That being said, when you pursue truth with honesty and courage, you will often find two things that are not often associated with scholars: humility and community.
I am a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a double major in English literature and psychology. As an undergraduate, I studied in both the humanities and the social sciences. Later, in graduate school, I moved into theology, literary theory, and hermeneutics. I gained an immense appreciation for areas of study that, while they were new to me, have long histories, deep methodological focus, and a diverse canon of literature and resources.
It was a humbling process.
What is more, these disciplines were at odds in how they pose the question that Pilate mused before Jesus in John 18:38 – “What is truth?” And, having taught at universities and seminaries in the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe, I’ve learned what it means to move outside of cultural assumptions about truth. New teachers and students opened up new questions and new paths of knowing for me that I had never considered before. I’ve learned it takes a lot of courage to move betwixt and between academic disciplines. If you’re willing to submit yourself to new ways of seeing and hearing truth, you can arrive at surprising insights.
Seattle Pacific’s University Scholars — or UScholars — program asks very gifted, highly motivated students to push themselves and others to find truth across the many disciplines that make up the modern university. I love that about the program.
I also love how the program is designed to show UScholars that truth can be found only when we are willing to humble ourselves and submit to new ways of thinking and reflecting.
Moreover, I love how it reveals that truth travels most effectively and authentically when it crosses the bridge of relationships forged in trust, respect, patience, and compassion. In the UScholars program, humility embraces community in many ways. And it is in this space that true, deep, passionate learning draws its deepest breath and animates students and faculty alike.
Graduates from the University Scholars program often leave SPU to attend some of the finest graduate programs in the nation and around the world. They leave to attend medical school and law school. They receive Fulbright and Rotary fellowships in world-class universities. They land exciting top-level jobs in Fortune 500 firms. They serve the marginalized and the voiceless with extreme self-sacrifice and passion.
Yet all our students experience humility and community before they leave the program, and they find new depth in their already manifold gifts and talents. They are lifted, shaped, and released by the God of Wonders who is ever strengthening their hearts for the sake of the world and provoking them to pursue truth wherever it can be found.
One of my life verses — 2 Chronicles 16:9 — sums up my desire for the students and faculty in the University Scholars program: “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”