The humanities, particularly classical studies, have gotten a bad reputation in higher education. Often belittled in comparison to academic programs that are more in demand on a given day, one of the greatest shames in higher education is that I consistently have to defend my liberal arts degree. Far more eloquent writers than I, such as Fareed Zakaria, have written extensively on the value of the liberal arts.
While I am a graduate student in an education program, the ancient world still captures my interest with its vivid characters and poignant lessons about the common humanity that we all share. As I reflect on what makes the ancients so vivid and real to me and countless others who have studied antiquity, I realize that I see so much of myself, my students, and our society in the ancient world. Some parts of the human experience are truly universal — questions of ethics and morality, love, faith, etc. The list goes on, and some of the greatest thinkers of all time have wrestled with the same questions over the last few millennia.
Specifically, I see so much of the work that I engage in as a student affairs practitioner rooted in ancient thought. When I facilitate conduct meetings, I imagine Plato’s allegory of the cave, and what he might say about the moral and ethical dimensions of student development. Aristophanes, Euripides, and countless other Greek playwrights have modeled for us what it means to be a good human, how to work through feelings of love attachment, and the value of humility. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
I admit that I previously saw classical studies and student affairs work as an either/or proposition. Both fields resonate strongly with my passions and interests, but it wasn’t until very recently that I was able to imagine them as complimentary. I found myself thinking about the intersection between these areas so often, it almost seems like a disservice to myself if I don’t critically reflect and wrestle with their implications for education.
Over the next few months, I hope to launch a digital resource that exists in the borderlands between antiquity and student affairs work. My aim is to make the past more accessible to those who wish to explore it and wrestle with what it has to teach us. While my academic background is in classical studies, I recognize that there is a wealth of knowledge that existed outside of the Mediterranean basin. In doing this project, I want to avoid epitomizing Western civilization as the root of all knowledge and wisdom. This project would be ripe with opportunities to collaborate with colleagues across a variety of areas, particularly educators with humanities backgrounds. Incorporating principles from the digital humanities will further make this project more accessible and easy to navigate, and I hope that my budding interest in computers and programming will allow me to try out some really interesting ideas.
So often, student affairs professionals talk about the need to humanize the educational process — to create space for populations who have been historically disenfranchised and to properly disrupt a system that is beyond broken. Amidst countless calls to action, the knowledge passed down to us from antiquity seems to be a stone seldom turned over. What if we as a profession did just that? What if the ancient world could provide us with the tools to re-imagine education? As we wrestle with questions of morals and ethics, right and wrong, love and loss through the eyes of the ancients, maybe we can begin to change the system and discover our true human and educational potential along the way.
Thanks for reading,
-Joe
Joseph A. Diodato 