February 25, 2005: Volume 63, Number 8

Stillman winner urges preservation of free inquiry

Hugh Jenkins, professor of English, accepted the eighth annual Stillman Award for Excellence in Teaching on Feb. 17, and called on faculty and students to help preserve what he called the "heritage of free inquiry" against "religious bigots, moral bullies, and intellectual terrorists."

"At issue now is preserving the heritage of free inquiry and the ideals of a free society that have lived for more than two thousand years," he said at Founders Day convocation. "The intellectual privileges we have here at Union and at similar institutions are vital in sustaining the basic rights of our society as a whole."

Jenkins, who joined the College in 1992, earned his bachelor's degree from Carleton College, and his master's and Ph.D. from Cornell University. His research has concentrated on 17th-century English literature including English country-house poetry; the poetry, prose and drama of Ben Jonson and John Milton; and the dramas of the Jacobean stage. 

College Marshall Ruth Stevenson said her English department colleague "[leads] the students to respond with knowledge and delight to the works of those passionate, contentious, gorgeously literate writers, and, what's more, [leads] them to develop for themselves cogent, imaginative thinking and clear, elegant style."

Jenkins gives daily quizzes, imposes a "grammar tax," and writes miniature essays on student papers that are, in themselves, "persuasive models of independent thinking and cogent analysis," Stevenson said.

Stevenson cited Jenkins' "infectious enthusiasm and curiosity" in the classroom, for example, using a real skeleton to stage scenes from "The Revenger's Tragedy."

"[He] leads the students to the comprehension of the heart (and bones!) of the matter, the dramatic interactions of human wishes, human institutions, and human limitations," Stevenson said. "He makes the texts an integral part of his students' aesthetic and intellectual life."

Quoting from student nominations, Stevenson said Jenkins "is 'amazing,' that he is 'fantastic,' and, simply and gleefully that 'Hugh rocks!'"

The award was created by Abbott L. Stillman '69, a former trustee, to pay tribute to the central mission of the College: teaching. Nominations are solicited from the sophomore, junior, and senior classes. The faculty on the Committee on Teaching review material submitted by the nominees and forward the recommendation to the Dean of Faculty. Other finalists this year were Teresa Meade, history; Robert Lauzon, biology; and Terry Weiner, political science.

Following is the complete text of Jenkins' remarks at Founders Day:

It's hard for me to express how genuinely pleased and honored I am by this award.  I can't possibly acknowledge all who have contributed to my teaching, so I would like in a general fashion to thank those of you out there for helping me with what I do, and those of you back there [College administrators] for not hindering me in doing it.

 I mean both sincerely, even - perhaps especially- the latter. We seem now to live in a country whose discourse is dominated by religious bigots, moral bullies, and intellectual terrorists - most self-appointed, but many elected, and some a strange combination of both. Such people have little use for what we do; they prefer metaphysics to science, prophesy to history, belief to reason, smug righteousness to rhetoric and uncertainty, the closed circle of ideology to intellectual debate, the free market and the profit motive to the free play of the mind. They have created a climate in which debate becomes dissent, dissent lack of patriotism, and lack of patriotism borderline criminality.

I've heard in little in their public discourse over the last few years that make me believe these people would thrive at Union; I don't think they would ever get past first-year preceptorial. And, in an astonishing irony, they consider us - radical professors and ignorant students, or ignorant professors and radical students - the crazy ones in the current culture wars.

As [journalist] Bill Moyers has said, "today the delusional is no longer marginal." In fact, it's not even considered delusional anymore. Here's a direct quotation from a current government official: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." In my experience, two types of people (and I don't mean to equate the two) try to create their own realities: doctrinaire Marxists and complete lunatics. I'll let you decide which one you believe the speaker belongs to.

In such a climate it is a great blessing just to be left alone to do what we do.  It's worth remembering that the liberal arts mean the free arts, and a free society cannot survive without them. As my great hero John Milton, writing in the midst of a civil war and in a century of unprecedented religious conflict, wrote, "give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties." We have that here at Union.

Our weakness makes us strong, saith the Apostle Paul, and I would argue that we are strong and necessary not despite our arguments -- with ourselves and the world, and our craziness, for in a mad world only the mad are sane -- but because of them. We represent something great at Union and something necessary, and something that is increasingly threatened. If you think I am exaggerating that threat, you haven't been paying attention. Put down your New York Times and turn off your NPR and read and listen to what most Americans see and hear.

At issue now is preserving the heritage of free inquiry and the ideals of a free society that have lived for more than two thousand years. The intellectual privileges we have here at Union and at similar institutions are vital in sustaining the basic rights of our society as a whole. This makes them privileges worth fighting for, and their enemies worth fighting. This is not a Red vs. Blue or left vs. right issue. We must all take up the fight if we truly believe in what we preach and try to practice here at Union.

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