A philosophy of a university education

We come to understand how humans behave, how we make and use symbols, how we interpret each other’s behavior, how we are by nature, as Aristotle said, social-political animals. We acquire this knowledge by studying the symbol systems, languages, cultures, and societies that occur at specific times and places in human history. We begin by studying our own society, and the artifacts and records of our cultural ancestors, but we also study societies different from our own. We ask whether the experiences of the most powerful and privileged members of our society are representative of the experiences of others in our community with less power and fewer privileges, because it is the experiences of the powerful and privileged that are most likely to be reported, studied, and recorded, and least likely to be challenged by those who come from other groups in society.

We also ask why in so many societies the same rights and responsibilities are not assigned to male and female members, and whether the role one might assume in human reproduction should be a primary consideration, or relevant at all, to one’s rights and responsibilities as a citizen, an agent, and an interpreter of the world and oneself.

We look at theories about natural and cultural differences to see whether and how such differences affect the way an individual, or a group of individuals, experience and interpret the world. By looking at theories that explore racial and ethnic identity, sexual and gender identity, socio-economic status and class identity, we learn something about the ways in which an individual’s or a group’s experience is and is not representative of human experience.

Finding and making a meaningful life; being responsible stewards of the earth and protecting its environment

We want to find out everything we can about human experience, because we seek not just to survive and to reduce pain and suffering, but also to live in a world in which we can experience pleasure, joy, and happiness. We think of ourselves as able to choose how and why we should live, as able to arrive at an idea of a meaningful life, and as able to pursue this form of life. We look at what others have said about living a meaningful life for as we learn about other worlds and other lives, we imagine a better life and a better world for ourselves and for those who come after us. Imagining alternative futures makes us hopeful that the conscious and deliberate choices we make will preserve rather than destroy the earth, it inhabitants and our environment.

A university arts education is part of the long process in which we form beliefs about the world and ourselves based on evidence, even as we engage in debates about what counts as evidence and what counts as knowledge. More than this, a university education begins the lifelong project of fashioning a way of being in the world that is one’s own. For this reason, the ceremony at which one receives one’s degree is called commencement.