Intellect vs. Morality at Baylor

In class on Thursday, our small group spent a great deal of time discussing whether Baylor emphasizes instruction on intellect or character more (definitely a digression, but still philosophically relevant!). I said with great conviction that I felt I had grown more intellectually than morally at Baylor. After long consideration, I've decided I was wrong. I could learn to be an intellectual at virtually any school; Baylor has pushed me much farther toward moral virtue than I've ever been by any school.

This afternoon, my literature instructor asked each student in class to write a paragraph response to our reading thus far on The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, a partially-nonfiction story about Vietnam soldiers. She read each student's response aloud, including mine: I wrote that I felt humbled, that I had known some who had gone to and died in Iraq, but that they had chosen to enlist. No one these days agonizes over a draft notice. How over-privileged I am, I said, to live in a time when what kids want to do is dictated partly by their needs and partly by their wishes, but rarely by another's needs or wishes. And how fortunate we are that our generation is being shot down, but not destroyed, by Iraq and Afghanistan. I couldn't possibly live as I do while 3% of the world died around me, as certainly did in World War II. There's nothing like a war story to make you feel like shit, I finished. She was noticeably moved and paused for a moment. I'm glad she didn't glance up in my direction, or she would have seen me trying and failing to control my tears. But her ironic response made me laugh: "Does anyone have any war stories they'd like to share?"

I wouldn't say Baylor professors are out to make us feel like shit; but of the twenty instructors I've had at Baylor, I can say that at least half of them were concerned with and spoke about moral issues in class. (And compared to my last college, that's a 100% increase.) This English instructor saw the moral value in my comment on humility, and let the class discuss the subject of war to help instill humility in us. She cleverly manipulated the situation so that we could learn the moral virtue of humility from an intellectual work of literature, and she didn't even have to say anything! Sometimes I don't understand how instructors can be so brilliant. I'm not sucking up, I just really can't believe it.

I'm not Christian; but I truly appreciate instructors who attempt to find the moral value in the intellectual material - here's where that disparity between moral and intellectual virtue comes in. One astronomy instructor made a good portion of the class cry when he addressed our smallness compared to the vastness of the universe. A history professor, who had until this moment shown no signs of having a personality, teared up telling us he hoped what we were learning taught us gratefulness. An anthropology instructor, on the other hand, told us why she could not talk about moral issues in class. Even when morality is not addressed in a class, many instructors feel the need to explain why it is not.

I feel that Baylor pulls intellectual and moral virtue together and delivers it as one package. Morality is balanced by intellection: If you want to be a Christian, you should still know about other religions. If you want to be a Marxist, you still have to study capitalism. If you want to be a conservative, you still have to hear the liberal speak his mind. Baylor hands us an education rich in morality and intellectual virtue. Even if it's not my morals Baylor tries to instill inside me, I appreciate the implication that there really should be some morals inside each of us.