Valley News – Column: The cracked crucible of higher education

A university isn’t a sanctuary from discomfort — it’s a crucible for growth. Just as muscles grow by tearing and rebuilding, the mind strengthens through challenge, contradiction and offense. When universities prioritize emotional safety over intellectual rigor and challenge, they risk producing graduates unready for the real world — where ideas clash, stakes are high and no one curates your experience for comfort.

When a university silences one group to protect another’s comfort, it abandons its duty to foster open inquiry. Discomfort isn’t oppression; censorship is. When this becomes routine, universities stop testing ideas and start curating them, to the detriment of truth. Students learn not to think deeply but to speak cautiously, afraid the wrong word might bring consequences.

Empathy doesn’t come from hearing what you already believe — it grows by wrestling with ideas that challenge you. A university should expand students’ vision, not shrink it to the familiar. Empathy isn’t agreement — it’s the hard work of imagining someone else’s view, even when it jars your own. That can’t happen in echo chambers. It takes friction, vulnerability and the freedom to speak — and listen.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Universities should train that kind of mind, one that grapples with complexity without retreating into certainty. The ability to sit with tension and weigh conflicting claims helps students cut through disinformation. In a noisy world, a trained mind is a compass. Without freedom to confront every idea — even uncomfortable ones — that compass spins aimlessly. That kind of empathy — earned through open dialogue — creates real safety. Not the safety of silence or separation, but the kind that lets us disagree without dehumanizing, debate without fear and coexist without conformity.

Naming hard truths isn’t cruelty — it’s a civic skill. Societies that can’t speak honestly, even when it stings, lose the ability to solve problems. Universities should train that kind of honesty — where discomfort sharpens clarity, not silences it. Speaking hard truths is the first step to solving hard problems. If we can’t name what’s broken, we can’t fix it. A university that suppresses discomfort doesn’t protect students — it fails to equip them for the world they’re meant to change.

A real university prepares students not for comfort, but for courage — for the discomfort of truth, difficult ethical questions, the clash of ideas and the duty to understand those unlike themselves. As Daniel Webster said, “Debate is the crucible in which ideas are tested and refined.” That’s how minds grow, empathy forms and free societies stay free. If we want students to meet the world with strength and clarity, we must encourage them face ideas that unsettle them, not shield them from it.

O. Sami Saydjari is a cybersecurity expert and former senior executive of the Defense Department. He lives in Hartland.