The annual tradition of having a prominent member of the U. of C. faculty address the incoming class continues this evening (6:30 CST). The first of these addresses was given in 1962, to the class just in front of mine. In 1963 we were not aware that a tradition had been born.
The speaker this year is Geoffrey Stone, prominent law professor, former Provost and author of a recent report dealing with the issue of free speech on campus. It will be the second “Aims of Education” address given by Stone, a great honor. The live video will apparently be available on the U. of C. website. It will be worth watching for any high school student contemplating attending the University. That student will see a big question - perhaps the biggest one of all at any university - grappled with by a scholar who has has thought about these things a long time, especially as they have been shaped and defined at the University of Chicago.
Although it will no doubt concern itself with the perennial question implied by the title (from an essay by Alfred North Whitehead) I expect it to deal, perhaps indirectly, with the subject matter raised by the Dean’s letter to incoming first years. It will probably attempt to consider these matters from the broadest possible perspective: What is the end of education? That is a question Aristotle might have asked himself. We have to know the end before we can know the beginning.
Hmm. That was a really strong speech. He did not mince words. Must have made many students really uncomfortable.
Find it interesting that he actually named and shamed other Universities by name, specially the other elite institution to the North. He really came out swinging.
I watched it. It was completely consistent with his other writings and statements. Maybe it did make many students uncomfortable, but it must have been very thought provoking as well. CollegeAngst I also found it interesting that he used specific examples. Also interesting for me was a sort of backhanded slap to Dean Ellison with the clarification of what the University’s true, and more nuanced, view of “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” really is.
@kaukauna Did you watch it live? Gap year student here–comments on the facebook group suggest that the speech was near impossible to make out due to the sound system
The acoustics in Rockefeller Chapel was awful according to many students. This was an important speech and many students sitting inside the chapel couldn’t hear him well and understand what he was saying. That is a real pity. Hopefully they will post it on YouTube. The Live Stream was quite clear
Also interesting, Stone used an old “Aims of education” speech he delivered from 1995! and updated it for the current environment. So he removed some older stuff, gave some current examples and voila, new address Looks like this topic is always relevant no matter what generation listens to it!
He drew some very bright lines in that talk. It had the feeling - like the Dean’s letter, though with greater specificity - of of a warning shot across the bows. Though I found it bracing and clarifying, and though I liked the linking of the present policy with the University’s traditions going back to the days of its founding, yet it had a somewhat hectoring and even embattled tone. That began with his telling the assembled class of 2020 right off the bat that “you’re a bit slow on the uptake” to what seemed to me not an especially wonderful anecdote with a rather feeble punch line.
I also wonder how his audience felt about being told that “helicopter parenting” was part of the problem of their generation. (To be fair he also credited their idealism and the real grievances of minorities.)
How would I have felt hearing such a talk on entering the University? Would I have been thrilled by the prospect that I was about to enter an arena in which no holds are barred in the battle of ideas and that courage and daring would be required of me? Or would I have felt that, geez, this is going to be tough-going, am I ready for this? --Probably a bit of both.
Thanks for sharing the link @CollegeAngst. As I was listening to ths address I felt very proud of my son’s decision to go to UChicago for his undergraduate studies.
