On the Purpose and Nature of a University Education

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you for your letter. I am always reflecting on how I can better serve our remarkable university community – its students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Feedback of all kinds, including critical feedback, is helpful to me. 

I begin with your demands. I have never (with the exception of scheduling conflicts) refused any faculty request to meet during my time as President. You are welcome to work directly with my office to schedule time with me. 

The intemperate tone of your letter – and the fact that so many signatories were not even present at the Town Hall you reference – suggests that your concern may be rooted less in what was said at that meeting (or how it was said) than in a fundamental disagreement about the nature and purpose of a university education. At the very foundation of Jesuit Catholic higher education is the cultivation of reason in the service of truth. In challenging our students who chose to speak at the Town Hall to elaborate, substantiate, or defend their claims, I was affirming their status as human beings fully imbued with the gifts of reason and judgment. In an academic community, this kind of substantive engagement is the epitome of respect.

In living out Seattle University’s mission of educating the whole person and empowering leaders for a just and humane world, we should place a special focus on empowering our students. That is one of the insights behind my parsimonious approach to issuing university statements. Empowering our students means not telling them what to think but teaching them how to think. It means helping them to develop their own powers of critical thought and encouraging them to think for themselves while embracing their convictions, whatever those may be. Empowering our students to develop these skills requires sustaining space on our campus for the expression of diverse perspectives on issues from the local to the global. Exposure to a wide range of views is essential if we are to help our students to develop the habits of temperament and intellect necessary for reasoned deliberation, which is in such short supply in our broader, social-media saturated society. Finally, empowering our students to develop these skills requires us to extend to them – and to one another – the grace to make mistakes (which are an essential by-product of the educational process) and the presupposition of good intentions. These last two are particularly important Ignatian virtues that your letter notably fails to model.

The Q&A period during the Town Hall on May 7 was indeed a challenging one for me and for all those present. Your perception – that my response to student questions was excessively argumentative – represents one perspective on my “tone” (to use your word) that day. Other feedback I received was more favorable. In the days following the Town Hall, several faculty and staff who were present wrote to me privately to thank me for my approach. As one faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences put it in an email, “your responses at the Town Hall were clear, concise, and reasonable.” Another message – from a staff member – said that “I just appreciate your adherence to nuance and accuracy when addressing inherently complex issues. Knowing that is not easy or even popular in a role such as yours.” The divergent reactions of those in the room stem in part from different perspectives on the underlying issues but also perhaps (from some) a rejection of the principles I have outlined above.

While I do not regret engaging with our students at the Town Hall, I realize with the benefit of hindsight that I should have done more. Specifically, the first student to speak began to cry as she delivered her initial prepared remarks. In that moment, the inflammatory accusations she was leveling against Seattle University led me to jump immediately into defending the university. Instead, I should have paused to express my care and compassion before asking her to offer evidence for her contentions that Seattle University “support[s]” and “benefit[s]” from “genocide,” that its leaders’ “actions are leading to killing people,” and that – because of our sense of guilt over the foregoing – Seattle University is actively “vilify[ing]” and “target[ing]” our BIPOC students. I understand that not acknowledging how visibly upset the student was caused distress to some who were present, and for that I am sorry. My office has reached out to the student in question to offer the opportunity to meet in a more informal setting in which she would feel comfortable continuing the conversation. 

As I noted at the outset, I am constantly reflecting on my performance and working to do better. That effort includes daily Ignatian prayer, conversations with trusted advisors (both Jesuits and laypeople), and the consideration of feedback like that you have offered. I look forward to continuing these practices as I strive to be the kind of leader this university needs.

Respectfully,

Eduardo M. Peñalver
President