Honors College Dean
College is a pivotal time. During these four years, you will forge an adult identity and make decisions that will affect the trajectory of the rest of your life. While a university education often helps to prepare you for a career, its essential purpose is to prepare you to fashion a meaningful and deeply fulfilling life. Career paths take unpredictable twists and turns, yet you will remain someone who longs to understand the world, to possess what you think is good, and to appreciate what you find beautiful. In the Honors College, we study the liberal arts because they help you to discover what you believe is true, good, and beautiful—and to understand why. This is an education in human freedom, and it builds a foundation for a meaningful life. A student of the liberal arts has reflected deeply about the ultimate questions of human life and is therefore better prepared to face life’s challenges and difficult choices, as well as to appreciate and savor life’s triumphs and joys.
The motto on our academic seal is wisdom, virtue, and friendship, because these are the common goods that we seek together in all that we do in the college. We believe that the study of classic texts is a suitable means to these ends because they address the big questions at the heart of human existence and their value has withstood the test of time. When we study the classics, we enter “the great conversation” with some of the most influential thinkers of our inherited intellectual tradition. We learn from the past in order to have a deeper understanding of the present and to forge a better future together.
Liberal learning is active; it occurs in dialogue with others. We have a firmer grasp of our ideas and values when we are called to respond to those who object or who offer us a different perspective. The best path to grow in wisdom is through friendship with those who are seeking it alongside you. And that is what we hope your experience in the Honors College will be: a place of deep friendship and intellectual curiosity, a place where you grow together through challenging conversation and study, a place where you become more human and more humane.
If you are someone searching for answers to life’s questions, then I invite you to visit our residential college at UTulsa. This might be the place where you belong.