A UD Education: The Road Goes Ever On

Ten days ago I sent the letter below to the University News at Dallas. I haven't seen it published yet; maybe they had a stack of better stuff coming in. In any event, I thought I'd share my sentiments here.


In May I will again visit the University of Dallas campus to attend graduation. It has been 11 years since that spring morning when I received my Bachelor of Arts degree, concluding an idyllic season of my life. With the passage of time the memories have lost some of their sharpness, and yet the insights, the vision, the thirst for recovering the great ideas of our civilization remain with me, making themselves apparent nearly every day. Far from fading into the darkness, my UD education continues to grow.

This may seem obvious to those currently steeped in the world of ideas that is the UD campus. It is far less obvious when you consider my present circumstances. Since graduating I have moved more times than I care to count, completed two additional degrees, married, settled into a career, started a family, published a book, and purchased a house. Much of my time is spent washing dishes, changing diapers, folding laundry, or drawing pink puppy dogs for the umpteenth time. But somehow, my UD education, time and again, worms its way back into my life.

One day last year my eye fell upon a copy of Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua­ on the shelf. (My wife had purchased it for a graduate class that never actually used it.) Although I wrote a paper on Newman for one of Dr. Norris's classes, I was too intimidated by Newman to actually read more than a couple pages. More than a decade later, I righted that shortcoming, and Newman did not disappoint: with every page his erudition and firmness of purpose show through, bathed in the light of eloquence, honesty, and joy.

Earlier this year a coworker mentioned that she was taking a class on the history of political thought and was writing on Aristotle's critiques of Plato. Excited conversation followed and the next day two large volumes came with me to the office, so I could read the Republic and Politics literally side by side. Just the other day a fellow dad mentioned Jean Leclercq's understanding of Benedictine education; that evening I pulled down my collection of essays in honor of the late Fr. Louis J. Lekai, O. Cist. and turned to Leclercq's contribution to that volume.

But these examples may be misleading: they suggest that a UD education is something contained in books and resting on a shelf, to be brought down as a curiosity. It is far more than this. To paraphrase Dr. Frank's introduction to my Phil & Eth class, a UD education is a sense of wonder, a quieting of the mind to focus on the things that matter most, and a relentless determination to seek the Truth, heedless of the cost.

Learning that I have a PhD, people often ask where I received it. Though I valued my doctoral studies, and am happy to share about them, I try to gently turn the conversation from that final degree to my UD education, the foundation that supports all my subsequent work. Whatever I have accomplished as a researcher, analyst, and writer comes from the skills I learned at UD. But even more important, UD nurtured within me the habits and virtues needed to be a citizen, a friend, a father, a husband, and a disciple. These are the things that matter most.

One cannot repay the kind of debt I owe to this school, just as one can never repay parents for their love. But I write to thank the amazing faculty, who taught me, and my fellow students, with whom I lived, studied, worked, and prayed, for four fantastic years. You are some of the most incredible people I have yet met. May God, who has so richly blessed us, continue to pour out his grace on this school and keep its spirit ever strong!

A Note from Myself

A couple weeks ago my wife and I visited my family in Arizona. Among other things, we went to mass with them on Sunday, the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. Also, I cleaned out some old school notebooks and things while I was there. Scribbled on the back of a reader from a UD History of Germany class, I found this short reflection:

Today's flight was glorious beyond description. We were in a small plane and flew low out of the Valley, due east, over the Superstition Mountains, some open pit copper mines, and a series of canyons. The landscape was so wild, and so beautiful, and so lovely that words fail me. I suspect that standing on the peak of Olympus Mons, surrounded by such barren beauty, would be rather akin to my aerial survey. I nearly cried to think that such wonders are passing away with the rest of the created universe, longing for that same redemption I seek. But I found solace in the thought of sharing such a vision, and in seeing it reborn in the hereafter.

-Sunday, November 9th, 2003
Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Against Rejectionism

OR

"This Is [Still] the Best School That Is"

It seems to be vogue to reject one's past: "Oh, I use to do/believe X, but now I do/believe Y."  John Maynard Keynes is reported to have said that when the facts change he changed his mind.  Certainly there is nothing wrong with one's views changing as one grows in wisdom.  But it seems the zeitgeist now presumes a rejection of past views.

