On Wednesday Sept. 17, The Ashland University Honor’s Program hosted an event called, “What it Means to be an Educated Person,” in the Alumni Room in the John C. Myers Convocation Center.  

The event featured a conversation with AU President Jon Parrish Peede and Provost Greg McBrayer. 

They gave their thoughts on different topics such as artificial intelligence, smartphones and current political discourse.  

All of AU’s first-year honors students were assigned to read Tara Westover’s 2018 memoir, “Educated,” which recounts her overcoming her survivalist Mormon family to go to college, emphasizing the importance education had in enlarging her world. 

“What we’re trying to provide here is an elite education where we are trying to keep you from viewing yourself as an elitist person in the world,” said Peede.  

“You have a blessing we never had at a challenge we never had for my generation and the generation before me; you have so much information at your fingertips in what you need in the honors program and among other things.” 

Peede first began the conversation by reading from a journal called “River Teeth,” that he published before coming to AU.  

He then spoke on his own education experience, “My path to myself is always through books.”  

He continued, “In college I switched from chemistry to English in my junior year because the books spoke to me in a way the formulas didn’t.” 

Later, Peede related the topic, “What it Means to be an Educated Person,” to the first-year honors students.  

“I think the idea of global consciousness is foundational to be educated in the 21st century; I think too, you’ll cling closer to your own traditions the more you embrace the world, because in that filtering, in that discernment, I think you discern some things about yourself,” said Peede. 

“You should commit yourself as an educated person to robust dialogues where you don’t set up strongly for people you disagree with.”  

“The people of good will who see the world differently from me, are not my enemies; I found that in my family, my community, my Bible and I found that in classrooms,” said Peede.  

After Peede was finished with his remarks on the subject, McBrayer also spoke his thoughts on the topic, “What it Means to be an Educated Person.”  

McBrayer discussed his thoughts on different fields of education: elementary education, vocational education, civic education and liberal education. 

“I think civic education is a noble endeavor, worthy, perhaps even necessary, especially in a regime like ours. But it’s still not the highest education,” said McBrayer.  

“That’s the education I’ll call liberal education,” he continued.  

Multiple times throughout the discussion, McBrayer referred to Westover’s novel while explaining his views on what it means to truly be educated.  

“More often when people talk about liberal education, we tend to mean something like well-read or well-rounded or cultured; this is the impression I got from Tara Westover’s novel,” said McBrayer. 

“There’s something healthy about having this sort of furniture in your mind that provides you with categories of thinking about the world; to be able to have thinkers or texts or characters at your fingertips as you try to navigate the world.” 

However, he soon discussed the criticism he had with just being well-read.  

“I think it too easily gives us the satisfaction of thinking we’re well educated,” said McBrayer.  

He continued, “It’s not clear to me that one can actually read a great number of books well; I suspect in my own case, I only know about half a dozen book very well, maybe by the time I die, 12.” 

McBrayer closed his part of the discussion by talking about another criticism he had in the novel. He briefly mentioned Westover saying the idea of self-creation or selfhood is the heart of education.  

“My main objection to selfhood, if I understand her accurately, is that it demands very little of this,” he said.  

“Maybe education is not about becoming your authentic self but about becoming someone entirely new.” 

The discussion closed after Peede and McBrayer held a question-and-answer session with the honor’s students.  

This event was the first of a three-part lecture series held by AU’s Honors Program.  

On Oct. 21, AU’s Dr. Hinkle, Professor Jewett, Dr. Mancha and Dr Rosenberger will be speaking, and on Nov. 13, Dr. Chartier, Dr. Durbin-Ames and Dr. Kolandapalayam Shanmugam will be speaking.  

For more information on the series, visit AU Honor’s Program.