This article is adapted from an address given by the author at a convocation marking the beginning of this school year at Union College.--Editors

N THIS FIRST DAY OF COLLEGE I think back to my own college beginnings, which took place sometime between the dawn of the horseless carriage and the emergence of Britney Spears. I arrived from Chaffey High School in Ontario, California--with a student body of 4,000 (larger than any Adventist university's)--to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, a university of 17,000 students. At registration I stood in one of six long lines and peered up at a huge wooden board as the classes I had planned to take were closed one by one.

That registration took me five and a half hours. I suppose I might have made it through quicker if I'd had an adviser, but he was nowhere to be found. After that I didn't use an adviser for the rest of my college experience, which I managed to cram into six years. This was actually pretty fast considering I didn't go to school much the first four years--I was too busy playing NCAA basketball.

Times have changed. Registration is now just a few keystrokes, along with more candy and pizza than you could possibly eat. In the decades since my college years I've thought a lot about education, more specifically about a whole new world: encountering an academic climate that can energize and stretch you.

Academic Values
College is more than thirteenth or fourteenth grade, a continuation of high school life. This is a new world of freedom and responsibility, a world that can energize and stretch us if we understand--and put into practice--some key academic values.

First, we value cooperation over competition. Ninety-nine percent of life is cooperation. Literally millions of people have cooperated to make you who you are today, from your shoes from Taiwan to your watch from Germany to your banana from Brazil. Somebody had to take the oil out of the ground in Saudi Arabia to make the gasoline that powered the truck that drove over the smooth roads to bring the machinery that created the screws that hold together the pews on which you're sitting.

Even competition is mostly cooperation: opponents agree on the rules and the times and the referees, and the best team--the one whose members best cooperate with one another--wins. Here's the essence of what's wrong with competition: somebody has to lose for me to win. But cooperation is 99 times better than that. Cooperation says: everyone wins when we all work together. Cooperation keeps us from being savages.

The second value is active learning over passive. You will learn more if you involve yourself in the process, because we humans tend to believe what we do even more than we do what we believe. That's why we cannot continue to do something if we believe that it's wrong; instead, we rationalize: It's all right this time. Or They deserved it. That's also why you can hear 800 sermons on the value of helping others, but you don't really believe it until you go on a short-term mission trip.

Active learning also requires you to extend your language. The limits of your language are the limits of your world, because ideas cannot be separated from language. This includes the languages of music, numbers, and visual arts. So get involved in activities, in open mike night and college bowl. Attend your classmates' recitals. Participate. Go beyond what's expected. Jesus said, "If someone asks you to go one mile, go two" (see Matt. 5:41). He was talking about taking control of your life and your own education. So read other books in addition to the ones required. Do it on your own. Explore the world of ideas.

The next academic value we prize is community over celebrity. As our society appears to be infatuated with celebrity, this is certainly a countercultural value. We have television channels and magazines dedicated entirely to entertainment figures. We have celebrities' birthdays scrolling across the bottom of CNN news. We have American Idol. This is not an academic value.

I remember a professor at Cal Poly saying to our class, "I won't just pass you for doing nothing, because I love humanity more than I love you." He was speaking of uplifting the common good, of reaching toward cooperation and community, of looking out for people on the margins of life who cannot look out for themselves--the handicapped, the elderly, the unborn, the poor--which is a product of the highest education. Celebrity is a fad; community is a virtue.

We value questioning over groupthink. Thoreau suggested that in a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite position will be appearing to run away. At Union College we like people who think for themselves, people who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. This involves asking questions.

A couple years ago I had a class that was told, minutes before class was to begin, that the class had been cancelled. Unfortunately, the messenger had gone to the wrong room. Imagine my glee when I walked into an empty room a few minutes later, and you can also imagine our lesson about asking questions the next time that class met.

Asking more questions could have prevented the 800,000-person holocaust in Rwanda ("Is Rwanda just the same as Somalia, or are we treating all of Africa the same, as if it's a country and not a continent?"). Asking questions could have changed the rush to war across history. Throughout the Bible God's best friends asked questions. Not just the questions of "How much can we get away with?" or "How long does this have to be?" but "Why is this happening?" "How can we do better?" and "What would happen if . . . ?" Questioning often requires discernment and courage, two valuable traits.

We value objectivity over bias. Aristotle said, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." People aren't truly educated until they can hold their opinions away from themselves, so that when someone challenges or attacks their opinions and ideas, they don't feel attacked personally. This inability to objectively look at ideas leads to defensiveness and narrow-mindedness, which are unfortunately becoming more common in our society.