One manifestation of this general trend is the rejection of past institutions, particularly educational institutions, most especially those with unique characteristics.  I think I speak for many, perhaps most, of the University of Dallas' graduates when I say that some of my views have changed since attending that school.  But on the whole I am struck by the solidity of the values I imbibed there.  In answer to the broad trend of rejectionism, let me offer a specific defense, a defense of my own alma mater.

Should I reject UD's politics?  I came to the school as a self-consciously conservative Republican.  I attended the 2000 Republican National Convention and was on the floor when George W. Bush was nominated for the presidency.  Did UD embrace and foster the political views I brought?  The Princeton Review ranks UD the 6th most conservative school in America.  (Though UD did not appear on recent lists from the Young America's Foundation or The Daily Beast.)

In my four years there I would not say I became more or less conservative, but more smartly conservative.  It was at UD that I was introduced to the writings of Russell Kirk and first attended a meeting of the Philadelphia Society.  I became less interested in the views of the Republican Party.  In the years since graduation I have come to shed the language of left/right, liberal/conservative almost entirely.  I would now describe myself as an integral Christian humanist and I try to take my cues from the Church's social teaching, including Rerum Novarum and Centesimus Annus, works I first read at UD.  Have I rejected UD's politics?  Not exactly.  My views have evolved, based largely on UD's own education.

Should I reject UD's theology?  Some might describe UD's theology as conservative.  I think orthodox - that is, in accordance with the teaching of the magisterium, the pope and the bishops in communion with him - is a more accurate description.  But let us investigate this notion of conservative theology for a minute.  If one uses the term "conservative" in the literal sense of preserving something from the past, this is an accurate description: UD teaches the Bible as well as dead theologians like Augustine and Aquinas.  Even more recent figures studied look back to such historic thinkers. (I recently re-read Joseph Ratzinger's Theology of History in St. Bonaveture, a book assigned to me my senior year.  The title theologian died in 1274.)

One sometimes hears today that Christianity is not necessarily conservative or even that it ought not be.  If by this one means that Christianity ought not be identified with the Republican party, a party supportive of the death penalty and often ambivalent about aiding the poor and migrants, I would agree.  (Though it would be naive to make such a criticism and overlook the Republicans' defense of unborn children, support for traditional marriage, and pro-growth policies aimed at creating jobs, yes, even for the poor.  Likewise, the opposite observations could be made of the Democrats.)

If, however, one means that Christianity ought not be attached to the idea of conserving things from the past, this is a more dubious claim.  If one rejects the ancient scriptures of the faith and the historic teaching of the Church's bishops, one does not cease to be conservative; one ceases to be a Christian all together.  (If one rejects only the authority of the bishops, while retaining the Bible, one becomes Protestant.  There is, of course, great overlap between the two bodies of teaching.  In 325 the Council of Nicaea affirmed the Incarnation, the notion that Jesus was fully God and fully man.  Any Protestant would accept this doctrine not because he accepts the authority of the bishops gathered in council, but because the prologue to John's gospel says as much.)  While there is a progressive quality to Christianity - just look at the unfolding of God's grace and revelation in the Old Testament - a Christian cannot be so anti-conservative as to throw out stuffy old doctrines like the Incarnation and the Trinity, such historic practices as fasting and observance of weekly communal worship, and such hierarchic notions as leadership.

Should I reject UD's spirituality?  Spirituality is not exactly the same thing as theology; the latter is a system of beliefs; the former is the personal practice of those beliefs.  My spiritual life has followed an interesting trajectory: toward traditionalism while at UD, away from traditionalism afterward.  I might be tempted to dismiss the Gregorian chant, polyphony, monastic vocational discernment, and the rest as a passing fad, something beyond which I have now moved, except that, as my wife and I settle into family life together, those things from UD have taken on new meaning.  We recently changed parishes, for example, for a more traditional liturgy and Thomistic teaching.  Time appears to be proving the resonance of the spirituality I acquired as an undergraduate.

