Monday Morning Musing: Lifelong Learner

{Poster Art by Mitch Markovitz}

Whether or not you are still involved in education, doesn't the fall always make you think back to school?

When I attended Valparaiso University for my undergraduate degree, I was part of the honors college, a smaller group within the larger university with its own building, faculty and courses in the humanities. Although we declared our own major, our courses at the honors college fulfilled almost all of our general education requirements with an interdisciplinary approach. Instead of taking separate classes in, say, history, theology and art appreciation, we learned about all three interacted throughout the centuries. We also integrated ourselves together as a freshmen class during our first semester when we had to write, produce and perform a musical that embodied the themes of what we learned.

One of my favorite parts of our education was symposium. Every Thursday night, the entire honors college including all four years of students plus the faculty, gathered together for one hour to learn and discuss one topic. I love the way in which the symposium gave us all something common to think about even though we were all at different parts of our academic path. Everyone had something unique to contribute to the discussion because we were all approached the topic from a different angle.

The brilliance was that at the same time drew us together toward one set of ideas, symposium also provided a diversity of idea. Over the course of a semester, each individual would spend time at the symposium thinking about topics well outside his or her main interests because the topics were so diverse. For example, fall 2011 includes "Sex, Lies and Bad Romance: The Hunt for the Real Lady Gaga" lead by a musicologist, "Stewarding Creation: Why Christians Should Care about the Environment" lead by a biblical theologian, and "Sacred Space/Middle East" lead by an architectural historian. By considering a wide variety of topics, people made unique connections in their main area of study.

Liberal arts colleges around the world specialize in exposing their students to new ideas. If you are not attending school this fall, what are you doing to learn, grow and integrate new ideas into your life and work?

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Do you know a smart, creative, spiritually-minded person who might be interested in this blog post? Please forward it in it's entirety, compliments of Dawn Trautman, Urban Nomad. Copyright, 2011.