To be educated is to objectively read things and listen to people you don't agree with. Yesterday I had a long conversation with a young man who came into my office with a very firm opinion, but he was willing to listen and to consider other possibilities, and he changed his perspective. I call that education. It's the education Jesus asks of us.

Objectivity calls for honesty. Couple that with the courage of questioning and we have integrity--a combination of honesty and courage.

We value accuracy over carelessness. Because the key to life is communication, how we communicate matters. Words matter. For example, does "making love" really mean making love, or does it mean making sex? There is a difference, and not recognizing the difference often results in traumatic consequences.

Quoting information from the Internet is a dangerous practice. Anybody can put anything on the Internet--and they do. My mother used to tell me, "Don't put money into your mouth because you don't know where it's been." The same holds true for the Internet. Just because you "read somewhere" or "heard somewhere" a piece of information doesn't make it true.

Once for an experiment our Rhetoric and Persuasion class made up a rumor about the pope getting together with certain Protestants to create a credit card that only selected people could use. We spread this rumor around campus. Three weeks later I asked in chapel, "How many of you have heard about this?" About 50 people raised their hands. "Well," I said, "it's a lie. We made it up." (I imagine it's still spinning around some Adventist circles.) This quest for accuracy doesn't mean we don't believe anything. It means we don't believe everything--we test the spirits. And we communicate accurately what we know.

An Eternal Perspective
We value eternal perspective over a transitory view. Our college's mission statement says we seek to develop "an eternal perspective." But what does this mean? Let's briefly take a look.

An eternal perspective means entering life is greater than withdrawing from reality. Reality is where God lives. God wants us to enter life. Have you noticed how many people use their money to withdraw from life, behind gated communities and headphones and tinted windows? The eternal perspective enters life, just as Jesus entered and enters our life.

Having an eternal perspective means diversity is greater than uniformity. This goes beyond tolerating differences to celebrating differences. I like you because you're different. God is a diversity junkie--no two people, snowflakes, or leaves on a tree are alike. This leads to the great truth "You're unique, just like everybody else." We should prize our distinctions.

An eternal perspective means wholistic balance is greater than unhealthy focus. Our minds, bodies, and emotions are intertwined so that each one affects the others. Take care of your bodies and your emotions. Be a well-balanced person.

An eternal perspective reminds us that lifelong learning is greater than cramming. Have you ever crammed for a test and forgotten much of it five minutes after it was done? Mark Twain wrote, "I never let schooling get in the way of my education." By "schooling" he meant, for example, the pursuit of grades. Grades can get in the way of an education. Learn for life.

An eternal perspective means that imagination is greater than imitation. I'm not as interested in "What would Jesus do?" as I am in "What would Jesus have me do?" Jesus doesn't want clones or robots or mere reflectors of others' thoughts. He wants you to create your own discipleship. Then it becomes yours.

Having an eternal perspective means the joy of service is greater than accumulation. Albert Einstein wrote, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." Too many people climb the ladder of success only to find, when they reach the top, that the ladder is propped against the wrong wall. A recent survey showed that 38 percent of college students would not go to college if it did not further their career. That's not an eternal, godly perspective. Accumulating money, awards, and things will not bring
lasting peace and joy.

Finally, an eternal perspective means that truth and beauty are greater than mediocrity. Excellence is an eternal value, and true beauty is eternal. Now, this also involves having fun, because we were made for fun. If we forget the fun in the fundamentals, all we have left is "damentals."

Yes, a whole new world awaits you. Not just here, but on the new earth, for we will spend eternity on this planet made new--a real place. Look back at the academic values. All of them will be needed and valued on the new earth: cooperation, active learning, community, questioning, objectivity, accuracy, and the eternal perspectives--entering life, diversity, wholistic balance, lifelong learning, imagination, joy of service, truth and beauty. All of them will be forever used and useful.

The good news is that forever begins now. It begins because we look constantly into the face of Jesus. It begins because of the greatest value of all. Love is greater than anything else; nothing else ultimately matters or lasts (see 1 Cor. 13). That's why Union College makes better lovers. (Wouldn't that make a great bumper sticker?)

Enjoy the journey, friends. Savor the moment. Relish the reality of being valued and loved. You are here. Now, go with God.

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Chris Blake is an associate professor of English at Union College, in Lincoln, Nebraska.