Should I reject UD's demographics?  Without a doubt the University of Dallas is a white upper-middle class school.  Having subsequently lived alongside Salvadorians and African-Americans in some of Greater Washington's less affluent neighborhoods, the narrowness of UD's demographics has become more obvious to me.  A greater diversity of races and classes at UD would not be a bad thing.  However, I am now struck by two things.  First, UD was - and, by all accounts, still is - an extremely diverse place.  Some of my closest friends had parents with MDs, JDs, and PhDs.  Their incomes were often similarly elevated.  But I also spent a spring break in Arkansas with a friend whose family lived in a mobile home heated by a wood stove.  Second, having spent four years at a large public university, I have seen the lack of diversity which programs aimed at producing it create.  The statistics for race and class may look better on paper, but intellectual diversity or vitality does not necessarily follow.  In contrast, Princeton Review writes, "What truly sets [UD's] curriculum apart... is not the challenge, but rather the scope and diversity of it. As one student enthused, 'I never thought I'd have so many different takes on all the subjects I've studied.'"

One of the simplest measures of diversity which affirmative action and its watered-down variants ignore is geography.  I grew up in Arizona with parents from the Great Plains; I instinctively believed that New York was some distant den of iniquity and pollution which no one would ever want to visit.  That view changed when I became friends with a New Yorker at UD.  Likewise, my classmates came from public, private, and home schooling in roughly equal measure, a diversity unlikely to be matched by most schools professing to promote diversity.  I do not believe in placing people in racial boxes; whenever I can, I skip the race section on forms.  UD's admission form did not even ask about my race.  That seems to resonate with a world in which people are not "judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Should I reject UD's social worldview?  The phrase "social worldview" may not be the best, but I could not think of another to address the broad charge of closed-mindedness.  Let me consider two particular issues which may elucidate this vague criteria.

I came to UD in 2002, in the shadow of the fallen Twin Towers.  Iraq was invaded in my second semester.  There were many discussions about Islam and the threat from Islamic terrorism.  I regret that not all of those discussions were as well informed as they might have been.  In the last few years I have learned a great deal more about Islam and developed considerable respect for its adherents.  I would, however, add two qualifiers to my regrets about some misdirected notions of Islam that may have circulated.  First, there is a kind of apologia for all things non-Western which can be every bit as blinded as pro-Western jingoism.  There are real shortcomings in the Islamic world, like the widespread prevalence of pederasty in Afghanistan and Central Asia.  A frank discussion of Islam and Christianity should recognize the virtues and shortcomings of each.  One is at least as likely to find that at UD as anywhere else.  Second, UD equipped me with the tools - historical, philosophical, spiritual - to come to a greater appreciation of Islam.  Although that development did not happen while I was there, the connection is quite clear in my mind.

Princeton Review recently placed UD on its list of schools least friendly to gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons.  As I have written before, the Catholic Church teaches that homosexuals "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided."  If this fails to occur at UD, I regret that, deeply.  However, the Church also teaches that, "basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."  I suspect that those answering the Princeton Review's queries likely assumed that such a condemnation is unfriendly.  Certainly it must be proclaimed with sensitivity.  But if the Church is correct in its teaching, sharing this truth, however painful it may be to many, is an act of charity; to hide the truth and proclaim falsehood is no act of kindness.  That UD hosts the Courage program is little known, but proof that the school supports both teaching and practice.


"This is the best school that is."  With these immortal words Dr. John R. Sommerfeldt endorsed the University of Dallas.  (Why make an ordinary statement when you can make it existential, right?)  I have attended several schools, visited several more, and met students from a variety of others.  I have spent a fair bit of time thinking about higher education.  And the longer I am away from UD, the more convinced I am of the truth of this endorsement.

The Public Research University Is Broken

Shortly before my graduation and departure from Texas A&M, I had coffee with President R. Bowen Loftin and a few professors.  Money is, of course, tight, so he gave a run-down of the budget and the university's operations.

Day to day spending on things like professors' salaries and the electric bills comes in roughly equal measure from tuition, the endowment, and the state legislature.  Annual tuition is currently $8,419.  If every student paid full tuition, the university would spend about $25,000 per student per year on its dual mission of teaching and research.

