Roth on Wesleyan

We will re-open Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 7 a.m., and classes and events will resume.

I received an email today from my friend David Knapp ’49 who tells me he is participating in Wesleyan’s Week of Service by reading to a group of first grade students in New Haven tomorrow.

When there are differences of opinion, the potential for real learning grows. Vigorous criticism, not echo chambers in which “correct” views are repeated, is essential for improving education.

The attacks in Paris remind us that those willing to destroy freedom of expression in the name of their own totalitarian commitments can wreck havoc in a society determined to maintain openness and tolerance within the rule of law.

We are less than a week into 2015, and terror has already raised its ugly head.

As 2014 comes to a close, I want to express my gratitude for all the contributions to our extraordinary university.

In conjunction with the publication of Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, I’ve been having conversations with groups around the country on the future of higher education.

I was asked to review Joel Klein’s Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools, and the essay appeared this week in The Daily Beast (with a more provocative title).

Yesterday’s horrific news came from Pakistan. Taliban militants stormed a school in Peshawar, killing at least 145. Children were gunned down in their classrooms, or as they attempted to flee.

I’ve been talking with many stressed-out young people deciding what kinds of schools they should apply to…I urge them to consider college not just as a chance to acquire particular expertise but as a remarkable opportunity to explore their individual and social lives in connection to the world in which they will live and work.