Cicero at Elon

How could Cicero not want to be at Elon?

If the topic of Elon University has come up in conversation with me, then you will know that I love the place where I have the privilege to teach, serve, and do research. I often tell people that when I was hired here in 2000 I thought that this place was The Firm. If you are not familiar with the John Grisham novel or with the movie, The Firm is about a lawyer who joins what seems like the perfect law firm only to find out that it is run by the Mafia. And when I got here to Elon I thought that this place must be run by the Mafia. Everything about it seemed too good to be true. If I needed financial support for a project or if I wanted some help from a colleague, there always seem to be abundance and generosity where at other institutions I had found scarcity. The administration always seems so transparent, it felt like there was genuine faculty governance, and the only real problem was saying no to lots of wonderful, wonderful opportunities—all of those things made me anxious for the moment at which the honeymoon would end. And now that it is 2015 I have to say that the honeymoon has never ended. I still just love it here.

Elon’s Core Curriculum and Cicero’s Idea of Justice

One of the things that I enjoy most about Elon is the general studies or the Elon Core Curriculum program. Every 15 or 20 minutes Elon is rethinking the wonderful things that it does so well, so by the time you are looking at this the program may have changed completely. But one thing that the current Core Curriculum program emphasizes is training students to be good global citizens. And I find a nice overlap between this objective and some of the things that Cicero told his son. Cicero’s Of Duties emphasizes the importance of wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Students at a university are obviously in the pursuit of wisdom, but the best overlap is perhaps with Cicero’s discussion of justice. Cicero establishes the basic outline of justice when he says that it is “to keep one man from doing harm to another, unless provoked by wrong” and also that it is “to lead men to use common possessions for the common interests, private property for their own (52).” Justice therefore his fair treatment to everyone, but it is also supporting and adding to the commonwealth of whatever communities one might be a part.

To make his case about the communally supportive role of justice, Cicero sites Plato’s idea that “we are not born for ourselves alone, but our country claims a share of our being, and our friends a share (53).” For Cicero this connection is natural, and it seems as if the Roman thinker believes that human beings are wired to live in communities and to be connected to one another. He puts it this way: “we ought to follow Nature as our guide, to contribute to the general good by an interchange of acts of kindness, by giving and receiving, and thus by our skill, our industry, and our talents to cement human society more closely together (53).”

There are many ways that Elon deliberately tries to train students to “contribute to the general good.” All students must complete an Experiential Learning Requirement. Part of this requirement has the purpose of training students to learn outside of the classroom, but many students meet this requirement through service learning and through other activities wherein they “interchange acts of kindness” with people outside of the University. Another way to meet this requirement is by participating in study abroad or in domestic travel courses. While these are university classes with high academic standards, many of them also gives students a chance to use their skills, their industry, and their talents to “cement human society more closely together.” Students often find study abroad experiences radically expand their perception of the world and their engagement in it. And I would say that a third component whereby Elon students learn about justice as an individual contributing to the larger good comes in the first year course that all Elon students take. The course is called “The Global Experience,” and the first sentences of the course description read, “this first-year seminar examines personal and social responsibility in domestic and global contexts. In developing their own view of the world and its many peoples, societies, and environments, students will evaluate the complex relationship that may both promote and obstruct human interaction.” From the time that I spent teaching the course, I can say that everything about it encourages the sort of justice that Cicero has in mind.

My experience teaching this course also connects with something else Cicero said. Cicero defines two kinds of injustice. The first kind is inflicting wrong or harm on others, and the second kind is found in those “who, when they can, do not shield from wrong those upon whom it is being inflicted” (53). Cicero goes on to say that “he who does not prevent or oppose wrong, if he can, is just as guilty of wrong as if he deserted his parents or his friends or his country” (53). I have found that as students examine global issues and see the many injustices and forms of harm that exist, that those students struggle with the degree to which they might help to prevent or alleviate such harm. These are bright, optimistic, and privileged young people, and I admire their sincerity and goodness in working through and doing what they can about these difficult issues. From my interactions with students here at Elon, I would say that Cicero’s advice about justice, about contributing to the world and about preventing injustice, are well taken here.