VIDEO

President Campbell: Carthage challenges students to become better thinkers

An interview with Michael Deshaies of the Jack Miller Center

July 18, 2011

F. Gregory Campbell, president of the College, discusses Carthage's educational philosophy and the value of a liberal arts education in an interview with Michael A. Deshaies, vice president, development and communications for the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America's Founding Principles and History.

That interview, visible above, includes Mr. Campbell's views on the importance of the "Great Books" at the core of Carthage's Western Heritage and Great Ideas programs. In the interview, Mr. Campbell says "people will have many jobs in their lifetimes. There is no school that can train a person to do what he or she will be asked to do 10-15-20 years into the future.

"We think that if you expose young people
to some of the most profound thinkers in human history, they will be challenged to do better thinking themselves."

"If you're going to have a successful professional career, you need to be able to keep on learning," the president says, adding that a liberal education is "far better" preparation "than some narrow technical skill training that is good only for a short space of time."

The president explains the philosophy behind the Western Heritage courses, which are a requirement for all incoming students.

"We think that if you expose young people to some of the most profound thinkers in human history, they will be challenged to do better thinking themselves," Mr. Campbell says. "If they are to know what they're looking at in an art gallery, or to pick up on the allusions in literature ... they're going to need some vocabulary of what has developed across the centuries."

Mr. Campbell points out that the philosophers, authors and other thinkers whose works are studied in Western Heritage courses "have not agreed among themselves. The students soon figure out they can't agree with everybody they're reading. They have to start thinking for themselves, 'What do I think about what I'm hearing, where do I stand?' That is a liberating experience, and also is making educable people."

The president also discusses the significance of Carthage's mission statement: "Seeking truth, building strength, inspiring service, together."

Such a statement should "fit on a coffee cup," he says. Beyond that, "it needed to be short, it needed to be succinct, it needed to be, most of all true.

"That first part, seeking truth, I think says a lot. Those two words are chosen with great care. It is not always the case in academia these days that people talk about truth. There's a tendency to shy away from the very idea of truth. We do not shy away from that at Carthage.

"The other word, seeking, stop and think about that for a moment. You don't seek something you already have. There's absolutely no claim on our part that we know what that truth is. But we’re questing, we are seeking. That’s an inspiring enterprise in and of itself. It makes, I think, for useful and happy lives, and that's why we're here."

The Jack Miller Center for Teaching America's Founding Principles and History is based in Philadelphia. The Center has invested nearly $5 million in programs at 38 campuses, and began sponsoring post-doctoral fellowships three years ago, including two at Carthage starting this fall.