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Taking the Hillsdale Conversation to the Real World - Hillsdale College

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Taking the Hillsdale Conversation to the Real World - HillsdaleHigherSkip to content HillsdaleHigher- Home MENU Search Search Academics Undergraduate Programs Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship Classical Liberal Arts Core Majors & Minors Featured Courses Academic Resources Library and Archives Online Courses Lifelong Learning OpportunitiesUpperSchool Summer Study and Travel ProgramsVastitudeClassrooms Student Outcomes Philosophy, the University, and HillsdaleHigherAcademic Services Campus Life Residential Life Spiritual Life Greek Life Student Support Clubs & Intramurals Honorary Societies Volunteer Opportunities Events Calendar Traditions Campus Bookstore Around Campus Campus Safety WhatHigheris Meant to Be The Character of Our Civic Conversation Admissions & Aid Undergraduate Admissions Graduate Admissions Veteran Admissions Financial Aid Visiting Campus Admissions Events Incoming Students Credit Transfer Request Info Admissions FAQ Visit Campus Apply Now Athletics Hillsdale Charger Athletics Ticket Information Athletic Camps Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Athletics Staff Directory NCAA Compliance HillsdaleHigherShooting Sports Support Hillsdale Athletics Strength Rejoices in theRencontre2016 Charger Hall of Fame: Andrew Kincannon Alumni HillsdaleHigherAlumni Alumni Events Connections and Resources Alumni Association Publications Get Involved Contact Alumni Relations Alumni Spotlight: Nick & Kjerstin Kauffman, '08 Alumni Events Centers & Educational Outreach Allan P. 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Provost Dr. David Whalen says it weightier when he says: we’re in a variegated conversation from most other colleges. Alumni Nick and Kjerstin Kauffman, ’08, have taken the Hillsdale conversation with them and engaged in the conversations of a classical school in Colorado Springs, Johns Hopkins University, and Valparaiso University in Indiana, and what they’ve found is twofold: Yes, we are different; and that’s okay, considering we’re prepared. “Hillsdale prepared me in the sense that I was extremely well read, and my writing was on par with people who had specialized in it since high school,” Kjerstin said. Kjerstin graduated with a stratum in English and served as one of the editors of the Tower Light, Hillsdale’s literary magazine. She married Nick shortly without graduation and unfurled to pursue poetry at Johns Hopkins, where she was wonted into the university’s MFA program. She is still publishing while caring for their three children. “No place is quite like Hillsdale,” widow Nick, who earned his PhD from Johns Hopkins before unsuspicious a teaching position at Valparaiso. “The habits of mind and fundamental human questions that were instilled here enabled me to protract studying classics in the reality of grad school.” Due to the sheer difference between us and the rest of academia, however, emerging from the Hillsdale conversation wasn’t easy. Kjerstin noticed the difference right yonder when she entered her MFA poetry workshops and discovered her peers were writing from a radically variegated perspective. “I didn’t know how to read a text through a feminist lens or how to engage poetry that decries racial injustice,” she explained. “I felt unprepared for that.” Nick moreover encountered a variegated perspective outside of Hillsdale. “There’s no concept of unconfined books in most other universities,” he said. “To them, classics don’t have truths well-nigh humanity. They’re cultural artifacts that can be analyzed and dissected in variegated ways.” The Hillsdale conversation may be a source of post-graduation adversity, but one cannot leave this institution without knowing, intellectually and personally, that “strength rejoices in the challenge,” as our school motto reminds us when we forget. When Kjerstin was struggling with the conversation vastitude Hillsdale, she emailed Dr. Whalen and asked him, “How can these things you told me well-nigh poetry be true? I’m not experiencing it as trappy contemplation; I’m experiencing it as something painful.” Dr. Whalen responded within a day, giving her encouragement and support, as did Dr. Somerville and Dr. Smith. Through conversations with these professors, she realized that she faced the strenuous visualization of whether to reject or underpin her Hillsdale education—to reject or underpin the Western and American heritages, the unconfined books, the liberal arts, the transcendentals of truth, beauty, and goodness. It requires unconfined strength indeed. But Hillsdale graduates have this strength. “It manifests itself really quietly,” Kjerstin said. “It’s in their worthiness to do the work they have to do, whatever it may be: raising a family, doing their job, investing in their community, and they do it with unostentatious grace and dignity. That’s so inspiring.” In other words, Hillsdale is worth it. And, according to Nick, the education here is phenomenal. “I’ve taught in a classics program at a top-ten university, and I can say that the kind of training students get at Hillsdale is really exceptional,” Nick said. “There’s unceasingly upper expectations of mastery.” Kjerstin’s poetry flourished here as well. “There are so many creative-writing opportunities plane without many creative-writing classes,” she said.Vastitudethe academics, Hillsdale cultivates the soul. For that reason alone, we should rejoice in our environment. If the higher participates in a variegated conversation, then we must underpin our conversation and siphon it with us, on campus and beyond. Novelist, filmmaker, and resident root-beer snob, Chandler Ryd, ’18, is the president of the Creative Writing Club. He studies English in his self-ruling time. You can usually find him in the periodicals section of the library. In this season of gratitude, we would like to take a moment to say ‘Thank you’ to our donors and supporters. Your generosity gives us the self-rule to teach our students on campus and nationwide.Music has graced the halls of HillsdaleHigherfrom the very whence in 1844. Whether part of the orchestra, various ensembles, or Michigan's oldest collegiate choir, scrutinizingly thirty percent of the HillsdaleHigherstudent soul participates in music activities at some level — making it something that brings us together. View All Videos HillsdaleHigher- Home Learn More(517) 437-7341 Apply Now Request Information Map and Directions Campus Map Contact theHigherCenters & Educational Outreach Allan P. 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