ࡱ> LNKg 9bjbjVV 8Dr<r<q1+XX8*..DDDj*l*l*l*l*l*l*$+.*XXX*DD*bbbXDDj*bXj*bbbD@E@bV**0*b7/7/b7/b >],b$***XXXX7/X x: Commencement Address by David Nikkel A child started paging through an old family Bible. As she began in Genesis, a large dried leaf that had been pressed between the pages of that Bible fell onto the floor. After picking it up and staring at it, she ran to her parents and declared, with some wonder in her voice, I think Ive found Adams underwear! One stream of rich meaning found in the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve involves knowledge. Knowledge does have its downsides. In this ancient tale, the first couple loses their innocence and realizes their nakedness. I think we all would agree that knowledge can be used for good--or for evil. Today, however, Im going to speak about the goodness of a type of knowledge, a knowledge that is critical but not narrow, a knowledge that is broad-minded in spirit. And that brings me to you graduates, the reason for our gathering today. You graduates have both received a gift and earned a reward, namely, knowledge that is both critical and broad-minded. You who receive your Bachelors degree from 鶹P today have received a liberal education. Now liberal in this context is not about liberal versus conservative. The root of the word liberal is liberty. Maybe the term General Education is one youve had mixed feelings about. But to be generally educated, broadly educated, liberally educated is freeing. You can engage intelligently and responsibly with all the major areas of life. Congratulations! You have entered the ranks of the broadly educated. And we need you. Our society and our world need you. So after extending my congratulations, part of my responsibility is to offer you graduates some advice. My first bit of counsel is to keep learning--keep learning. You wont have professors telling you what to read and when to read it or what to write and when (unless youre going right on to professional or graduate education). When I finished my undergraduate experience, I liked the freedom to read whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. It was nice to have a break before starting years of further formal education. But when professors arent creating learning opportunities for you, create your own opportunities. Take advantage of the opportunities that arise. For that provides many benefits, first of all for you, in making your life fuller and much more interesting. My second point of advice will take longer to develop. You see, youre going to encounter challenges and threats to the liberal education, the broad education, youve received. Various persons, institutions, and movements will discourage you from taking advantage of that education, will discourage you from continuing to grow as a broadly educated citizen of the United States and the world. There are those who will use their knowledge in a narrow, cynical way, hoping to take advantage of what they hope is your ignorance. Those who try to keep you ignorant about aspects of the goods or services they sell and to keep you ignorant of your rights if you are harmed in using those goods and services. There are those forces at work to keep you ignorant about whats happening politically and economically. Much broadcast news today is intentionally narrow, serving an ideology, or intended to be more entertaining than enlightening. They want you to be narrow, just listening to or watching them. If you havent checked out public radio and television for news, please do. Youll get analysis and hear conversations in which all sides are represented, without shouting at or talking over each other. Most of us realize that politics in the United States today is dysfunctional, but its harder to know why or what to do to change things. One key factor is increased knowledge of demographics, which has been used in narrow ways. Voting districts are manipulated--or gerrymandered, thats the political term--so precisely, that they are not competitive, so narrow ideologues tend to get elected, ideologues without the incentive or will to work with others to reach compromise. One threat to a liberal or broad education is rather direct. There are voices calling for reducing or eliminating the components necessary for being a generally or broadly educated person. These voices label the education of students about history, art, literature, philosophy, religion, the social sciences, and the natural sciences generally as wasteful. Universities instead should just focus on training students for particular jobs or professions. This attitude is not only foolish in missing the benefits of a liberal education. It is also foolish in terms of job preparation. With digital and other technology changing the specifics of most jobs at ever-increasing speeds, most employers want most of all workers who can think critically and flexibly and who can express themselves well orally and in writing. Various surveys of employers confirm this preference for broad more than for narrow job training. So graduates, I ask you as broadly educated citizens, to use your influence to ensure that future students will have the educational opportunity youve received and taken advantage of. Religious fundamentalisms can represent another threat to functioning as a broadly educated person. What unites most religious fundamentalisms is a very narrow approach to the religions scripture. Fundamentalisms typically have little or no connection to the lived history of interpretation of their own religions scripture and tradition. Instead, religious entrepreneurs select a few passages that support their agendas. So some Muslim fundamentalists may engage in or support terrorism despite Islams traditional teaching against deliberately harming civilians; some fundamentalist Christians may bomb or support the bombing of clinics that provide abortions, some may handle snakes in worship services, or some may refuse any medical care for themselves or their children; some Jewish fundamentalists may insist that the boundaries of the modern state of Israel must correspond to ancient boundaries mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Fundamentalists from diverse traditions base such positions on a few passages from their scriptureor even on just one. Opposition to science, threats to scientific literacy, represents a cumulative