As the director at the time of the large, interdisciplinary program required of all Providence College students whose classes all take place in the new building, I was asked, as part of a series of speakers including McCullough, to bring greetings to the several hundred people gathered from the faculty. It gave me the opportunity to consider the value of a liberal education. Here\u2019s what I said.<\/strong><\/p>\nMy father, an itinerant Baptist minister, once told me about a plaque on the preacher\u2019s side of the pulpit in one of the many churches in which he sermonized\u00a0during my growing-up years. The pulpit plaque challenged the person giving the sermon directly by asking \u201cWhat are you trying to do to these people?\u201d As director of the Development of Western Civilization [DWC] program that has just finished its first month in this glorious new building that we are dedicating today, I frequently ask myself this question and bring it regularly to the DWC faculty. ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/766\/2018\/05\/VM-Ruane-5.jpg\")
\u201cWhat\u00a0are<\/b>\u00a0we trying to do to these people, these students who have chosen, along with their families, to make a Providence College liberal arts education a central part of their plans for a flourishing future?\u201d<\/p>\n
Just as I usually start DWC faculty meetings with \u201cHere\u2019s what we are\u00a0not<\/b>\u00a0talking about today,\u201d a good answer to \u201cWhat are we trying to do to these people\u201d might begin with understanding what we are not doing as well. In DWC, for instance, we are not conducting a four-semester long museum tour, spending last week in the Homer wing, this week in the Herodotus wing, and next week in the Sophocles section, bemused by how quaint and how different things were back then.<\/p>\n
As I often tell my students, if we can\u2019t find something directly relevant to\u00a0us<\/b>\u00a0in what we read and discuss, something of importance to twenty-first century people, we\u2019re wasting our time. So how\u00a0do<\/b>\u00a0we make the connection between the past and the present in such a way as to shape a better future? Brief passages from two different authors, a Lutheran pastor and an Anglican\u00a0bishop,\u00a0have recently helped me frame this question anew.<\/p>\n
Nadia Bolz-Weber writes that\u00a0You<\/strong>\u00a0have to be deeply rooted in tradition in order to innovate with integrity.<\/b>A liberally educated person knows where she comes from. Athena may have sprung fully formed from Zeus\u2019s head, but a liberally educated person is shaped, molded, and formed by continual and intelligent immersion in the greatest works and ideas of the past. A liberal education is not a museum tour. It is a deliberate and extended engagement with where we come from; such an engagement forms the foundation a well-lived and creatively expressed life.<\/p>\nRowan Williams writes that\u00a0To read means to\u00a0re<\/i>read.\u00a0<\/i>If we are to gain any meaning out of the past, we must energize it in terms of the present.\u00a0<\/b>Contrary to a favorite phrase among Rhode Islanders, liberally educated persons are never \u201call set.\u201d The ultimate purpose of a liberal education is to establish the tools and habits of lifetime learning, tools and habits that will help shine a new light on everything, even things you thought you already knew.<\/p>\n
The past, whether my past or a text from several thousand years ago, becomes new each time it is considered, shining a new light on possible futures. Two weeks ago in a seminar on the\u00a0Odyssey<\/i>, I understood a text that I thought I knew thoroughly in a brand new way as a student compared the challenges faced by Odysseus and Penelope once he makes it back to Ithaca with similar challenges faced by veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.<\/p>\n
This beautiful new building has been in full pedagogical operation for a month, and the early returns are wonderfully positive. Students and faculty walk the halls with smiles on their faces. There are students already studying and conversing in the Great Room when I arrive at 7:30 every morning. Several colleagues have reported that they are having the best seminars of their lives.<\/p>\n
The faculty has not become smarter, the students aren\u2019t necessarily better, but we are teaching and learning in a building whose beauty and elegance matches the beauty and elegance of what takes place inside on a daily basis\u2014preparation for a life of learning and excellence. Since the DWC\u00a0offices were moved into the Ruane\u00a0Center two months ago, I frequently find myself wandering the halls alternating between smiling and pinching myself to make sure that this is truly our building.<\/p>\n
To take the Apostle Paul out of context, \u201cold things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.\u201d On behalf of the Providence College faculty, I have two words to say to all of those on the stage and all those out there who contributed to making this dream a reality: THANK YOU.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning historian David McCullough was the speaker at Providence College\u2019s Commencement exercises last Sunday. His presence reminded me of when I met McCullough (I tried not to be too much of a groupie) four and a half years ago. In October 2013, McCullough was the invited keynote speaker at the dedication of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2938,"featured_media":12380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,14,25,47,61,69,73,79,94,1],"tags":[153,193,267,326,383,394,463],"class_list":["post-12359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beauty","category-books","category-development-of-western-civilization","category-hope","category-literature","category-mythology","category-philosophy","category-providence-college","category-teaching","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-development-of-western-civilization","tag-homer","tag-literature","tag-philosophy","tag-providence-college","tag-teaching"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n