Welcome to University!
For some, this is their initial collegiate experience. For those who have transferred here, it’s their first time at our university. And for others, it’s a return to a known and familiar environment.
There’s something here for everyone: difficulty and ease, the unknown and certainty, diversity and uniformity — in short, a microcosm of the outside world. But scratch the surface, and there’s more, much more.
The faculty has voted to unionize, and negotiations are taking place between the faculty union and the University Administration over compensation and benefits, among other things.
This tension between employer and employee is being played out worldwide, from the debate last November in Ohio involving Senate Bill 5 to last week’s tragedy in South Africa.
Recently, a building that housed the University’s Popular Culture Department was razed, despite efforts to save it. We witnessed the same struggle over a courthouse in Tiffin not so long ago.
The current Presidential campaign is in full swing. Reverberations of it will be heard on campus, increasing with the approach of Election Day. Voter registration drives, rallies and possibly even debates will become common.
In short, our campus is a mirror reflecting, however imperfectly, the world around us.
But BGSU is much more. We are a university. Implicit in this statement is the central idea of critical thinking, which is much more than a mental exercise designed to find fault in something or in someone’s position. It involves the examination of all the evidence, with the understanding that more evidence may be forthcoming, and this new knowledge may cause a change of mind, position or opinion.
We are a community of scholars with two missions: the increase of knowledge and the diffusion of this knowledge. BGSU is at its best when we become both discoverers and communicators. Ideas are the currency around here.
At our best, we understand that most of our knowledge is tentative and is subject to revision, amendment or outright discarding.
This is not to say we should abandon the past and begin anew. Far from it; we stand on the shoulders of giants. The difficulty lies in determining those concepts that are truly timeless and those that should be discarded. This winnowing of ideas is, in itself, a cause for debate and tension.
Nerve racking? Absolutely. Are we sometimes adrift in a sea of uncertainty, seemingly without compass or lighthouse to guide us? Most definitely. Can this create within us a notion of humility, the realization that the more we discover, the less we know? It definitely should.
Faculty and students alike are involved in this enterprise and should experience this tension. Those who don’t are not receiving the full benefit of a university education.
This gauzy lack of certainty is also present in the outside world. The major difference is that the University community should acknowledge and even welcome it. We have strong opinions on just about everything, but we should be able to change our minds, hearts and positions in the light of new evidence.
This willingness to change, this admitting the possibility of being wrong, is what distinguishes a university from many other human institutions.
So, regardless of major, college or field of study, faculty and students should realize they are now part of a never-ending quest where the notions of critical thinking and willingness to change are central.
If students graduate from BGSU with these ideas forming a part of their very existence, then BGSU will have done its job.
So jump in, preferably the deep end of the pool. The faculty is here to help and coach you.
Nothing will come easy, but it’s the challenge that is the most stimulating and rewarding.
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