Regarding Community of Inquiry by Michelle Yeghyayan ’13

Excerpts from Valedictorian Speech 
“We gather as a mindful community of inquiry.”
 
We’ve heard that phrase every Monday and Thursday as the invitation to open our hearts and minds at the beginning of chapel. That’s almost 70 times, folks. We’re encouraged to be mindful—conscious and thoughtful of our actions and words as we move through the day. As a “community of inquiry," Campbell Hall aims to foster an environment where we students are encouraged to explore and question the world around us, until we gain a fuller truth. What about the lament in Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”? “We don’t need no education; we don’t need no thought control.”
Inquiry, individual thought, tenacious questioning, a refusal to accept the accepted—that is learning; that is what we need; that is education. Not just our education at Campbell Hall—no. Inquiry is crucial to our progress and development as students of the world. And the world has an unlimited array of lessons to teach, of discoveries yet undiscovered, of potential yet untapped, lying within reach for those who seek knowledge and understanding.

It may be strange to think that many of us sitting on stage will, in our careers, be working in industries that have yet to be developed. We’re living during a time of the fastest-paced technological advances—so much so, that technology is becoming integral to every facet of society. Consumerism, ecology, medicine, art, music—all will be, if not already, heavily reliant on new technologies. Personally, I intend to study and work in the field of genetics. Huge technological victories just in the past couple of decades have made it possible to sequence the human genome and begin advances in genetic engineering and gene therapy. The power of human genetics will be the shift from finding cures to finding preventions, thereby creating a healthier human race. Of course, in order to go about effecting positive change in all of these areas, we must relinquish the notions of what it used to mean to undergo surgery, or what it used to mean to “fill up” a car. There is a beautiful potential that lies in each of us to be the kickstarters of new horizons, the forerunners of these fields and more that, to us, in 2013, are impossible to imagine. Some advancements will be purely original notions; some will be improvements upon existing concepts. But all of it will be revolutionary. We must be willing, though, to embrace the risks associated with being the great challengers of old ideas and concepts.

For fifteen hundred years, the Western world was content with the idea that we lived in a geocentric universe; obviously all the other celestial bodies revolved around the Earth. Until Galileo, annoying, tenacious, challenging, inquisitive Galileo, further popularized Copernicus' theory that, no, the solar system was actually heliocentric. And did Europe celebrate this beautiful insight into the truths of the universe? Not exactly. This challenge to the supremacy of the human race was responsible for a continentwide existential crisis, forcing us to reevaluate our role in the universe. The Inquisition tried and charged Galileo with heresy, and he was placed on house arrest for the remainder of his life.

That was the price Galileo paid for seeking the truth. That is, most probably, the price we’ll pay for inquiry as well. No, not being charged with heresy, but ostracism, sure. Hostility. Anger from people who are content with what they hold as truths, thereby serving as the greatest hindrances to progress. So I challenge us, not just as the graduating class of 2013, but as contributing citizens of the world, never to be content.

I challenge us to dissect our beliefs, piece by piece, never blindly operating on our convictions, ensuring ourselves that every action is wholehearted and conscious and…mindful. I challenge us to remember Socrates’ words: “The unexamined life is not worth living”; to take the time to examine our lives and choices and ethics with scrutiny, and then reexamine, continuously. I challenge us to be the great challengers of accepted notions and established precedents and assumed truths. I challenge us, all of us, never to forget that inquirers are often reviled and regarded with contempt, but as art critic Clement Greenberg said, "All profoundly original art looks ugly at first."

We leave this school, go onto the next. For some of us, our formal education will continue for another eight years or more. But regardless of when our final graduation will be, we will all be students of the world. It is our responsibility—no, our privilege— to be the catalysts of progress in our respective fields and industries.

So I challenge us, most importantly, to seek a mindful community of inquiry wherever life takes us; and if we find ourselves among those content with the status quo, to produce such a community by being constantly irreverent.
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Campbell Hall is an independent, Episcopal, K-12 all gender day school. We are a community of inquiry committed to academic excellence and to the nurturing of decent, loving, and responsible human beings.
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