Tradition and Tomorrow

Once upon a time in the days before COVID, I described our distinctive approach to education to a group of high school guidance counselors, highlighting UD’s signature Core and how it undergirds a student’s major, and was surprised when afterward one of the listeners jumped out of his seat and enthusiastically thanked me for the address. He said this was the first time he’d heard an administrator make the case for a core curriculum and not highlight shortcuts students can take to get to their diploma more swiftly. I gave more or less the same talk to another group of counselors a few weeks later, and one of the listeners expressed his dismay that the University of Dallas was stuck in the past, clear evidence of which he took to be the classical orientation of our Core. It is remarkable the difference the disposition of a listener makes with respect to what is heard. The first counselor appreciated hearing a reasoned case for an education that formed the souls of its receivers by tried-andtrue methods while readying them to make innovative contributions in their professional careers; the second could not imagine preparing students for tomorrow without focusing on tomorrow.

The University of Dallas is unambiguous about where we stand. We are a Catholic liberal arts university. We steep our students in the best the Western intellectual tradition has to offer. We want our students to be trained classically through the liberating arts and sciences so that they think, write, speak, analyze, synthesize, create and understand clearly and well. There are no tricks to this process. It takes time and hard labor, both for our students and our professors. It takes patience, and the conviction that the benefits far surpass the investment — indeed, that the benefits are eternal as well as temporal.

Being clear about who we are and what we provide is no guarantee that we will not be misunderstood. It is a grave mistake to think that immersing oneself in great thinkers of the past enslaves one to the past. It is a grave mistake to think that taking the time to recreate scientific experiments in the laboratory prevents one from making new discoveries. It is a grave mistake to think that studying the art, architecture and cultures of older or other peoples impairs one’s appreciation for one’s own. It is a grave mistake to think that by taking seriously both sides of an argument one will be blinded to the truth of the matter. Perhaps the gravest of mistakes is thinking that a university best prepares students for successful lives by focusing exclusively on the skills they will need for their first jobs. We do, of course, prepare our students well for their first jobs, but we also prepare them well for their fifth and 15th. Our education prepares students for lives of deep meaning and purpose, to live reflectively, and such a preparation, as anyone can see by the tremendous successes of our graduates, is deeply complementary of their career preparedness. Perhaps the worst reason not to do something right and good is the fear of being misunderstood. At UD, we courageously train our students classically, that they might be the leaders and innovators of tomorrow.

Jonathan J. Sanford Provost