A Spirituality for Academia
The following was delivered by Professor of Religion and Charles and Joan Van Zoeren Chair in Religion, Ethics and Values Brian H. Smith at the annual Awards Convocation, April 18.
hen [Vice President and] Dean [of Faculty Gerald] Seaman invited me … to give this address, I told him I was honored. When I later began to think about my task, I felt a sense of trepidation. Speaking to one’s own community is formidable since they know you so well, warts and all. I also had just finished, in my “Introduction to Christian Scriptures” class, the passage in Luke’s gospel where Jesus is invited to speak for the first time in his hometown synagogue. By the end of his sermon, the congregation was so angry they wanted to kill him. Preaching at home can be dangerous. This evening I would like to address an issue that is getting increasing attention both in secular and religious circles: spirituality. Some people disenchanted with aspects of institutionalized religion are more comfortable in describing themselves as spiritual rather than religious. This is sometimes attractive to college faculty and students since the development of a questioning mind is a challenge to Brian H. Smith religious faith, and defining oneself as spiritual sounds more acceptable. But spirituality is a slippery term, attractive to some but hard to define. It can serve as a code word for religious uncertainty or a substitute for hard thinking. Even worse, it can cultivate a vague “huggy feely” emotion bordering on narcissism. I venture into this topic fearfully and only hope at the end you will not be eager to do to me what the crowd in the Nazareth synagogue wanted to do to its new rabbi. address at Paul Ranslow’s installation as president of Ripon College, he asked our community to think seriously about a spirituality for academia that contained three very clear and challenging aspects: a sense of wonder, a sense of anger and a sense of love. I will not read Bill’s address, but rather comment on these three issues and why I believe they are still as valid now as when he articulated them to us more than a decade ago.
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A Sense of Wonder
Coffin acknowledged that day the importance of critical thinking as central to our mission as a college. Growth in knowledge can take place only in a questioning atmosphere. “Dubito, ergo sum” is the first step to learning. Putting aside past certainties and acquiring knowledge through careful questioning, clear thinking and empirical investigation is part of our goal. But knowledge by itself can become sterile. It can easily be manipulated by the clever for private purposes and can serve as an ego builder and thus exaggerate one’s importance in the universe — unless the intellectual enterprise is infused with humility in face of mystery and a sense of awe. A true learner — and we all are — always needs to admit how much we do not know, how much more there is to explore and that all of the realities we examine — inanimate, animate and human — have a mysterious beauty that deserves our reverence, not just our analysis. One need not be religious to have a sense of the sacredness of life in all its manifestations. It is this quality that makes the enterprise of questioning, investigating and learning a fully humane endeavor. The Buddhist believes that spiritual enlightenment involves wisdom — which is not factual knowledge alone, but also a sense of interconnectedness, the experience that one is part of something larger than oneself, which deserves to be respected. In Taoist landscape paintings, humans are present but they are always depicted proportionately small in comparison to nature of which they are a part. All of us who approach our branch of study free of cant and bias reflect a sense of reverence. For years, none of her students could discern the political leanings of [former] Professor [of Politics and Government] Kim Shankman when she taught “American Government” at Ripon. Now a new generation is having just as hard a time figuring out what political ideology Lamont Colucci [visiting The Rev. William Sloane Coffin delivers instructor of politics the address at the inauguration of President and government]
Paul B. Ranslow as Ripon’s 10th president.
A Spirituality for Academia: William Sloane Coffin’s Challenge to Ripon College
Like wise rabbis often do, I appeal to sages who have gone before me — one in particular, The Rev. William Sloane Coffin who died last year. He was chaplain for 18 years at Yale University and then head pastor of Riverside Church in New York for a decade. Bill was arrested many times for protesting racism, war and the stockpiling of nuclear weapons. He visited Ripon College three times — in 1995, in 1996 and in 2001. Each time, he challenged us to reflect about the moral dimensions of our mission. Bill was a deeply religious man, but his faith was informed by a sharp mind that prevented him from falling into sentimentality, shallow-mindedness or narcissistic “huggy feelyisms.” In September 1996, when he delivered the inaugural 10 RIPON MAGAZINE
President David C. Joyce is flanked by Alumni Association Senior Award winners Drew Davis ’07 and Liz Leach ’07.
