The Pocket Value of a Liberal Arts Education

by Kimberly Parke, ALM 2000
Student Address to Degree Recipients

Kimberly Parke, ALM '00

Dean Shinagel, faculty, fellow graduates, and guests: Today I earn a degree in creative writing--not exactly a field that most people would call useful. "Useful" is a term our society typically reserves for areas like law, medicine, or business, where it is easy to imagine what students of those fields can contribute to the workforce and how their knowledge will affect others' lives. Were I to receive a degree today in one of those fields, my speech might include suggestions for claiming intellectual property rights, pointers in preventive medicine, or predictions about the future of our global economy--some tangible advice that you could put in your pocket and carry away. But my degree does not enable me to practice law or medicine; it allows me to practice writing, making me sound like quite the novice. So you may wonder what I can offer you that you can directly apply to your life and benefit from immediately. Well aware that no one wants unsolicited writing tips on graduation day, I offer you, instead, this story.

I wrote my first piece of prose when I was five. The hero was Fritz, my miniature schnauzer, who cleverly sniffed out the kidnappers that had absconded with me without motive. In the subplot, they also happened to "permanently misplace" Dawn, a minor character who bore a striking resemblance to my kindergarten nemesis. At five sentences, the drama was high, if not a little plot heavy. Twenty-three years later, for my degree, I took a course in memoir writing. In one of my most successful stories, the protagonist was Fritz, my miniature schnauzer, who coolly witnessed my family's manic car ride to the Jersey shore for summer vacation. At 1,200 words, the drama was high and a little plot heavy.

Trust me, the investment in my degree was indeed worthwhile, as you're about to hear.

When I proudly shared that memoir piece with my parents and brother, they were appalled at the number of small details I got wrong: we owned a Dodge, not a Chevy; my mom sang along with doo-wop, not disco; and it was the green medicine we took for carsickness. Additionally, my brother argued that he was not the perpetual antagonist of the family; my mother was adamant that she did, in fact, have a sense of humor; and my father denied having played favorites with his kids. As a family, we could agree on only one thing: Fritz was a miniature schnauzer.

Thus, having believed for a lifetime that I was the good one, the funny one, and the favorite one, the fabric of my childhood unraveled and I was left with the daunting task of reconstructing it. Initially, I was horrified by the idea of dismantling my comfortable definitions of self and family, by the possibility of having been mistaken about much more than my choices of big hair and Jordache jeans in the '80s. Still, it was obvious to me that a subjective version of my life story, like the one I had written, would award me far less insight into my past, present, and future than would an objective account that included my family's perspectives. To obtain that awareness, though, I had to revise my story--not the one for class, but, more important, the internal one I'm always writing as I live each day and interact with others.

I learned a vital life lesson in that memoir course: I learned that even if many people experience the same moment, no person experiences the same truth. Finally, I understood what my creative writing teachers had meant when they advised: write what you know. I used to think they meant write about quantifiable knowledge--the skills you apply on the job or the facts you have garnered from your journeys. But the memoir course helped me realize they had actually meant write your truth, your particular version of reality against which to compare others and create a fuller understanding for yourself.

At its heart, a liberal arts education cultivates this method of thinking. It confronts students with opposing systems of belief and asks them, not so much to choose one over another, but to manage the ambiguity of a reality comprised of multiple truths. A liberal arts education demands that students scrutinize the Revolutionary War as a British monarch, view the feminist movement as a man, read the New Testament as a Jew, and it shows them that a reasonable person cannot reject another's experience simply because it is not his or her own.

Essentially, it promotes what the poet John Keats termed "negative capability"--the transcendence of personal biases and the unconditional acceptance of a multisided story

beyond the world of absolutes. This is simultaneously a liberating and paralyzing thought. Liberating because we can never be wrong; paralyzing because we can never be right. But just because we cannot know the truth in all its permutations, does it mean we are absolved from pursuing it. After all, what issue has been resolved by a cordial impasse, by agreeing to disagree? We cannot hope to advance our understanding of ourselves or of our world if we simply identify the truths of others without struggling to revise our own.

Marcel Proust wrote that "[t]he real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Today, I urge all of you to look at the old, familiar landscapes of your world through the prism of truth--veritas. Examine with new eyes your political views, professional motives, childhood summer vacations in light of the opinions of your adversaries--or worse, your family. Embrace the idea that there are as many paths to truth as there are people seeking it. Or, as this other writer, William Blake, penned, "There are many roads to the palace of wisdom." However you travel--be it road, path, or New Jersey Turnpike--remember that the only way to make any progress is to constantly change direction.

In closing, I ask you to check your pockets. The deepest and widest of them should be overflowing with the challenges I've posed of truth, acceptance, and understanding. Undoubtedly, some of you will dig your hands into your pockets tomorrow and jingle around these concepts like loose change until you are ready to use them as currency. That's okay. The exchange rate will always work in your favor, whenever you decide to cash in on the principles of liberal arts. Until then, I hope you'll take home with you the best investment tip I have to offer. One, I believe, that rivals in potential returns any you could have picked up this afternoon at the Business School: write what you know.

Thank you.