Since, however, 71% of students receive some form of financial aid, we have to adjust that number down.  For argument's sake, let's assume that one third of students receiving aid get it from non-university sources (meaning those monies still flow into the university's coffers like regular tuition), while the other two thirds of aid recipients pay half tuition.  This would pull down the tuition revenue figure to $6,427, and thus the total figure to something in the neighborhood of $19,000 per student per year.

Let us now turn our attention to another school I once attended, the University of Dallas.  Current tuition is $29,140 for a full year.  Since UD is a private school, it does not receive money from the state legislature.  Thus, it must rely on its meager endowment and tuition.  Still, assuming 20% from the endowment and 80% from tuition, that would come to $4,905 and $19,629 (adjusted down for the 98% of students receiving aid), respectively, or $24,500 per student per year.

These numbers are extremely rough - I know I have seen better ones for both schools, but I cannot find them now - but they suggest that UD spends 25-30% more per student than does A&M.  This is notable, but not staggering, and probably within the margin of error for this very crude study.

But if the two schools appear to be in the same ballpark, let me add one more piece of information.  UD has a single primary mission: to educate students.

UD's talented faculty do, in fact, publish in a variety of fields, but no one would claim UD is a research university.  Yet A&M, spending as much money or less, professes to have both excellent teaching and world-class research.  I submit to you that this is an impossibility.

Take note, moreover, that A&M is no fly-by-night, University of Phoenix-style operation.  A&M is a well-respected flagship university of Texas, well ranked in a variety of fields and broadly representative of public research universities across the country.  All of which embrace the dual mission of research and teaching.  I submit to you that they cannot fulfill both, and that teaching as been the loser in this fight.  One need only take a glance at a lecture hall of two or three hundred undergraduates to realize that this is not education; it is mass production.

One might quibble that the figures given by President Loftin over coffee some months ago were for day to day operations, and did not include the big ticket research equipment required by the sciences, or the far-flung travels required by many of the arts, which are funded out of different pots.  Even so, consider that professors at UD teach three or four courses per semester; professors at A&M typically teach two, with course releases common for many junior faculty.  Research requires time and time is paid out of salaries.

What, then, are we to conclude?

I am a supporter of research and I have conducted several archival research trips myself.  These things should continue and our society would do well to find ways to fund them.  Moreover, I believe research can have a positive impact on one's teaching.  However, the case that good research leads to good teaching has been overstated.  Bundling teaching and research together has simply confused the question of where resources are going, a confusion which has often been to teaching's disadvantage.

If you or your children are looking at undergraduate educational institutions, be very skeptical of any school claiming the dual mission of research and teaching.  Perhaps it has a staggering endowment - a few do - and is able to accomplish that dual mission.  But don't count on it.

Admittedly, private education is out of reach for many Americans.  Let me suggest, however, that community and junior colleges often offer education which is every bit as good as the large public institutions, and at a fraction the cost.  ("But what about the opportunity to study under leading scholars in their fields?" some might ask.  "Who taught more of your research school classes," I answer, "graduate students or Nobel laureates?"  A&M has both, but the former do more of the teaching.)

Open Letter to the President and Board of UD

President Keefe and Members of the Board of Trustees,

Two months ago Pat Fagan's article, "Trouble at the University of Dallas?", set off a firestorm of criticism of the new undergraduate pastoral ministry major. I was among those critics, and I remain skeptical of the program. Nevertheless, I would like to highlight two positive elements of this brouhaha, and suggest a lesson learned.

Firstly, the outpouring of comments from current students and alumni should be seen as a strength. The UD community takes pride in its school, is committed to its orthodoxy and is concerned about its future. Those are good things, things of which the administration of any Catholic university should be proud. I have no doubt that some criticisms may have been imprudent, impolite or ill-informed. I apologize if my own were. But this should not blind us to the positive dimensions of this outpouring nor to the many thoughtful and sincere discussions it prompted.

Secondly, I was very grateful to see the strong response of our bishops, particularly Bishop Farrell's comments. The active engagement of the bishop is a significant element of the university's life, one that has sometimes been missing in the past. Hearing him articulate a forceful commitment to orthodoxy and to evangelization was welcome indeed.

