|
|
 |
Jeff Aper, Blackburn College
September 6, 2002
The Liberal Arts: Looking Back and Looking Ahead
President Pride, Members of the Board of Trustees, Fellow Members of
the Faculty and Staff, Students, and Honored Guests:
It is my honor and privilege to address you here today in celebration
of the beginning of a new academic year. These observations and rituals
in higher education are as consistent as the seasons and remind us of
the steady pace maintained by the academic world. Many of the world's
oldest continuous organizations are universities, and this endurance is
a hallmark of the devotion of these people and places charged with building
bridges between the past and the future.
Blackburn College has endured for some time, by American standards. Though
we don't share the medieval history of the ancient European universities
that are our forbearers, we have built ourselves from the foundations
they laid hundreds of years before there was an institution of higher
education in North America. Blackburn's history is one of endurance, adaptation,
devotion, learning, and service. In the larger world, Blackburn has endured
through years that brought not only the gifts of emerging science, technology,
social conscience, and acknowledgment of civil rights, but of civil war,
world war, economic depression, sometimes terrible social inequity, and
domestic turmoil.
The liberal arts have formed an essential foundation of western colleges
and universities from time immemorial. Liberal education is an inheritance
from ancient Greek ideals of the education appropriate for free men -
citizens who would be prepared to think logically, independently, and
critically from an informed basis. Their good thinking would be complemented
by strong communication skills so that they could contribute to the political,
cultural, and economic life of their communities and nations.
The conception of what constitutes the liberal arts has evolved and changed
over time and will continue to do so. When Blackburn College was chartered
in 1837, the natural and applied sciences were not regarded as a genuine
part of the liberal arts. Neither were modern languages, economics, psychology,
the study of education, the visual arts, business, or political science.
Modern literature was suspect to many serious academics. Athletics, physical
education, and student activities were certainly not considered a part
of a serious liberal arts education. Work was certainly beyond the pale.
A lot has changed since then, not the least our conception of the liberal
arts. Today we understand the liberal arts as a framework for approaching
matters of the utmost importance and significance - that of realizing
human potential.
Still, we cannot honestly examine the noble ideals and intentions of
the liberal arts without seeing that the opportunity to gain such education
has been slow to come to all of humanity. The ancient ideal of the liberal
arts was almost entirely restricted to males of property and status -
those who had the opportunity to be free, which did not include the great
majority of the people of the time. These restrictions were maintained
in some form or fashion for almost 2,000 years. Any formal education,
much less higher education was not accessible to the majority of the people.
But in the United States in the 19th century there began a movement to
change this. Colleges began to spring up all over the country dedicated
to bringing higher education to those of lesser means and lesser station.
Gideon Blackburn was one of the people involved in trying to extend the
reach of the higher learning. Through the course of that century more
barriers - those of class, gender, race, and religion - began to fall.
In the 20th century the struggle to open the doors of colleges and universities
continued and today, despite its flaws, our system of higher education
is the most open, diverse, and accessible in the entire world.
This is an achievement of enormous magnitude. We have slowly and sometimes
very painfully broken down barriers that endured for millennia, we have
begun to realize the promise of full opportunity for every person, a promise
of growth and wholeness that is the essence of the ideal of the liberal
arts. This ideal is more than a broad base of learning in the arts and
humanities, social and natural sciences; it is an ideal about the possibility
and purpose of human existence. It is an ideal infused with the excitement
of a world that can be built from what was, what is, and what can be.
Our commitment is to wide ranging learning, but that learning in a context
of profoundly held values - justice, equality, peace, compassion, and
the full engagement of every man and woman in his or her own life and
the life of the world.
So we today aim to follow these ancient traditions in preparing people
to be full participants in a free and dynamic society. We look back to
traditions hundreds and even thousands of years in the making to try to
take the best from that and imagine even better.
