The Smith Center is pleased to announce that our very own Professor Steven Frankel was named the 2022 Recipient of the Roger A. Fortin Award for Outstanding Teaching and Scholarship in the Humanities. In announcing the award, the College of Art and Science wrote: "Professor Frankel arrived at Xavier in 2003, after teaching four years at the American University of Paris, where he won the Board of Trustees Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001. In 2017, Professor Frankel received the Teacher of the Year award at Xavier. His excellence as a teacher, in short, has been recognized far and wide. In the words of one student: ‘your philosophy class completely changed my outlook on life.’ One of the original faculty members involved with the PPP, Professor Frankel also developed foreign study programs in Paris and Israel. More recently, he has served as founding director of the Smith Scholars Program. His extensive scholarship, focusing mainly on the role of religion in early modern political thought, has received international recognition. An exemplary teacher and scholar and an outspoken defender of the humanities, Professor Frankel has been selfless in his dedication to his students, to the University, and to a philosophical life."

The following is Dr. Frankel address on education that he presented at a gathering faculty, honoring him as the 2022 Roger A. Fortin Outstanding Teacher and Scholar in the Humanities.

Address

Thank you, Professors Richard Polt, Paul Colella, and Tim Quinn, for your kind remarks.  Your remarks were so persuasive and eloquent that I almost forgot who I was.  The truth is that Dean David Mengel and I arrived at Xavier together in 2003; he went on to become the dean, while I managed to survive.  As for Richard, Paul, and Tim, they know how much their friendship and guidance has meant to me over the years.  They have been the models of true scholars, teachers, and friends.  In receiving this award, I follow in their footsteps – but at a great distance. Thank you.

Thank you all for coming.  I have to admit that I was surprised and delighted to receive this award, and I am likewise surprised and delighted to see so many friends here today. I want to give particular thanks to Roger Fortin and the Fortin family.  When I came to visit Xavier for my job interview more than 20 years ago, I was astonished to find a meeting with the provost on my schedule.  My first thought was: Have I done something wrong? It’s only my first day and I haven’t even been hired!  I shouldn’t have worried.  Roger was, as always, gracious and warm in welcoming me to campus.  We talked about France (where I was living at the time) and the possibility of establishing a study abroad program at Xavier. I learned from him just how seriously Xavier takes teaching and scholarship; and I also learned that Xavier is a university deeply interested in growing and developing for the benefit of its students. I left that meeting thinking: if this is the way the provost treats his junior faculty, then this must a great place.  I haven’t been disappointed these past 20 years.

Insofar as I’ve had success here as a teacher and scholar, the credit goes to my colleagues. When I arrived at Xavier in 2003, I learned from my colleagues in the Philosophy Department about our department’s approach to education.  There are three aspects to this approach and, in my opinion, they are very nearly identical with excellence in teaching philosophy.  The first element, stated in the words of Professor Tim Quinn, my departmental mentor, is that a teacher must always keep in mind that: “the books – not you – are the ultimate teacher in the classroom.” Tim taught me that my central task is to allow the books to speak for themselves.  It is not my job to disabuse students of everything their parents might have taught them about good and evil or right and wrong.  The fact is that I am uncertain about too many things to attempt that.

This advice helped me see my task as teacher as a common project with the student to understand profound and interesting texts that might improve our lives. Of course, over time, I began to know more about these texts than the students, but that distance doesn’t undermine the sense of a common project.  To the contrary, I can share my discoveries with the student, and in turn, I can learn from them as well. In this sense, the books are almost always new and one must approach them with a sense of wonder.

The second invaluable tenet of the department’s approach to teaching was instilled by my beloved friend and colleague, Professor Paul Colella.  One afternoon Paul and I were in the faculty lounge in Hinkle Hall getting coffee, when we overheard some faculty complaining about their students.  When we returned to Paul’s office, I could see that he was upset. He closed the door and said: “Always, always respect your students. When you hear faculty complain about their students, don’t listen to them!  To teach well, you have to learn to love your students, and to see even their mistakes as a necessary part of their education and growth. It’s your job to figure out where your students are, and go there and help them become better.” Paul taught me to meet the students wherever they are and approach each one as a wholly new and unique soul, filled with longing.  

Incidentally, a few years ago, one of my students joined the Jesuits and his first assignment was to teach history at a Jesuit high school in Cleveland.  He was terrified and wrote to me for advice on teaching.  I wrote back with Paul’s instructions.  When I heard back from him a few weeks later, he said that things were going well.  As for my advice—or Paul’s advice (to meet the students where they are and learn together with them)—he wrote: “you sound like one of the Jesuits.  That’s exactly what they told us.” 

The third piece of invaluable advice on teaching comes from our beloved late chair and mentor, Professor Robert Rethy.  In my first several years at Xavier, I went to see Bob in his office nearly every day.  I don’t recall a time when my visit didn’t interrupt him from a deep study of a text.  Nor do I recall a time when, despite bothering him, he didn’t invite me to sit down for a conversation.  This combination of continual learning and hospitality left a profound impression on me. Great teachers are meticulous and careful scholars.  There is a saying in Ethics of Our Fathers (Pirkei Avot): “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”  Bob taught me that philosophy is not merely a discipline, but a way of life oriented toward contemplation of the most important questions.  For Bob, professors of philosophy are students with a deep desire to learn.  Our scholarship is the fruit—not the source—of that desire. To honor Bob’s memory, I try to read a new commentary every time that I teach a text for a second, or third, or thirtieth time.