Finally, however, let me suggest that the university's strong defense of the new program was late in coming. I take a keen interest in the affairs of my alma mater, but never saw any communication about the new program. An early announcement that the new program was being considered, and that it had the approval of both bishops, the faculty senate and a committee including members of the Theology Department, would have gone a long way toward denting criticism and grounding the subsequent discussion. The absence of information is, sadly, not an invitation to silence, but to conspiracy theory and rumor. I, and the overwhelming majority of alumni, would like to think the best of our university and its administration. Communicating early and often helps us do that.

Just this morning I spoke with a faculty member of the Bush School of Government and Public Service here at Texas A&M. On learning that I had attended the University of Dallas, he praised its education. Clearly, our reputation precedes us. My thoughts, prayers, and, yes, dollars, are with UD; I hope that the best years are yet to come.


Faithfully yours,

Aaron Linderman, ‘06



Those just now joining the discussion may also find some of these stories of interest:

* Crack in the Wall of Orthodoxy? - National Catholic Register
* Announcement of new Pastoral Ministry Major - University of Dallas
* About the Pastoral Ministry Major - University of Dallas
* UD grads: What's Going On? - And Sometimes Tea blog

Two Anniversaries

On this day in 1571 the combined Christian forces of Spain, Venice, Genoa, Savoy, the Holy See and the Knights of Malta defeated the Ottoman Turkish fleet at Lepanto. The victory was attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the Christian sailors had appealed by praying the rosary. Pope Pius V declared the day the Feast of Our Lady of Victory (later changed to Our Lady of the Rosary).

This feast of interest to me for two reasons. First, Our Lady of the Rosary is the patroness of our parish here in College Station, St. Mary's. Second, when the University of Dallas was founded by the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur, the junior college they ran in Ft. Worth - Our Lady of Victory College - was rolled into the new school. (Incidentally, I think Madonna Hall should be renamed Our Lady of Victory Hall, in honor of this history.)

Today is also the ninth anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan. Since that October day in 2001, the Taliban has been toppled from power, but not defeated. Over 1,200 Americans have been killed, along with another 800 or so coalition forces and more than 6,000 members of the Afghan security forces. Countless civilians have lost their lives.



US Special Forces riding with the Northern Alliance early in the conflict. Photo courtesy of of The Virtuous Republic.

Happy Constitution Day!

Yes, yes, I know the actual holiday was on Friday, but this evening will be the annual celebration at the University of Dallas. The evening features barbecue, Shiner, a patriotic address and then singing. Lots of singing. The measure of a good Constitution Day is if you leave hoarse. In honor of this fine festival, I share a few of my favorites.

The evening begins with songs of the Revolution and the early Republic, then moves to Confederate songs and finally to those of the Civil War's victors.



(For those of you reading this on Facebook, click here for the YouTube video of "The Bonnie Blue Flag".)

One of the great things about the lyrics to this song are the strange rhymes in later verses. Words like "mar" rhyme with the recurring "star", but "rare" or "prefer"? I'm afraid not. At one point "Florida" is stuck in there, making no attempt at all to continue the rhyme. There are other fun ones: I guess "given" rhymes with "eleven", but it still sounds funny when you sing it.




(Click here for the YouTube, if you can't see the video.)

This songs works best with periodic shouting. The most popular lines for this practice are not the obvious "shouting the battle cry of freedom", since it occurs far too often, twice in every verse. Instead, the best words to shout are usually the last words of the third line of every verse. This works particularly well with "[singing] And although he may be poor, he will [shouting] never be a slave!" The song is made even more boisterous by a great sweeping of fists into the air every time the line "up with the star" occurs. I highly recommend it.




(Click here for video.)

This is a slightly odd video of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," containing rare color footage of World War II. Also, strangely enough, the song is performed by Russia's Red Army Choir. But I found that this rendition had adequate "We're going to whip the bad guys!" gusto, which other versions (such as that by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) lacked.

Happy Constitution Day!

Celebrating Goodness

Thanksgiving will be here in just a few days and many of us will find ourselves sharing with family and friends those things for which we are thankful. I have noticed that, from time to time, people will formulate their thanks in a negative way. That is, instead of saying, "I am thankful for my health," they will say, "I am thankful for not getting sick this year." This is rarely intended and I probably ought not read too much into it, but it seems to be illustrative of a problem we sometimes have.

