The dramatic — and perhaps draconian — funding cuts to Alaska’s universities should give us pause to reflect on the meaning of education, whatever your political position may be on budgets.I graduated from Anchorage’s West High in 1975. I was an average student who only cared about getting published in the student newspaper, The Eagle’s Cry. But with my mother’s support, I graduated from college and have been a professor of philosophy in Denver, Colorado, since 1993. I am in Willow for the summer.
My experience in higher education tells me that one can be truly educated with or without formal training. Some of the smartest and most knowledgeable people I know have little or no academic training. Some educated professors are frauds and some uneducated citizens are sages. My father, Harold Groothuis (1927-1968), was a respected, passionate and articulate Alaskan labor leader who never finished high school. The Union Hall for Labor’s Local 341 is named after him. In light of this fiscal crisis, let’s ponder what education — in all its forms — should be about: the pursuit of truth for life. Life is short. Truth counts forever.
— Douglas Groothuis
Willow
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