As anyone remotely familiar with a liberal arts college knows, we are not particularly good at leaving things uncomplicated. An essay cannot merely make an argument when it might instead interrogate three disciplines, employ two semicolons, and several more adverbs. Too many ideas swirl within our heads, crowded with heuristics and paradigms. It’s all too frenzied for anyone else to understand.
When I founded Lux, I wanted a channel for that energy, a way for those disjointed ideas to leave the classroom and acquire a public life. Over the past year, that ideal did more than come to fruition; it came to have an impact. Articles broke news that sparked campus discourse. Columns tested and challenged campus conventions. One writer’s essay connecting game theory to the Honor Code prompted a professor to rethink his take-home exam policy entirely. Another writer was challenged directly by the College president in his commencement address to the graduating class.
The more important consequence, however, belongs to the writer. There is an undeniable exhilaration in having one’s work recognized by others:
I broke that story. I made them think differently. My ideas matter.
Egoistic, perhaps. But exhilarating nonetheless. Your name becomes public, and your ideas with it. Your ideas are challenged, assumptions questioned, and your mistakes made harder to hide. The writer learns not simply to express an idea, but to defend and refine it. No undergraduate leaves a seminar having arrived at certainty. To expose nascent ideas to criticism, at the peril of being unraveled, is the mark of intellectual bravery and the pursuit of excellence.
Such is the purpose of Lux. It exists to give individuals room to distinguish themselves. Hence the simplest rule of the publication: the column is yours. The byline is yours, the argument yours, and whatever praise or criticism you prompt will be coming your way.
That principle creates an obvious test for Lux itself. An institution dedicated to individuals cannot be dependent on one. The publication must proceed beyond its founding masthead. Fortunately the person taking its helm has never shown much interest in merely thinking like anyone else.
Several classes shared with Addison Constantinides, all under Professor Shaw, made one thing obvious. In Dr. Shaw’s words to his repeat students of political philosophy, “You must be a glutton for punishment.” One afternoon outside his office stuck with me. Addison was already fifteen minutes over her allotted time, creeping into mine, and arguing loudly enough that the disagreement carried through the door. She and Shaw were locked in a dispute over the interpretation of a French critical-theory text. By the end, more irritating than her siphoning my office hours was the growing realization that she was winning. The thought was equal parts admiration and annoyance: Why hadn’t that occurred to me? Why couldn’t I see that, too?
By summer, serendipity had placed us at the same Washington think tank. One evening after work, in a crowded corner of a happy hour, the conversation turned to Davidson and the strange amount of talent concentrated on such a small campus. D.C. interns, especially those who choose to work somewhere literally called a think tank, are naturally inclined to argue about the meaning of a college education. Addison was adamant that Davidson offered a rare combination: a rigorous education that demands much from its students and a student body ambitious enough to meet it. That conviction made the succession at Lux rather easy, and luckily she bought my pitch.
Under her leadership, Lux will become formalized as an institution without sacrificing the dynamism that has made it an extension of our liberal arts education. There will be more structure, more writers, and greater ambitions, but never so many rules that students lose the ability to experiment. The next year will progress beyond the first, not reprise it.
That, too, is part of a liberal arts education. Future writers will learn by testing their ideas; future editors will continue to build an institution. Both cultivate excellence.
—Ethan T. Tran, Founding Editor-in-Chief. Now on a happy sabbatical in Washington, D.C.