St. Augustine, when confronting the problem of evil, argues that evil does not exist. Literally. He contends that being is itself good. All things that are are good. If something seems to be evil, it is deficient in being; it does not as fully exist as a proper, good thing. If I have not yet entirely bastardized Augustine, we might put his concept into colloquial terms by saying that goodness is like heat: there is no such thing as evil (or cold), only the absence of good (or heat).

However, being thankful for "not getting sick" represents a kind of anti-Augustinianism. It places the emphasis on evil (in this case, sickness), and suggests that goodness is only the absence of evil, and not a thing in itself. This is a very dreary form of thanks, since it implicitly says, "The world is full of evil, but I have been lucky to avoid most of it." Such a statement says nothing about goodness, implicitly denying that one is thankful for it.

Last month I was in Dallas for the wedding of two of my classmates. After the reception a gaggle of alumni went out for drinks together at the Gingerman. One classmate suggested that we play a drinking game. I think mine were not the only eyebrows raised just a little. Drinking games, really...? But as our colleague explained, this "game" was different. The concept was simple enough: taking turns round the table, each person would sharing something they enjoy. The speaker, along with any others who enjoy the same thing, would take a swig of beer. Most drinking games are built on coercion: if you fail to do X, you must drink. This, it was explained to us, is a mistake. Drinking should be a joy, and should be associated with joyful things. It should be a celebration, not a punishment.

And a celebration it was. We shared joys from our undergraduate days together and from our more recent adventures in various places. Stories quickly came to the fore, stories about classes and pranks and epic road trips. We toasted academic nerdery and cute children, beloved friends and favorite places. It was more than mere thankfulness for the absence of ill in our lives: it was a celebration of real, active, vibrant goodness in our lives.


Photo credit: Today's picture comes from jypsygen's Flickr account. It is, admittedly, not from our trip to the Gingerman. But it is an authentic Dallas Gingerman photo, which counts for something, I think.

Happy Constitution Day!

Please celebrate as you are able (preferably with friends, food, drink and song).

On the Difficulties of Building Diversity

The other day I started crafting a great post about how to make affirmative action more effective. For the record, I happen to oppose affirmative action, but diversity is one of those things that all large state universities - yes, even Texas A&M - talk about. Well, I got to work devising an amazing system which would not only account for race and gender, but also country or state of origin, political and religious views, prospective major, all kinds of things... I was going to get as close to ensuring diversity of thought and experience - and the accompanying intellectual vigor - as any government scheme could get.

But then several problems cropped up. First, most states only want diversity within narrow bounds. Arizona has very low out-of-state tuition, which has been pulling talent to the state for decades; however, this is more the exception than the rule. In Texas, there is a keen sense that Texas schools are for Texans only. This attitude, coupled with the state's clandestine affirmative action program, means that only 4% of students at Texas A&M are from outside the state.* There are days you can feel the intellectual insularity in the classroom when you are teaching undergraduates. Students would benefit greatly from having classmates from across the country - I definitely did - but that is not a viable option. Instead, those trying to promote diversity are implicitly asked, "Could you please build diversity without so many outsiders?" Talk about mixed messages.

A second practical problem is that all my brilliant factors about religion, political views and values would hinge on self-identification. The problem there is that people could game the system, marking themselves down as whatever persuasion would get them extra points on the admissions application. But this eventually leads to a bigger question: How do you get dissimilar people to associate with one another?

Typically, when prospective students are visiting a school, they are looking for a "good fit." This does not necessarily mean a place that is in intellectual lock-step with themselves, but at least somewhere where they will "feel at home". Or maybe they are looking for an institution which will teach them the skills they want to learn. Whatever the case, there is almost always an implicit search for same-ness, on some level. Why would anyone ever choose diversity? Even someone who says, "I want to go to a school which will challenge my views," is likely to have implied limits: "I want my views on politics or literature or society challenged. But not my view of existence itself." Or maybe just the opposite: "I want my views of intangible philosophic ideas to change in exciting and radical ways. But don't ask me to actually live differently." I have even known people of strong religious faith to say they want to go to a school where their faith will be challenged. But the idea behind that plan is to see their faith strengthened, not undermined.

