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Provost Pointers for February 2011
“The Great Conversation of Collegiate Life”
One of the early paragraphs of our Community Life Statement reads, “Learning depends on truth-centered attitudes. It thrives in an atmosphere of discriminating openness to ideas, a condition that is characterized by a measure of modesty toward one’s own views, the desire to affirm the true, and the courage to examine the unfamiliar. As convictions are expressed, one enters into the ‘great conversation’ of collegiate life, a task best approached with a willingness to confront and be confronted with sound thinking.” “The great conversation of collegiate life” – that’s a phrase that has been rattling around in my mind the last few weeks. What makes for “great” conversations? What is “the” great conversation into which we want to bring our students? Where do we see signs that that great conversation is in fact happening within our college community? How can I as provost or we as faculty engender participation in that great conversation?
Sorting out those questions and many other related ones is tough work. It taxes our minds but also are hearts and our spirits as we try as much as possible to get things right. That’s going to be true at any point in a college’s life. But I think most if not all of us are feeling it at Westmont even more acutely right now. That’s true in part because of the more public conversation that has begun over matters of human sexuality in recent weeks. But there are other contributing situations as well – ongoing anxiety over the capital campaign, the critical nature of the Provost search, the vital need to fill faculty positions, and much, much more. In all these circumstances, we hope we can carry on “great conversations” that will directly or indirectly aid our students as they enter into the great conversation of collegiate life.
The good news is that amid the many challenges of the moment, I have seen in the last few weeks many encouraging signs that Westmont is a place and a community where “the great conversation” and great conversations can happen. Responses to the letter from our LGBT alumni and to media inquiries have been grace-filled and wise, in my view, affirming both who we are and what we aspire to be. My hope and prayer is that the series of programs now being planned for March 7-9 will continue in that vein and in that spirit. We need lots of great conversations on these matters not only in March but as we go forward as a college community. Sometimes those will take place in public settings; more often they will occur in the privacy of offices and dorm rooms and prayer chapels as we endeavor to listen and love as Christ has loved us. The “great conversation” was surely on display last evening as Professor Robert George of Princeton University lectured for 80 minutes to a packed audience in this room on a natural law theory or basis for human dignity and human rights. George’s talk stretched all our minds, including those of the 50 or so students who attended, across much philosophical ground from the apostle Paul to Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and many others. I couldn’t help but notice how attentive and engaged our students were listening to George’s agile mind. I also couldn’t help but think that these were provost dollars well spent. This is what a college education should be about. I’ve had that same thought as I have listened to some, though not all, of the colloquium talks of our faculty candidates. It’s also what I thought as I interacted with students yesterday afternoon at the reception for the new exhibit at the Westmont Museum of Art. Together we were delighted, amused, perplexed, and moved by works of art that are a part of the college’s own permanent collection. This is what a college education should be about. These are the great conversations that link up to the great conversation of collegiate life. It’s what I know is going on across our campus every day, inside and outside our classrooms. It’s what’s going on with our students in France and Israel and San Francisco and a dozen other places around the globe this spring. It’s what we intend to have happen in Istanbul and in Israel/Palestine in years to come. It’s what God has called us to do as a Christian liberal arts college.
Blessings on you, then, as you do your part at Westmont to contribute to the great conversation of collegiate life.