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Patricia L. Poteat, Bethany College
September 12, 2002
Ladies and gentlemen: Good morning and welcome to this convocation
marking the 161st academic year of Bethany College.
I take as our theme today the meaning of a liberal education as embodied
in this institution and in the vision of our founder, Alexander
Campbell. I take as the framework for reflection upon this theme the day
of mourning, remembrance, and thanksgiving which a previously
unremarkable date, September 11, became one year ago.
Yesterday, we gathered to observe the first anniversary of a terrible
criminal act; an act which changed us as individuals, as a community,
as a nation and left its mark upon every soul here present. Today, we
gather again to reflect upon our shared purpose as students, faculty,
staff, trustees, alumni, and friends of Bethany College. The simple fact
of our coming together, here and now, and what that implies about the
paths we have taken, the choices we have made, and the values we strive
to uphold is a tie that binds every soul here present.
In one perfectly obvious sense, the conjunction of these two gatherings
is incidental, an accident of the academic calendar. But, in the spirit
of the Biblical admonition, “Let him who has ears to hear, hear
and eyes
to see, see,” I would suggest that there is a deep, even profound,
connection between the two in our lives and our futures. The relation
is
not causal, of course, but heuristic. Each helps us interpret the other.
Each is an instrument for reflection about who we are and what we do.
Together, they illuminate in important and telling ways the ethos of the
convivial order that is Bethany College.
With this as my premise, I want to pose three questions:
First, have our core values as an institution been challenged in new
and
complex ways by the events memorialized yesterday?
Second, is there anything specific to the history of the College which
provides guidance for making our way in a world that changed so
dramatically a year ago?
Third, what must we do now?
Regarding the first question---have our core values been challenged in
new and complex ways?---the short answer is surely “yes” and
“yes” in a
very particular way.
What do I mean? September 11 is about many things: Courage,
selflessness, endurance, fear, rage, grief, faith, love, and death. Most
important for these reflections, however, September 11 is about the
triumph of intelligence unaffiliated with responsibility to the created
world.
It is precisely here in an unholy alliance of fanaticism, rationality,
desperation, and an awful kind of brilliance that we confront the
absolute antithesis of all that thoughtful citizens of our and other
cultures (including, of course, Islam) stand for---preeminently, the
affiliation of intelligence and responsibility to the created world. It
is also precisely here that we confront something we know but, most of
the time, prefer not to acknowledge; namely, how very narrow is the
space between rationality and learning in the service of responsible
action in the world and rationality and learning in the service of
nihilism and despair.
The difference---which is to say, the difference between life and
death---is but a hair’s breadth. We must choose, deliberately and
self-consciously, not once-and-for-all but again and again, as we go
about the day to day business of teaching and learning. This is our
highest privilege and our greatest responsibility. This is who we are
and what we do.
Alexander Campbell understood this very well---which brings me to my
second question: Is there anything specific to the history of the
College which provides guidance for making our way in a world that
changed so dramatically one year ago? Again, the short answer is “yes.”
If you know anything at all about Campbell’s life and work you
know
that, for him, education was a deeply moral enterprise (moral—not
moralistic; big difference) and the telos of all learning was the
responsible and reflected life lived in service to others. Moreover,
Campbell insisted that the curriculum of the College be non-sectarian
and include the natural sciences on an equal footing with classical and
biblical studies. (It is worth noting in passing that he was well
acquainted with the horrors of the religious wars that devastated much
of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.) Campbell also recognized
that education must engage the whole person, mind, body, and spirit---a
radical notion at the time. Finally and all other considerations aside,
you have to admire a man who names his very successful journal, The
Millennial Harbinger. Imagine! Somehow, the contemporary Journal of the
American Academy of Religion just doesn’t have quite the same heft,
does
it?
Our founder stands with other influential thinkers of the early American
republic who made a clear distinction between the secular and the
religious and their respective roles in the body politic. Campbell
translated this distinction directly into the fabric of this institution.
For him, the work of the College was work in and for the created world.
Leadership and civic engagement were not incidental to this work but essential.
This attitude extended to subjects that were by no stretch utilitarian
(e.g., classical languages) but which taught intellectual discipline and
acquainted the student with other times and cultures---necessary, in his
view, to meet the demands of citizenship.
These “rules of engagement,” so to speak, have been and remain
an
integral part of Bethany’s ethos. While they do not, in themselves,
guarantee that we shall avoid the radical disconnect between
intelligence and responsibility alluded to earlier, they do provide a
strong framework and a clear imperative as we go forward, thinking anew
about why we teach and how we learn and why these things matter.
This brings me to my third and final question: What must we do now?
One of my role models is the political philosopher, Hannah Arendt. (The
other two are Julia Child and Anne of Green Gables---topic for another
day). In her book, The Human Condition, Arendt makes a deceptively
modest proposal: “What I propose..…is very simple: it is nothing
more
than to think what we are doing.” She adds that, absent this, we
are
rudderless and in danger of becoming “the helpless slaves not so
much of
our machines as of our know-how.” I agree. This probably does not
surprise you.
Following Arendt then and in the spirit of hers, I wish to make my own
modest proposal: Taking yesterday’s anniversary very much to heart
and
mind, I propose that, as a community, we take the time between now and
next September 11 to reflect, examine, discuss, argue, debate, decide,
and reflect again, rigorously and systematically, not upon our mission
but upon how we will fulfill that mission.
I propose that we ask ourselves how and with what effect we are engaged,
a la Alexander Campbell, with the community of Bethany and Brooke County
and with worlds beyond. I propose that we ask how and with what effect
are our students engaged with cultures very different from their own.
I propose that we ask what must we do, in this changed world, to uphold
the covenant entered into, in this very place, by Alexander Campbell 161
years ago.
Ladies and gentlemen, be assured this is not mere rhetoric. Over the
next few weeks, I shall seek your counsel on ways to engage this
community in the hard work of reflection and action outlined here.
Please note: I said reflection and action. I shall be there. I trust you
will be there too.
Thank you and God bless you.
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