. Do not expect to leave here with some prefabricated cookie cutter McMansion, but rather expect to leave here with a plan and a desire to build. We would also like your house to be made of something sturdier than straw and sticks, because there are a lot of big bad wolves out there that will attempt to blow your house down. In order to be successful builders you must have that drive, that hunger that is too often stifled by the feeling of complacency. In his Symposium, Plato has Socrates describe this point between privation and satiety, that intellectual place between knowledge and ignorance, philosophy, the love of wisdom, the desire to seek after wisdom. That is the hunger that we want you to cultivate while you are here, and it is through that hunger that we hope you will leave here unsated and unsatisfied. That is shocking truth number one.

to be cont.