assault on an important aspect of being a broadly educated person. Some of this assault comes from those who take social constructivism to an extreme. They believe that everything important about human nature, behavior, and life is something cultures create. However, more of this assault comes from those who identify themselves as conservative in some fashion. Recently I ran across a statistic from a 2009 Pew Research study that stunned me. Apparently because of the widespread and adamant opposition to science coming from conservative quarters, only 9% of scientists self-identify as conservativejust 9%. This constitutes a dramatic development, because for most of my lifetime the ranks of scientists identifying as conservative would have mirrored the proportion in the population at large. Some forms of religion, especially fundamentalist forms, can work against scientific literacy. Their voices state that evolution is a theory, or claim that it is just a theory. But evolution is not just a theory. It is a theory confirmed by overwhelming evidence, by an abundance of facts and data, like Einsteins theories of relativity. Today the evidence for evolution includes molecular knowledge of genes, as well as the fossil record and observations of life. To make informed and intelligent health decisions that involve genetics for oneself, ones children, or aging parents presumes understanding evolution, which underlies genetics. As with any valid scientific theory with wide application to reality, evidence for evolution is not a matter of one fact, one angle, or one line of argument. Its not a matter of following a linear method of A, then B, then C. Instead its a matter of many, many independent angles of observation, analysis, and calculation which come together to form a coherent picture. If a student is religiously committed to what they understand as a literal account of scripture, in particular of the creation stories of Genesis, and so by faith believe in the instant creation of human beings and/or a universe just several thousand years old, it is not the universitys place to tell them to believe otherwise. But students graduating from a university committed to a broad education should not be under the illusion that there is any scientific evidence supporting their religious views about evolution. There is not. When it comes to climate change or global warming, certain economic and political forces have threatened scientific literacy. In addition to narrow self-interest, this threat involves a quasi-religious faith that unregulated markets always do good, or at least that its best never to interfere with their operations. But nature as it responds to human activities does not heed their faith: Our planet is warmer, extreme weather events involving floods and droughts are becoming more frequent, polar ice-caps are melting and the oceans are rising. That human greenhouse gases contribute significantly to global warming was acknowledged several years ago to be beyond any reasonable scientific doubt by the prestigious journal Nature. Now the details of climate change involve uncertainty, as to where and when extreme weather events will occur. After all, were talking about the weather. But the big picture is clear enough to spur responsible citizens to take action. When it comes to the universitys responsibility to broadly educate students in scientific literacy, it isnt just the task of our professors of natural science. All of us whose profession is teaching can contribute to our students seeing the big picture of us human beings and our planet within our universe. And you who graduate with a liberal education can encourage scientific interest and literacy in your children, if you become parents, and others whom you influence. While narrow religious or quasi-religious approaches can undermine knowledge of science, science can be invoked in narrow-minded ways. Such an invocation extends the reach and purposes of science beyond its task of understanding natural processes. It presumes that science can determine values. While science can give us knowledge that can inform our acting and provide some clues about values, it cannot tell us what is moral or beautiful, nor tell us what is of the deepest or highest value. Yet some use--or rather misuse--science not only to discredit all forms of religion, but any worldview holding that anything is meaningful or valuable. For example, one scholar of religion has written that human persons are things like everything else in the universe and that our sense that what we do matters is an illusion. But not to worry. Evolution has made us so that well act like we and others are more than just things, well act like our morality and values are real, even though theyre not. That is insane! That guarantees were conflicted at the very core of our being. The best we can do is to live as if life is meaningful, even though we know better. To genuinely reject the meaningfulness of life can lead only to a life of indifference, cynicism, and depression. As college students learn more about the richness of nature and of human culture, a sense of wonder and mystery should accompany that learning. You graduates hopefully have a sense that life is meaningful, even sacred, and hopefully your liberal education has contributed to that sense. Now to have a sense that life is deeply meaningful does not have to involve religious belief, in the sense of anything supernatural (though I happen to personally believe in a divine reality) or even the belief that theres an overall or ultimate purpose or direction to the universe (though I personally believe that there is). Some may believe that what is profoundly meaningful or sacred about human and animal life has come about by chance or exists through a blind reality with no reason behind it. But in some fashion or another, a broad education affirms the meaningfulness, the sacredness, of life. As you our graduates commence the next stage of your life, depart with the joy that comes from a faith that life is meaningful, the fascination that comes from familiarity with all the major dimensions of human culture as you enjoy its riches and creatively contribute to its advancement, and the excitement that comes from a commitment to life-long learning as broadly educated citizens of our world.      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