espouses. A commitment to leave one’s biases at the classroom door (we all have them) is a sign of wonder and respect both for our subject and our students. When invited colleagues come to my classes to share their perspectives on religion — most recently David Seligman [executive director of the ethical leadership program] and Joe Hatcher [professor of psychology] — they approach faith differently from the texts of religious traditions and from the religious perspectives of several of my students. They question, to be sure, but they do not demean. They challenge students to think outside the box, to examine evidence carefully and honestly. The unexamined life, including religious life, is not worthwhile. Hard questions, however, can be asked in an atmosphere of respect. When they are, we all learn better. The Hindu mystic Ramakrishna, more than a century ago, called for this kind of reverence in examining beliefs when he said, “Bow down … where others kneel, for where so many have been paying tribute … the kind Lord must manifest himself.”
A Sense of Anger
Bill Coffin ruffled not a few feathers in his 1996 inaugural address when he told us that a sign of being spiritual in academia was being angry. His precise words were: “Too many in the academic world are not easily enough disturbed. … By and large the academic world is tolerant. But it tends toward passivity, and tolerance and passivity are a clearly deadly combination. Together they allow us to tolerate the intolerable, to ignore the power of anger. … If you lessen your anger at the structures of power, you lower your love for the victims of power.” [Those are] strong words from a pastor. I recall a heated argument I had with a devout Christian on the College staff after Coffin’s speech. He felt that to encourage anger was a very un-Christian attitude. I pointed out that Jesus lost his temper on more than one occasion when he encountered religious hypocrisy and exploitation of the poor.
If we truly [respect] the universe in which we live and which we study, then a corollary is to become upset when humans destroy or demean any of it. The Roman comedian Terence proclaimed, “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto” — “I am human and nothing pertaining to the human condition is foreign to my concern.” What we do here in our courses does have a bearing on finding solutions to poverty, disease, warfare and degradation of the environment — all of which plague our planet today. The causes of human suffering are complex and mindless dogoodism will not go far in solving them. Critical thinking and serious empirical study in science, social science, the humanities and the arts all can contribute to exploring effective policies to reduce human misery and violence. But without concern about our world, yes, and sometimes anger at what is happening (including the senseless slaughter of innocent people at Virginia Tech recently), then the pursuit of knowledge becomes detached from responsibility. Here at Ripon, we try to involve students in activities that will expose them to problems beyond our comfortable campus — the office of community engagement, the Bonner Scholars program, the ethical leadership program, alternative spring breaks in Mississippi, North Carolina and Kentucky (and next year, Panama). None of these are mere appendages or afterthoughts to the academic enterprise. Nor is any faculty, staff [member] or student free of responsibility to connect what we do here with the world beyond. It is not an aberration that a professor of chemistry moderate the Amnesty International chapter on campus and take leadership in organizing weekly peace vigils against the Iraq war on the Ripon Square. Nor is it an aberration that a coach guide our students in experiencing and solving ethical dilemmas from the world at large, or that several staff and faculty are active in promoting experiences such as the annual exchange with Fisk University. We all in the academic community are responsible for social justice. For the Buddhist, wisdom gives rise to compassion, for when one becomes aware of the interconnectedness of reality, one is instinctively concerned about other beings — especially when they are in pain.