As I thought about all that I’ve learned from my mentors and guides, many of whom are here today, I wondered what—if anything—I could add to their lessons.  Much of what I’m about to say is simply an elaboration on their advice, but perhaps it will be helpful.

One of the things that I’ve done at Xavier is establish study trips, beginning with Paris in 2006, followed by Israel a few years later, and most recently New York with the Smith Scholars.  These trips are opportunities for intense and extended discussions.  A few years ago, one of the students was perturbed and came to see me to complain.  He pulled out his cell phone, which turns out to also be a step counter and said: “Frankel! Do you know we walked nearly 20 miles today!”  “Well,” I replied, “It’s the best way to see the city.”  But, I wasn’t telling the whole truth, which is:  that good discussions often happen during long walks, and the city itself becomes a mere backdrop—just as in Plato’s Republic.

Also, as in Plato’s Republic, the theme, which is always present but not always visible, is friendship.  A friendship rooted in the search together to understand and get to the bottom of things.  My dearest friends, John Ray and Bruce Erikson, from the Paris Trip, Abby King Kaiser, Haim Rechnitzer, and Tim Quinn from the Jerusalem trip, and Staff Johnson from the New York trip—these friendships have all come from the discussions we had together on these programs.

These discussions have a different rhythm than the classroom.  More often than not, the students raise the questions as they reflect on the sites we have visited or the material we have studied.  I remember well one particularly intense discussion about suffering and the Book of Job that we had on our walk to the Israel Museum. On another trip, we visited the remains of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem; one of the students asked how a physical structure can house God, who is infinite.  A second student asked: why does God, who created the world, need us to build Him a home here?  Isn’t God everywhere?—excellent questions!  

Those of you who know me, know that when I get a difficult question, my first reaction is to ask someone wiser than me—and that includes most of you in the room, whom I have come to on more than one occasion with many questions.  In Jerusalem, we happened to have a very learned friend and Jesuit who travelled with us for many years, Fr. Stefano.  We discussed the students’ questions, and we also discussed something that I’ve wondered about for a long time: how did the Jesuits do it?  How did Ignatius and six of his friends create a society that will soon celebrate its 500th anniversary, and continues to train and send teachers around the world?  How did seven individuals manage to create dozens of the world’s best schools and universities, all devoted to the “greater glory of God?”

Stefano and I discussed the book of Exodus, where God tells the Israelites to build a miskhan, a dwelling, so that he may dwell among the people.  What does it mean to build an institution that can host God?  Taking a step back, Exodus narrates the account of the giving of the law.  But the law proves to be insufficient.  The people rebel and revert to idolatry. The text suggests that the law isn’t enough because the people seek a place to gather, to express gratitude; to be close to God—a place to dwell in His presence.  This sanctuary is meant to be a site where we can address our very human longing and to be in touch with what is highest. Clearly, we aspire to something beyond our comfort and safety.  The success of the Jesuit mission and the selflessness and devotion of their members reflects a strong sense of a higher purpose. 

The notion of a higher purpose implies that there are other lower purposes, and it is this aspect of the Jesuit mission, the relation of the higher to the lower that I learned about the meaning of education.  When I began as a teacher in the classroom, I was only a few years older than my students.  I fell into a natural temptation, namely a strong desire to appear wise to the students.  In the words of Shakespeare’s Gratiano in the Merchant of Venice: “I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!”

Fortunately, Xavier asks all of its undergraduates to read Plato’s Republic in Philosophy 100, and as a teacher of that course, I had to read it too. I say “fortunately,” because no book has taught me more about education than the Republic. At the beginning of the book, Socrates argues that justice is better than injustice and seeks to leave.  One of his students, Glaucon, stops Socrates and asks him: “Socrates, do you wish to persuade us or merely seem to persuade us that justice is better than injustice?” Socrates is taken aback and asks: “What do you mean?” A few weeks ago in my Philosophy 100 class, I asked the students the same question: What does Glaucon mean? What is the difference between seeming and being?  Appearance and reality?  The students, thanks to social media, know this distinction all too well. For the next 15 minutes, the students taught me about themselves and their friends; they told me about all the people who wish to appear attractive, successful, wealthy, and strong.  If everyone wishes to appear to be something that they’re not, including the teacher, how is it possible to have a real conversation?  In this way, the Republic opens up the classroom.  We must first be honest with ourselves and the truth is that we don’t know what we claim to know about justice or goodness – or even ourselves. But if we choose, we can be honest about that and meet in that space.  This is the starting point for education.

Like my students, I long to lead a good life, to be happy, and to devote myself to something higher.  Both philosophy and faith point to that higher possibility and help us imagine it.  Yet none of us has arrived there.  The best we can do for now is to search together, openly and honestly, as friends.

Thank you.