GOV. GOODHAIR, aka Rick Perry (R-TX), would have made a good topic for my usually political column. However, I chose positive thoughts instead, ones about what had shaped my experience at the University of Virginia.
It has been words: words read, heard, typed, handwritten, spoken and sung, words that made me laugh or cry or throw pencils, words of wisdom from professors and of wackiness from peers.
Words sent me here, when a teacher talked me into applying, and prevented me from feeling disconnected from Texas, because my family and friends kept me constantly updated on everything. Bless them for the phone calls, e-mails and thousands of ICQs.
Upon arriving here, I worried about not knowing anyone in the entire state. My fear that I would end up talking to myself was quieted by the warm welcome of first-year friends at Hereford.
After moving to Brown College, I discovered that the people there are even more sociable than they are strange. I delighted in the lively discussion, on everything from anti-Semitism to sex, that is available at all hours, as well as enjoying the hamsters and cartoons.
The Cavalier Daily gave me the opportunity to write about the ideas inspired by others' words, and put me in touch with thousands of people. Along with the untiring efforts of Cavalier Daily editors, my personal Max Perkins' gentle and unsung criticism improved much of what ran under my name.
In and out of class, the intelligence and patience of the students and faculty here never stopped amazing me. Particularly, those involved in the Bioethics Society have contributed a great deal to my education. I look forward to seeing the future work of the Society, as well as that of the Arts & Sciences Council and the Good Ol' Song Committee.
Occasionally, I ventured outside the U.Va. bubble and experienced some of what Charlottesville had to offer. I memorized lines at Live Arts, campaigned among local voters and heard the political views of the nation at the polling firm Cooper and Secrest. Townies are cool!
The University and the people who are its heart have sent me farther afield: on ski trips and road trips, to concerts and conferences and for an internship in D.C. My resume and plans for the future would read very differently had I not come to the University.
Final thought: Michiko Kakutani is wrong. In a March 23 New York Times article, she announced the decline of disputatiousness - the inclination to dispute - on college campuses.
According to the Yale dean of undergraduate education: "[S]tudents are interested in hearing another person's point of view, but not interested in engaging it, in challenging it or being challenged" ("Debate? Dissent? Discussion? Oh, don't go there!").
Maybe that is how Yalies live, but at this university, people are not only listening, they are talking back. Sometimes they keep the line of another person's thought going. Sometimes they critique its logic. Rarely, they go astray and make personal attacks. Regardless of what they are saying, it is no mere "whatever."
Kakutani claims the alleged reluctance to debate "represents a failure to fully engage with the world, a failure to test one's convictions against the logic and passions of others. It suggests a closing off of the possibilities of growth and transformation and a repudiation of the process of consensus building."
The University community engaged me, tested me, pushed me to grow, transformed me and taught me about building consensus, whether theoretically in an academic argument or practically in a student organization. Here, I have exercised logic and felt passion, had them contradict one another and become reconciled.
This school is not failing its students, and the students are not failing one another or themselves, as long as the dance of words goes on. To those whose lives have touched mine: For giving your words to me, and listening to mine, and giving again - thanks.
That's my last word.
(Pallavi Guniganti was a 2001-2002 opinion columnist.)
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