Chris Kawecki's Orientation Banquet Speech

Hampshire College, Sept 2, 1996

I actually started writing this speech exactly a year ago, and i gave the speech to my orientation group right here in this room. It had only two words then – the last two words of this current speech – but has grown some since.

Please get ready to think, because for this entering class at Hampshire College, I am going to give a Hampshire College speech.

First, I would like to introduce you to two ideas, or ways of being. I will call them “tried-and-true” and “become.” There are other words you could use to describe these ideas. Culture and Revolution, Wisdom of the Past and the Genius of Present, Tradition and Innovation, Hierarchy and Participation. I’ll use all these terms in the speech, but I think you have a general picture of the groups.

Let me tell you a story to illustrate what I mean by these words. I was talking with my division 3 chair, a professor who has been here at Hampshire since the first years of the school. He said. `‘One of the most surprising things for me about Hampshire was how quickly people changed the questions they were asking. The first couple years, the questions were always ‘What do we want Hampshire College to be?’ or ‘What should div 1 mean for you?’ or ‘What do we want NS to mean?’ But then, in only a very few years, students and faculty started asking ‘What is Hampshire?’ or ‘What is division 1.’’ He was describing what I mean by tried-and-true and become. Tried-and-true means understanding what is; become is when we ask what should be, or what could be, and we create it.

At first you might think that “become” is an awkward word to pick. I could also have picked revolution, or innovation. But I think it is the best of the bunch. It’s awkwardness arises from it being a way of being, rather than a way of knowing. And that’s exactly what I want. Tried-and-true only requires that you study and know, whereas “become” means to put our knowledge to use, trusting ourselves and creating something new.

Think about Hampshire College, and think about yourself. What do you value – tried-and-true, or become; culture or revolution; tradition or innovation? What do you think Hampshire values now? What should Hampshire value? When you think of Hampshire, are you thinking “What is Hampshire?” or are you thinking “What would we like Hampshire to be?”

When I got to Hampshire four years ago, my frustration with high school defined what I wanted. I was excited because I thought Hampshire was going to be all “become”. There would be no classes, of course, because we would create the entire learning experience anew. Boy did I take it to an extreme. Somebody asked me on a bike ride why I was at Hampshire. I said, completely seriously, “to find people who will join me in making revolution!”

But now I think Hampshire College is neither extreme. And yet, I believe Hampshire is exactly what you and I need. Hampshire College, I claim, is where { tried-and-true} and { become} meet.

But what does that mean, to be the place where { tried-and-true} and { become} meet?

I think it has several meanings. First of all, that we have the opportunity to design an education that’s a balance. We are here to challenge ourselves in both directions – learning about the world as it is, and creating it as it should be. But being the place where tried-and-true and become meet has another implication. A further challenge. Now that you’re here, this is your challenge, too. This challenge starts because we haven’t all been born and grown at Hampshire. We all have to learn about it, because it { is} different from what we have experienced before. For instance, most of our professors did not go to college at a place like Hampshire, and have not taught at places like Hampshire before they arrive here. They were used to a more hierarchical approach, transmitting the tried-and-true. They are doing an incredible job of learning this new way of being, but even with how flexible they are becoming, sometimes you might feel that they are still more hierarchical than you wish. Some students, like me, come with a different mindset than the faculty. We come from experiences where society pushed us so far towards too much culture that we responded by demanding all revolution. Now we have a chance to revise that reaction and work towards a balance. Other students haven’t been through that kind of rebellion, and come to Hampshire ready to have some of their first experiences with this new way of being, of really taking themselves seriously. I believe that each of you will succeed.

Last year, we developed one tool to help encourage “become” in students so that { we} can { achieve balance}. It is called the Experimental Program in Education and Community. It allows you to participate in innovative, self-designed experiments. You’ll hear more about it if you come to the introductory meeting on Thursday. But programs and institutional changes are only half of the solution. You are the other half. My first year, I was like so many other students in each of Hampshire’s 25 plus first-year classes. We feel so overwhelmed by the regulations of the tried-and-true even at Hampshire that we respond by trying to deny its value altogether. After several years, I have recovered and rediscovered that { balance}, not revolution, is my goal. I think you can do better than I did.

Let me state the challenge for you. It has two parts. Your first challenge is to achieve a balance of culture and revolution in your education and life. For some of you this will mean discovering the value of tried-and-true and being more open to what is; for others, this is your chance to balance yourself by bringing more “become”, more revolution, into your life. That’s the first part of the challenge, and if you can incorporate that into your education, you’ll be three yours ahead of me. Your second challenge is to discover what is valuable about other people’s experience. Understand what in their experience makes them value tried-and-true, or become. { That} is the way to help them, by working to understand them, not by trying to change them to be the way you think they should be. Now if you start to engage that kind of question, and always remember that everyone here is a person and not only a position, you’re four years ahead of where I was, because I’m just learning that now.

