Dear Students, This spring I have been thinking about how best to welcome you to my classrooms this fall. If you’ve just graduated from high school, you might not know what to expect at university. For what it’s worth, a lot has been changing for us faculty too, so I’m not entirely sure what to expect either. Certainly some things will be the same. In my classes, we will be reading some texts that I consider great, like Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Avicenna, Confucius. We will read them together, asking together what they say, what they mean, and what they mean for us today. We will also spend time outdoors, reading the land around us. We will look closely at our campus and at our city and its environment. Students before you have shaped our campus by building gardens, an apiary, a stone classroom, and more. We will see those places and consider what might be done next. We’ll look at where the water ion our city comes from, and where it goes, and who is affected by it as it flows. Lately I’ve been working with some non-profits and with the city government to try to make our city healthier for everyone. I’ll tell you about what we have done and I’ll invite you to join in this. I know all of this will be new to most of you, so don’t feel like you’ve got to make big contributions or changes. I’m just inviting you to notice it, and to consider how the gifts and talents and interests you bring to campus might add to what has already been done. We receive the world like a garden that others have made; now it is ours to tend that garden, to amend the soil, to grow good things. To do that means we will also have to ask questions like “what things are good to grow?” And that will require us to ask what we mean by “good.” Yes, I’m a philosophy professor as well as a gardener and ecologist, so I often ask questions that seem easy to answer at first, until we look closely at them and discover how much we have taken for granted. You’ve already got a sense of what’s good, by the way. You’ve inherited some of it from your family’s traditions, from your city and state and nation. Some of it you’ve cultivated by trying new things and discovering what works and what doesn’t work. You’ve probably got a sense of fairness, of beauty, of justice, of truth, etc. Let’s plan do what we can to refine and strengthen that sense for the long run of life ahead, and for building things worth inheriting. Let’s plan to become good ancestors together. Together we will likely face some things that we don’t know how to tackle. You grew up with some powerful technology. Let’s plan to talk about how to use that technology well, and how to use it in a way that makes us better neighbors. How can we use technology in ways that makes us more virtuous, better at fostering goodness, fairness, beauty, justice, truth, etc. Feel free to reach out this summer, or to drop by my office this fall, if you’d like to know more about any of this. I work with IBM to help develop tech competitions, and I work with a local river conservation organization and our local zoo and aquarium to care for wildlife and to teach others to care as well. You might also want to consider traveling with me. This fall I plan to camp for a night in the Badlands National Park to watch meteor showers and to listen to coyotes sing. Next spring I’ll be bringing students to study in Greece over spring break. Let me know if you’re interested in joining me. I don’t know all that the fall will bring us. There are people who think that the best preparation for a class is in writing lesson plans and a syllabus and making online content. All of that has its place, and it has been part of what I’ve been doing this past year, anticipating your arrival this fall. But I’ve also been spending time in quiet contemplation; I’ve been traveling to a lot of interesting places and taking new classes so I can continue to be a student and not just a lecturer; I’ve been praying for you, because I am never confident that I know what’s best for you but I am wildly hopeful that you have immense potential within you and I am eager to help you grow and similarly eager not to impede that growth. As you prepare for the fall, I hope you will take time to do some of these things as well. Consider what you value most, and try to write it down. What do you hope the story of your life will be someday? How do you want to grow? How do you hope you will be a blessing to others? How do you hope people will be remembered by future generations? This fall, we will read some of those great texts together, and I look forward to reading with you the words of others who were once students like you, and who asked questions like these, hoping to become good neighbors and good ancestors. They will be our teachers, and together, let’s be the best students we can. I’m looking forward to meeting you, and to sharing these experiences together. Wishing you a joyful, restful summer, Dave