We live in a world in which the pursuit of money, of power, and control
over others is often a top priority. The liberal arts are often counterposed
as somehow above the day-to-day affairs of the world of experience, and
thus those who enjoy referring to something called "the real world"
often criticize the traditional liberal arts as effete and disconnected
from day to day life. Just as often those committed to the ideals of the
liberal arts are just as critical of what they may see as crass materialism
or simplistic vocationalism. In truth, both perspectives are in error.
The liberal arts are a framework within which we aim to deepen our understanding
of the whole breadth and depth of human experience, and that must include
the work a day world of economic life. On the other extreme, human beings
do not exist for the sake of economic systems and processes, but rather
the reverse. The pragmatism of the practical economist provides powerful
tools for building systems - companies, physical infrastructure, cities,
software, processes - the what of human experience. The idealism and searching
of the liberal arts provide equally powerful tools for building ideas
and purpose - the why of human experience.
We must have both, because wealth, possessions, power, and control without
humane purpose and meaning are empty and often terribly destructive. Education
for the sake of money and power alone is only another way in which we
contribute to the misery of the world. Education that is disconnected
from the rough and tumble world of daily experience, of money and power,
remains in the margins and contributes little to the incremental growth
of a world that will embrace justice, equality, freedom, peace, and compassion.
This, then is our mission, and one for which Blackburn College is particularly
well suited - the embrace of the full range of human experience and activity.
We may sometimes despair at the magnitude of the evils and suffering
we see in the world and wonder how we can touch any of them in a healing
way. History can be a harsh teacher, and humans have shown an almost infinite
capacity for foolishness, cruelty, hatred, greed, and destruction. H.G.
Wells once observed that "Human history becomes more and more a race
between education and catastrophe." The growth of our technical power
seems sometimes to have dwarfed our powers of compassion, wisdom, and
commitment to a larger vision of human possibility. We may feel powerless
as individuals to influence, much less, shape a world hurtling into what
seems to be a difficult and largely unknown future. It may even seem quite
reasonable to be resigned to the dysfunction, destructiveness, and hedonism
that sometimes seem to characterize our world. Our liberal arts tradition
helps us cultivate a willingness to first identify what matters and why,
and then to be able to articulate and act on principle and commitment
to the wholeness and diversity of life. As George Bernard Shaw suggested
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man." If the world is despairing, violent,
obsessed with possessions and power, we can strive to be unreasonable;
we can oppose it and by small degrees adapt the world to our best selves.
A quarter century ago, I was a student here at Blackburn. I studied history
and saw that we are propelled forward on a great wave of experience -
that of our ancestors and all those who have come before. I looked back
and saw that no one in my family had ever before attended college. I looked
ahead and wondered where I was going, troubled by my apparent lack of
a proper career plan. By the time I graduated, still without that coveted
career plan, sitting on a raised platform erected in Dawes Gymnasium,
I understood Ambrose Bierce's definition of education - "That which
discloses to the wise and disguises from the fool their lack of understanding."
My education has continually disclosed to me the enormous limits of my
understanding and the intangible beauty of the continuing search for wisdom.
All learning, skill, and technique are, to some extent, pale reflections
of the totality of what is and what remains hidden or unavailable to human
perception and intelligence. It is our values that provide a compass for
the never-ending voyage of discovery, learning, and action. Career plans
notwithstanding, I had shaped and honed critical core values in my time
at Blackburn College: a broad liberal arts education had taught me how
to strengthen and apply informed, critical thinking and had given me a
foundation of ideas, skills, and information from which to continue a
lifetime process of growth and learning; my experience in the work program
and in the various student life opportunities on campus taught me a great
deal about egalitarianism, responsibility, the importance of community,
commitment to the common good, and simply how to work effectively with
other people.
The tragic events of a year ago have brought into sharp focus the critical
importance of all that Blackburn College stands for: freedom of thought,
inquiry, and speech; dedication to the fullest possible development of
every person's talent and potential; compassion for and service to others;
devotion to the twin causes of justice and equality; understanding of
those whose traditions, experience, and background differ from our own;
a sense of wonder at our place in the cosmos - a search for meaning, personal
integrity, and courage in the exploration of our deepest selves. We seek
to cultivate tolerance, our common humanity, and a commitment to the common
good.