We here on the stage, as well as the rest of the community, have roles in this challenge too. We on the stage, by virtue of our positions, are examples for the older students, for the staff, for the faculty, and for the administration. And each of us, no matter how many years we have been here or how expert we are, will remain conscious of ourselves as persons learning about a new way of being.

We will continue to provide an example of working with you in striving for a balance of tried-and-true and “become” in our lives and yours. We will continue to provide leadership of learning { from you} and learning { with you}, and we will respect you and trust you and seek to understand { your} experience.

That kind of mutuality is both the most challenging and the most valuable environment we can create at Hampshire. There will be successes and failures, frustration and discovery, as each one of us develops ourselves through these challenges of balance and understanding.

But it is worth it, because education has to be about all of us – experts of culture and geniuses of the new – learning from and of each other as we create our new society together, a new society of both { culture} and { revolution}. I am very excited to be engaged in this work together with you this year.

I talked about the importance of balancing tried-and-true and become. But there’s also other places where balance is important. For instance, in your division 1s.

You know that Hampshire has four division 1s. My experience here is that most students do library research papers for all their project division 1s. The problem is that that doesn’t give them balanced growth. It might be tempting to do only these kinds of projects at Hampshire, in div 1s and in the rest of your education, because that’s what the faculty is used to suggesting and encouraging and what we did most in high school. But is that best for us? I want to give you a couple other ideas, but you should go beyond these. I agree with the motto of Plato’s Academy “the unexamined life is not worth living.” But I also agree with a group of Hampshire students who 20 years ago wrote: “The unlived life is not worth examining.”

I would encourage you for at least one of your division 1s to do something that includes { both} action and reflection; go find someone from a totally different culture, get to know them, and discover how many assumptions you have that you didn’t expect; or deesign and carry out an experiment. For instance, if you are sitting on the library lawn one day, and think “gosh I wonder how many species are alive in a square foot here,” take yourself seriously. That could be an extremely exciting and educational thing to study. See how many you can count. Then ask everyone you know how they would count bugs, or tell the difference between the various goopy slimes. Keep brainstorming. Then take your curiosity to the library, and to the internet. Take your curiosity seriously. Many of the best educational opportunities come from spontaneous curiosity. Follow up on these opportunies, and the structure of your education will form around its contents.

These same lessons about a balance of depth of breadth, of tried-and-true and “become”, will apply to your later work at Hampshire, too, but you can cross those bridges when you come to them.

There’s one more thing I want to share with you. I want to tell you the things that I believe have been most valuable in { my} education. I’m sure they’ll be different for each of you, but I think you will still learn from my list. Keeping a journal, finding an advisor who I could really talk to, taking my relationships seriously, learning to contra-dance, being an orientation leader, and following through on my ideas, even the ones that I now consider immature! That’s part of taking myself seriously, and that’s also a part of “become.” For instance, I once thought all Hampshire’s “problems” would be solved if we put in a gigantic bulletin board to network students to each other. Students would supposedly go there to record all their ideas for innovative education, and before long, the whole school would be revolutionized! Well, my friend Josh and I put the bulletin board up three years ago, right there (point). As you might expect, it didn’t have quite the results I’d anticipated. But yet, if I had never done that, I never would have conceived of or helped create the Experimental Program in Education and Community. People said we were crazy when we put these big sheets of paper up. We were. But we were becoming. Without those crazy sheets of paper I wouldn’t be here today. Follow through on your ideas. It’s the best way to grow.

So that’s my speech. I hope I’ve given you something to think about. Because that’s where education really happens at Hampshire – it happens when you’re alone and turn frustration into the most incredible realizations; it happens when you’re discussing new ways to see the world, the long process of learning to think and commicate from your mind and heart. It happens when you choose to think and work hard. I’m not telling you how to avoid thinking and working hard, because then you’d be avoiding growth and learning. I’m telling you how exciting it is to work and think hard! Learning at Hampshire happens because you are alive, and because you interact with an amazing world, not because me or some professor says or does something to you! Use me, and use professors, but your education is what { you} make of it.

I hope I have helped you understand a couple ideas. First, that we should find a balance of tried-and-true and become in our education by exploring both of them. Second, that we can help another person not by trying to force them to change, but by trying to understand them and being open and allowing them to learn about us. And last, to trust yourself. Listen to me. I hope it will help you understand your new role here. I hope it does help. But if it doesn’t, fine. Listen to what your advisors, teachers, parents, and peers have to say.

But most important, { Trust Yourself}. That isn’t as easy as just agreeing with me. It’s a lesson you can only learn from your own self in your own experience. So be prepared when your life gives you that opportunity, that I know each of you is ready for, the opportunity to { Trust Yourself}.