It’s that time of year again. Just as we’ve begun to settle into our routines of paying little thought to the academic obligations that await us in Washington, we are called to relinquish the liberties of vacation with at least slight wistfulness. A special few of us—approximately one fourth—are greeted for the very first time by deans, community directors, RAs, and NSO volunteers in color-coded shirts. For all the enjoyments that a new academic year can bring, and there are many, it is tempting to pause and consider whether our time might be better spent.
If ever there were a time to ask ourselves why we annually return to this thing we call a university and, indeed, why we attend it at all, it would be now. Foregoing the prescriptions of degree requirements and add/drop, could we not by independent study extract from books and other resources the same knowledge we might obtain from a university? Like those of most good questions, I believe the answer is both apparent and nuanced.
The university is something more than a brick and mortar establishment for centralizing information. In fact, much to the chagrin of its solicitors of donations, the institution would perform no less effectively its fundamental role in the absence of such luxuries as athletic complexes, student centers, and performance spaces. The university is principally a concept, defined by certain intrinsic characteristics necessary for the incubation of inquiry.
“Well,” one might ask, “that’s all well and good, but hasn’t that been the purpose of the last eleven or so years of compulsory education?” Here, we must differentiate between the “higher education” in which we engage and the elementary education that has so far sustained us. At the nexus of this divide lies the dilemma of what it means to educate. The distinct purpose of higher education is to transcend the mere medium of raw knowledge acquisition and impart a capacity for independent inquiry, a means of rigorously and methodically testing reality through reason alone to arrive at truth.
Yet, if neither first-rate facilities nor knowledge itself are sufficient conditions for a higher education, then what are? In short, what is required is the often too-cumbersome and perilously neglected idea of open discourse and its derivative, academic freedom. The ability to charge without hesitation and (if necessary) with irreverence down whatever path one’s faculties of reason discover is the foremost basis of a higher education. Therefore, the university exists contingent upon a collectively reinforced environment that is decisively supportive of looseness in speech, neglect for external approval from political and emotional interests, and liberty in questioning even those causes self-styled as noble beyond reproach.
Since a university must pursue as lofty a goal as unimpeded inquiry, attaining such a state is a perpetual work in progress. The mere incorporation of some body called a university does not a true university make. Insofar as an environment of open discourse and free inquiry is to be nurtured, professors are no more responsible than students for playing the role of educator. The effect of this is that developing the capacity for rational and informed thought emerges from community-synchronized perspectives on liberty in thought and speech. Properly speaking, then, each of us that works toward that end is not a “member” of the Georgetown community, but a “participant.”
If I might offer my humble advice to the newest participants in our university as they acclimate themselves to higher education, it is this: be shocked; be offended; be uncomfortable—gravely so. This offense is for the betterment of the offended because it exposes them to opposing thought. Do not be deceived into believing you are benefitted by a space in which you are “safe” from the opportunity to prove the impressive ability and fortitude of the mind in the face of unsettling dissent. Fleeing such challenges can provide one an excellent elementary education but no higher education. To this end, insecurity in your convictions and dissonance in what you regard as truth become welcome challenges.
By no means is this to say I recommend abandoning the values and information obtained over the course of years of elementary education. Instead, what I suggest is to approach study with what is commonly given the sobriquet of an “open mind.” However, open-mindedness does not mean giving due respect and consideration to the contrary views of peers; that is simply the civility presumed of anyone serious about pursuing the truth. An open mind entails challenging your own beliefs and, at the first sign of comfort that you’ve secured the ethical or intellectual high ground, challenging yourself anew. Just as this critical inquiry offset our preceding inheritors of the Jesuit tradition in higher education from the mere students of information, so too does it offset and define the university of today.
