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College Presidents Pen Admissions Essays

The University of Chicago's Robert J. Zimmer on "Living the Question"

"At present you need to live the question." --Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by Joan M. Burnham

Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago ENLARGE
Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago University of Chicago

Questioning, not deference, is the route to clarity. "Live the question" is beyond a poetic exhortation. It is a way of thinking and an approach to the world -- one that demands rigorous argument but discovers in that challenge enthusiasm for ideas and a power to transform lives and society.

Living the question is not simple. It entails the intensity of argument and engagement. It demands intellectual risk-taking and a preference for analysis, inquiry and complexity over easy solutions or comfort. It requires a habit of challenging one's own assumptions, even while analyzing and questioning others. Importantly, questioning also requires listening.

The simplicity of stating a question can belie its complexity. How will the world generate enough energy to enable its population to rise from poverty while minimizing the effect on climate? In founding the University of Chicago more than a century ago, William Rainey Harper asked how to create a university whose basic research would contribute to questions of fundamental societal importance. Today's successors to the faculty and students he brought together raise similar queries. But their questions, though basic, harbor a depth of remarkable complexity: How do science and economics combine to inform the options for energy production? How do the world's differing societies and economies affect the alternatives? Before answers, one must find the frameworks for analysis and discourse, laying the foundation for discovery, understanding, or considered action.

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Some questions have answers. Others do not and so illumination, rather than a simple response, is required. How does one best teach all our children to help them thrive now and in the future? How do the historical traditions of the world's cultures affect lives today? Properly answering difficult questions and illuminating others demands a deep commitment to intellectual rigor in developing and evaluating arguments. Arguments must be supported by data, yet data do not always make answers obvious. Often, different arguments relating to a question point in opposing directions. And inevitably, the initial question leads to new queries. But this process of engagement with the question holds far more hope of illumination than seeking solutions that are facile and rigid.

When Rilke wrote these words, he was counseling a young poet. A century later, they capture the aspiration of students coming to our campus, joining other scholars who find living the question to be a way of life, even when questioning seeks only to reflect wonder at the world. In that same letter, Rilke encouraged the poet "&hellip;to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves&hellip;." Such an orientation empowers our students, alumni, and faculty to challenge conventional wisdom, define new disciplines, make imaginative and creative contributions across the spectrum of human endeavor, and change the world. It holds a key to a rich and engaged life.

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