The following is a transcript of the author’s Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony speech.
In February, I visited Body Worlds at the Museum of Nature and Science. One element of the exhibit is “The Equestrian,” in which a man is sitting atop a massive rearing horse. Both of the man’s hands are reaching down, and in one hand he is holding his own brain.
It was a memorable image, but also a confusing one. For me, the most pressing question was: What is this fellow doing with his brain?
As we celebrate your induction into Phi Beta Kappa, this prestigious honor society for the liberal arts and sciences, I think that last question is important: What are you doing with your brain? Too many people, just like “The Equestrian,” are perched on a massive metaphorical horse, holding their brain out, plastinated and static, for people to observe and move on. From my perspective, an education in the liberal arts and sciences is of the utmost importance because, in short, it prevents you from becoming the image I just described.
First, the liberal arts and sciences expose you to different academic disciplines: literature, music, philosophy, science, foreign languages, economics, religion, etc. By looking through the lens of each of these fields, you are promised a richer and more complex way of experiencing the world.
The second reason is a cliché you’ve heard before: You are not here to learn what to think, but rather how to think. My first semester, a professor assigned a paper asking us to take a stance and then anticipate that stance’s weaknesses. When I talked to my professor about the assignment, he told me that if, by the time I was done writing the paper, I wasn’t utterly convinced that my position was wrong, regardless of which position I chose, then I hadn’t thought enough about the topic. It’s this pursuit of complexity, of engaging all different sides, that sets apart the liberal arts education.
The third reason is something I learned over Spring Break. This year, I led an Alternative Spring Break trip to Navajo Nation in Arizona. The focus of our service was working as classroom assistants at Tuba City Boarding School. I was assigned to Mrs. Walters’ sixth-grade class.
Each day consisted of this: for a couple of hours in the morning, the students worked individually through their reading books; then they had P.E., lunch and recess; then they finished day with a couple hours of individual work from their math books. However, Mrs. Walters did not do an effective job of enforcing what she said, and most of the students who were working already understood the material, while most of the students who didn’t understand the material refused to work.
On Thursday, Mrs. Walters asked me to work with Lamar because “Lamar usually doesn’t understand.” So I asked Lamar if he would like help. He started to say no, but then he agreed. So I sat and asked him what he had done the night before. He told me he had visited his uncle’s ranch, and we talked about horses, hiking and camping. After that he let me explain the difference between a limited and omniscient narrator, and he read some pages from his book. Then I let him rub it in my face that the Suns had beaten the Mavericks the night before, and then we talked about literary point-of-view. By the end of the morning, he had done more pages from his reading book than he had done during the rest of the week combined.
I learned something from that experience that is very simple, and yet I think has profound implications for each of us. Education is about relationships. In my story, education improved when there was an interaction, a back-and-forth, between student and teacher. Also, education is about relating one idea to other ideas and one subject to other subjects. It’s about the relationships that you form with other students, creating an academic community.
Get to know your faculty. If you’re really brave, challenge your professor on something he or she said in class. Those professors who are interested in giving you a liberal arts education would be happy to listen to and discuss your doubts. Seek out peers who are interested in a broad knowledge base and thinking critically.
SMU has a beautiful campus with excellent services. I’m grateful that I’ve had a job here, that I’ve made friends here, that I could study abroad, and, call me crazy, but I don’t even think the cafeteria is all that bad. But I am most grateful for those professors and students who introduced me to the critical debate, who wouldn’t let me get away with sloppy ideas, who made me doubt what I believed and then turned around and made me doubt what they believed.
Are people more interested in the horse you’re riding than your most precious commodity, your mind? An education in the liberal arts and sciences gives you the tools to make people engage you in order to see your brain. I hope you learn to value this more, because the world could use more critical thinking. So while I hope you see your induction into Phi Beta Kappa as an honor, I also hope you see it as a challenge, a challenge to go out there and do something with your brain.
About the writer:
David Bass is a senior English major. He can be reached at [email protected].
