All Grow'd Up

Certainly the most consistent theme to run throughout postings last week involved “transitions” and the anxiety they produce. To some extent, everyone shared Regan’s sense that they felt as though they were 16 and learning to drive again.
This is a difficult time. There are the old people like me, who think back occasionally and wish that they had the chance to “do it over again.” That is, until we hear from people like you who are going through it for the first time, and then typically we breathe sighs of relief that we’re free of those decisions.
You all made some excellent points as you reflected on your current predicament in the light of what we have been reading in class. People knew they were not “invisible” in the same way as our narrator—yet you managed to see some interesting parallels. Women especially found a kind of kinship with the narrator. Many of you have been reminded time and again of your “place” relative to the world you’re about to enter: one way or another, you have discovered a male structure “out there,” whether it’s the glass ceiling of corporate culture or the male dominance in your religious tradition(s). When my wife became pregnant with our son, she was moved from the administrative “fast track” at Sears’ headquarters in Chicago and found herself and her career “on hold” until the company could determine whether she would continue to be a good investment after she gave birth. I suppose that, from their perspective, she wasn’t, since she left for maternity leave and never went back.
Keep in mind that you can imagine being invisible “out there” in part because certain experiences at Loras have left you feeling that way as well. That makes me think of Missy’s comment that the world outside Loras might not be any more “real” than the one we have known together here. Remember, this is a transition, not a trip to another planet. Your experiences here have prepared you for much of what you’ll encounter, not because Loras has given you that exact experience but because it has given you many of the tools to deal with the unfamiliar. One of those tools (I hope) is the awareness of what it feels like to screw up, to miss the point, to ask the dumb question, to fail. Expect all of that to continue. One of the most reassuring studies I ever read was the one that pointed out that 4.0 English majors who enter law school frequently write terrible legal briefs; the reason is simple: they’ve never written one before, and so they mess it up. The good news is that most of them figure out quickly how to fix it.
I was so pleased to read what you wrote about the value of “community” in this transition. In a world that is so hell-bent on inserting a bunch of “things” between us and the world—ipods, cell phones, television sets, laptop computers—many of you wrote about how important it is to develop and maintain personal relationships. I would encourage everyone to think about something that doesn’t all comes to mind as you’re pondering your future: love. No other term captures what is so rewarding and so frustrating about being in relationships or communities with people, whether they are coworkers or neighbors in your apartment building or the crowd rushing to work at 7:45 AM. Love gives you a chance to see what otherwise is invisible, including what one of you called the “secret plans” beneath those plans the world shows us. Out of genuine compassion for what’s important in life, love can be skeptical of those things that disregard or harm others.
Allowing yourself to feel a connection to the world also can open your ears and eyes to what it has to say and show you. That’s my final thought. For all of you who (like me) feel compelled to plan out your future, go ahead, keep doing it. But remember that the world has ways of finding you. More often than not, life take shape around you and you discover yourself in a career or a relationship that is unexpected. And you know, usually it’s pretty good. jw

Thinking about the liberal arts

Several drew convincing distinctions between the liberal arts and alternatives. The phrase that popped up a lot was “trade school,” which I’m not sure is very accurate, at least not as an alternative that many Loras students would have faced. A better way to think of the distinction might be to begin in a place where a lot of you began your post—with your majors. Obviously, you all have one. But, at Loras are you locked into it in the same way you would be at, say, Iowa State? Moreover, are the courses you take outside your major just a bunch of 100-level offerings that meet requirements, or do these courses cohere in some way? Have they pushed you to develop your thinking outside your major, not just supplement it? (At the very least, the courses seem to have forced you to read Plato twice.)

I really liked the way most of you got beyond the liberal arts “sound bites” quickly in your answers. Yes, the liberal arts can make you well-rounded—but what difference does that make? The purpose of the liberal arts is to leave you well-rounded so that you are not a victim of one way of thinking. Several of you stated this well; I’ll mention Jenn not only because she gave a good example in her blog but also because she used it in class—her claim that courses in philosophy and ethics have caused her to think about science (and medicine) differently. I took that to mean that she might actually think about science in a very unscientific way, which I think is a good thing. No doubt the same can be said of my field, religious studies/theology, where the absence of other ways of thinking threatens to leave the profession unaware of the very issue we are supposed to focus on—the presence of God in the world.

We’ve been talking in class about the way Ralph Ellison gives us complex situations—almost no-win situations. It strikes me that some of what people wrote about the liberal arts smacks of that problem. For example, Abby and Nick corresponded about how the liberal arts should respond to a fast-paced, changing world. I don’t think anyone would argue that our studies should not answer changes in the world, but there is a danger here as well, for if we find ourselves chasing after all of the changes the world adopts, won’t we lose sight of what is lasting or important? For example, I admit that I want to be part of an educational system that is current, but I’m really bothered by the fact that fewer and fewer people pick up books and read them these days. I think something has been lost. Although several of you addressed problems like this when you summarized Nussbaum, I did want to single out Maria, who pointed out that the liberal arts don’t necessarily “liberate” us in traditional ways. We should not, she said, think of ourselves as liberated from the world but for it; that is, we are freed from our preconceptions so that we can be more aware of our surroundings.

This was a very good online discussion that extended into the class Monday as well. I appreciate that, and I hope to hear ideas and challenging comments from everyone as the semester unfolds. jw

Loras Honors: Service Learning

This blog is my effort to create a space where I can reflect on postings made by my students in a course I teach at Loras College in Dubuque, IA.  The course is dedicated to service learning, and it is the capstone course for the Loras Honors Program.  The Loras Honors Program attracts an outstanding group of students, and because I hope to remain involved with it through a variety of offerings, I have  created an address for this blog that is quite general: lorashonors@blogger.com. Despite this general address, all of the posts for this semester (Fall, 2008) will be dedicated to the service learning class.

Briefly, this capstone class tries to accomplish three things: to provide meaningful opportunities for community service; to create a structure where these service opportunities can be discussed for their larger social or cultural implications; to motivate students to reflect on what they discover about their educational backgrounds and their readiness to address issues in the world outside the classroom.