Little wonder, then, that government schemes to improve diversity usually come up shorthanded. Even when the racial or gender composition of an institution changes, bringing about a real diversity of thought, the kind that breads an vigorous intellectual life, is not so easy. Birds of a feather will instinctively flock together.

How then, can we accomplish true diversity? In my time there, I found the University of Dallas a rather diverse place. Some people would find this surprising, since the school is overwhelmingly white, mostly Catholic, politically conservative and solidly middle class. But in spite of all of that uniformity, the intellectual discourse was fantastically exciting. We had Platonists and Aristotelians, supporters of the Achaeans and supporters of the Trojans. The Thomists would debate the Lockeans, and the Heideggerians would reject them both. Classicists rubbed elbows with biology students, and Politics majors traveled the Mediterranean with physicists. Students from Drama and English would argue about who was the true keeper of Shakespeare's legacy and charismatics would ponder Scripture in the company of Opus Dei. Never, before or since, have I seen such a consistently rich and diverse intellectual life.

How did it happen? Oddly enough, uniformity was part of the process. We all had to take the same classes in the Core Curriculum. We were not allowed to hide within our own disciplines and opportunities to opt out of particular courses were few. Not only did we become better people for having studied such a broad curriculum, but our discussions were also enriched by having such a wide range of colleagues in our classes.

Moreover, a common set of Core courses gave us a shared vocabulary of terms and examples. To some minds, this would suggest a narrowing of views, a lack of diversity. But in practice it meant just the opposite: we were having real discussions, actually engaging ideas, rather than misunderstanding one another and the texts we were reading and superficially arguing about terms.

Finally, we went after big issues. "What is justice" the Republic demanded of us in our first semester. We could have debated the justice of particular events: Wounded Knee, Dresden, Hiroshima. But the Founders of UD, in their wisdom, saw that these would only be examples of larger issues. A disagreement about Hiroshima, however fierce, might only be over the implementation of policy; conversely, agreement about the end result of Hiroshima might paper over a more fundamental disagreement about the nature of justice. By constantly asking questions about first principles, we avoided the false comfort of hasty consensus, and learned a great deal about critical thinking as well.


* This is the result of the so-called "Ten Percent Rule," which stipulates that any student in Texas who graduates in the top ten percent of his or her high school class is guaranteed admission to any state university in Texas. This was put in place when affirmative action was ended, as a means of keeping minorities (specifically blacks and Hispanics) who would not otherwise account for a significant portion of the enrollment of Texan higher education. However, the Ten Percent Rule has also meant that Texas schools have had almost all of their seats promised to in-state students, and are therefore unable to recruit meaningful numbers of out-of-state students. Admissions departments have quietly told highly-qualified out-of-state applicants that their chances of admittance, which would have been good before the Ten Percent Rule, are slim. Academic scuttlebutt has it that the university presidents hate the Ten Percent Rule, because it imposes this geographic insularity - and along with it a mental insularity - but the gurus of political correctness in Austin are unlikely to dismantle the Ten Percent Rule any time soon.

PS I was scrounging around trying to find a picture which might be relevant to this post. Brownie points - or Guild Points? - to anyone who can explain what the picture depicts and how it is relevant.

Why Invent Tradition?

Yesterday, while biking to school, I took up singing one of my favorite songs, Gaudeamus igitur, the alma mater of the University of Dallas. And that got me thinking... Texas A&M, a school known for its traditions, is not really that traditional, in the scheme of things. The Aggie War Hymn dates from the Great War. Gaudeamus dates from the 18th century, at least, possibly as far back as the 13th century.

At a place like UD, where one has the entire Western Tradition upon which to draw, things can fall into disuse and be revived again with relative ease. They are not exclusively UD's traditions, but the traditions of the West.

In contrast, everything at A&M is contrived and has been invented since the founding of the school in 1876. I suppose this is better than most schools, where traditional customs have been abandoned all together, but it seems like a lot of effort. Why not just pick up the traditions of your civilization?

Granted, UD has some non-traditional traditions too, like Groundhog and the Charity Week jail. But I think there really is a different quality, akin perhaps to Dr. Roper's observation that students at other schools throw far more serious parties than at UD, trying too hard. UD seems to play with tradition, knowing we won't break it, in a way that schools like A&M are not so comfortable doing.