My hopes for my students at the start of a new semester

As the spring semester begins, along with the nervousness and the "unknown" of what each new class will be like, it is a natural time for professors to think about what we hope for for our students and for ourselves. 

Naturally, I hope my students will find my class to be a challenging and rewarding learning experience. I hope they will gain new knowledge (in this case about Paul and early Judaism), sharpen their reading, writing, and thinking skills as graduate students, and move closer toward their goals of completing their graduate degrees. All good things, of course!

But more than the new insights, the greater knowledge, or the tangible outcome of a degree--or rather, alongside those things--I hope my students will develop a set of virtues that will serve them not only during the current semester, but for the rest of their lives. And here I refer to what A. G. Sertillanges calls the "intellectual virtues." These are the character traits that, aside from any special level of intellectual talent or natural genius, will enable a person to develop his or her mind in a way that is productive, satisfying, and personally rewarding.

What are these virtues? There are many that might be listed here, but my list includes such essential dispositions as studiousness, constancy, patience, perseverance, courage, and humility. Sertillanges explains the importance of many of these in his book, The Intellectual Life (see my earlier post on Sertillanges for some more background on this book):

"The virtue proper to the person of study is, clearly, [drum roll please...] studiousness" (25). And elsewhere, "You must bring to your work constancy which keeps steadily at the task; patience which bears difficulties well; perseverance which prevents the will from flagging" (215).

These first four virtues (studiousness, constancy, patience, and perseverance) are necessary for intellectual growth to the extent that they enable a person to navigate around and through the obstacles that are bound to come to anyone who seeks to develop her mind. Rather than seeking instant results, hoping for a quick fix to one's intellectual poverty, or expecting an easy road, these "old-school" virtues remind a person to stay on a path of growth that, although difficult, will ultimately lead to the desired results.

In addition, I hope my students will face my class with courage. Courage to question what they already think they know, with the goal that they could come to a deeper understanding of a given subject. Particularly in the realm of biblical studies and theology, it takes courage to question the truths and convictions that one has received from parents, from respected leaders, and other authorities as right. It takes courage to look at a subject from a new perspective and to be truly open to learning from that perspective. But if we are to be formed intellectually in our study of the Bible, we must have the courage to allow its contents to challenge our own cherished beliefs. It takes little courage to seek to affirm what we already think we know.

Finally, I hope my students will practice the intellectual virtue of humility. In my way of thinking, humility and courage go hand in hand. If one has the humility to recognize that one has not yet fully arrived at a final and indisputable way of understanding their beliefs, that one has not yet reached maturity in one's theology, then one can explore new and challenging ideas without feeling that one's identity is threatened in the process. I hope my students will have the humility to be able to listen to one another, and to be able to admit when they really do not know something. Such an admission takes both humility and courage, but it is certainly a gateway to gaining new knowledge.

As I run down this list of hopes for my students, it is surely obvious that these are hopes I hold for myself as well. When I have faced discouragement, disappointment, failure, and other setbacks in my own journey of intellectual development, it is these virtues, together with encouragement from others, that have kept me from giving up altogether. So may the weeks and months of this semester find us, faculty and students alike, putting these intellectual virtues into practice as we engage in the life-changing and life-challenging process of graduate education together.

Sertillanges on balancing work and the intellectual life

I speak for myself here, but I know that many of us in the academic world, whether faculty or students, share a feeling of not having enough time to devote to the study, research, and writing which is such an important part of our sense of vocation. The demands of our jobs and the responsibilities of family life can easily consume all of our time and energy. Having the discipline to carve out time for research, and then having sufficient mental energy to be able to use that time well, are things with which many of us struggle on a daily basis. Being on sabbatical right now has heightened my awareness of this ongoing struggle in my own professional life, and also allowed me to gain some perspective on how I have failed and succeeded in finding this balance in the past.

French Dominican A. G. Sertillanges offers encouragement to people like me, who are not geniuses by nature and who do not have unlimited time at our disposal with which to pursue our writing. In his 1920 book La Vie Intellectuelle (English translation: The Intellectual Life available here), he discusses a number of topics that are pertinent to this blog and to academic life in general, including intellectual virtues, the intellectual vocation, and other very practical matters pertaining to how to use one’s limited time most effectively.

I intend to post some of his quotes here from time to time. Today I cite a passage from Sertillanges that connects with an earlier post on rabbinic comments about study. Writing of the benefit that can be gained by having to work for a living Sertillanges explains:

The discipline of some occupation is an excellent school; it bears fruits in the hours of studious leisure. The very constraint will make you concentrate better, you will learn the value of time, you will take eager refuge in those rare hours during which, the claims of duty satisfied, you can turn to your ideal and enjoy the relaxation of some chosen activity after the labor imposed by the hard necessity of getting a livelihood. (9)

Sertillanges goes on to conclude that if one can find as little as two hours per day, and can guard these well, and can use them carefully, then over time one can reap the benefits of one’s labor. The key is not to be discouraged by the little that is accomplished in one day, but rather to remember the amount that can be done with a consistent effort applied over a long period of time. Sertillanges reminds us that studiousness, courage, constancy, patience and tenacity play a larger role in this vocation than natural genius or ideal circumstances.

Those of us with limited time and limited resources, but called to some kind of intellectual vocation—whether formally or informally—can still learn to make the best use of the limited time we do have. That choice, at least, is ours.