An Effective Love
Coffin’s final ingredient for spirituality in academia was the cultivation of love. This word, like spirituality, can be slippery. It is given much lip service in our culture, but is often practiced ineffectively. Here at Ripon, there are many signs of deep human concern for one another that make our community attractive. We pride ourselves in cultivating a friendly atmosphere, and prospective students and their families sense this right away about the campus. Our students, by and large, get along well with one another, and one does not experience an unhealthy competition or “one-upmanship” in academics or in sports that sometimes characterize other institutions of higher learning. Our faculty purposely shuns these same tendencies. We professors cooperate, we treat each other well, and we pull together; SPRING 2007 11
and in recent years, we have made significant sacrifices for the good of this College. But love is incomplete if it lacks toughness. Some forms of love can mask a lack of honesty, courage and a commitment to excellence. There are times when we need to hold students to standards they find hard to accept. Sometimes they feel hurt if we give them candid critiques of their work, use red ink on their essays, penalize them for late assignments or chronic absences, or reprimand their slacking off on the sports field. Challenging students to do more than they would like is not harshness. In fact, if we do not do these things, we are enabling them, not empowering them. Getting Cs, Ds, even Fs, (or sitting out a game) is not the worst thing for some students to experience if they are going to take ownership of their education and develop a realistic appraisal of their abilities and their limitations. Holding our students to high standards is not incompatible with effective love. We do them, the College and ourselves an injustice if we do not maintain such expectations. Conversely, celebration of the academic achievements of students (which we are doing this evening) is not fostering a sense of elitism or negative competitiveness. It is not a putdown to those who are not invited; it is a celebration of the hard work and accomplishment of those who are here. We faculty ourselves sometimes shy away from celebrating the accomplishments of one another out of fear of causing ten-
sion or jealousy in our own ranks. Solid teaching, scholarship and service to our disciplines in professional associations all need greater recognition than we give them on this campus. By not celebrating publicly the achievements of faculty, we undermine academic excellence and the reputation of the College among our peer institutions. This is not effective love for one another. The Buddha taught that a very high level of spiritual enlightenment is the ability to rejoice in the joy and accomplishments of others. If we cannot do this in our professional lives with our peers and students, no amount of camaraderie and good cheer can be effective love. In closing, let me return to Jesus’ first sermon to the home folk. As Paul Harvey would say, here’s the rest of the story. The reason why family and friends wanted to throttle him, according to Luke, was that he challenged them to go beyond their comfort level. He reminded them that there was a world beyond Nazareth full of pain that was his concern and which should be theirs as well. He told them that all life was sacred, not just their own, and that the God they believed in loved the foreigner — even the Syrian — as much as the Jew. Jesus was tough on them not because he hated them, but because he loved them. Let reverence for life, anger at injustice and tough love for one another inform our spiritual lives here in the academic community of Ripon College. r
TRUSTEE PROFILE:
OWEN P. GLEASON ’73
never entering a broad-based public phase raised more than $37 million. In addition, he generously supported the annual fund, special endowments and capital projects. He participated in alumni student recruitment programs and phoneathons and volunteered for placement and career guidance projects. Gleason majored in English and history at Ripon and received a law degree from Oklahoma City University in Owen P. Gleason ’73 of Eden Prairie, Minn., 1976. He was a retired vice president and general counjoined the Board of Trustees as an Alumni sel of C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. Owen P. Gleason ’73 Trustee in 1995. In his 12 years on the Board, “The liberal education lays down the building blocks Gleason was a pivotal contributor to the College. for a critical mind,” wrote Gleason in a 1981 essay on the He served for more than a dozen years on the Ripon effects of a liberal education. “In sum, while a liberal education College Alumni Association Board of Directors, including doesn’t prepare you for any one thing, it provides the framework a stint as president. to allow you to become anything you want.” He also was a founding member of the Leadership “I would like to see the school continue to grow in prestige Alliance and a charter member of Partners in the Legacy. and academic excellence and preserve the ‘small liberal arts’ He and his wife, Roxanne Sortino Gleason, established institution as a viable part of our educational system,” he later the Roxanne and Owen Gleason Family Presidential wrote of his interests in Ripon. “One of Ripon’s strengths is its Scholarship Endowment in 1997 to help expand the strong and active alumni. Alumni loyalty has helped Ripon prefinancial assistance program for students. serve a strong financial base and a broad recruiting and placeGleason chaired the campaign committee for the ment program. These should be preserved.” Campaign for Ripon College 1999-2004, which despite As Ripon Magazine did in the Winter 2007 issue with the profile of William Bohnen ’67, we publish here the profile of Ripon College Trustee Owen P. Gleason ’73, who died in February at the age of 55. Once again, we regret that we were unable to recognize the service of one of our more dedicated trustees and alumni before his death. We honor his commitment to and love for Ripon.
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