As I have learned I have come to see that we are linked in a great chain
of being. Every decision, every action, every word and attitude that we
engage has the potential to uplift, to degrade or discourage, or to fall
into that flat netherworld of not caring at all. I believe as Mohandas
Gandhi said, "in the essential unity of [all people] and for that
matter of all that lives. ... that if one [person] gains [in humanity],
the whole world gains with him [or her] and, if one [person] falls, the
whole world falls to that extent."
The great philosopher John Dewey once wrote that education is wrapped
in social purpose. That is, that education is not simply a private good
intended to extend our individual skill or power. Education must be ever
linked to service, to our collective aspirations for the good. For the
better part of a century Blackburn College has sought to engage students
in rigorous academic study, in a vigorous campus life outside the classroom,
and comprehensive work experience. This combination has come to contribute
to a strong personal commitment to the college on the parts of students,
alumni, and faculty. It has meant much more than the original goal of
saving students money. Blackburn is devoted to helping students seek out
that link between head and heart and hands that is crucial to the realization
of a greater world, a world that we change one small step at a time.
Our mission is not just to provide jobs, to prepare people for jobs,
or to fill their heads with information. It is, to quote Lloyd Averill,
to "... assist students in clarifying who they are, what and whom
they care about, what they have a talent to do, what kind of a world it
is into which they have been thrust, and where and how that being and
caring and doing can change the world in the direction of their own highest
aspiration for it." Blackburn is and will be a college where those
who will grapple with the world to change it come to study.
This year we will engage in a process for comprehensive, strategic planning
for the academic programs at Blackburn College. We aim to envision a future
true to the historical mission of the college and also to reach boldly
into a future we can only very imperfectly predict. As Benjamin Mays observed
"... the tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. It
lies in having no goal to reach. It is not a calamity to die with dreams
unfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disgrace not
to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace not to have any stars to reach.
Not failure, but low aim, is the real sin."
But what kinds of aims are worthy of our purpose? What aims are worthy
of our college and each of our lives? We are called in this planning process
to dream great and wonderful dreams of what our college will be in a future
we can help shape and build. The liberal arts are thought by some to be
eternal, but they change. The eternal is forever beyond our grasp, but
it is in our reaching that greatness lies. It is our striving for the
great and the good that shapes us as human beings prepared to take our
role in a free and dynamic society, and this is, I think, the essence
of the liberal arts - the lifelong reaching for the great and the good
- in our learning, our thinking, our convictions, and our actions.
I am reminded of a little book by Jean Giono entitled The Man Who Planted
Trees. Giono tells a story of a simple man who lived in the foothills
of the Alps in Provence. The man eked out a living as a shepherd, but
every day, without fail, went about planting acorns. This practice went
on for years and slowly acorns became oaks and over decades the landscape
was transformed from desolation to beauty. As Giono concludes the story
When I reflect that one man, armed only with his own physical and moral
resources, was able to cause this land of Canaan to spring from the wasteland,
I am convinced that in spite of everything, humanity is admirable. But
when I compute the unfailing greatness of spirit and the tenacity of benevolence
that it must have taken to achieve this result, I am taken with an immense
respect for that old and unlearned peasant who was able to complete a
work worthy of God (pp. 38-39).
So with the gifts we are given - our natural abilities, our unique combinations
of experience and aptitudes, we are called to act with the same kind of
"unfailing greatness of spirit and tenacity of benevolence."
The liberal arts have grown from the province of the elite to become the
common right and heritage of all men and women. They have grown from a
narrow base of classical learning to a wide open ground of all that is
human and all that is possible. We at Blackburn embrace this spirit and
this cause and will always, always aim, like Giono's shepherd, to cause
the land of Canaan to spring from the wasteland and to complete a work
worthy of God.
|
|
