Convocation Reflection:

As someone who sat on the Committee for Public Occasions, I enter all convos with preconceived notions of the speakers. To begin with, I know a lot of background information about each speaker, have seen them speak, and, most of the time, feel that they provide valuable insight for the Lawrence community. Upon reviewing Kwame Anthony Appiah as a potential speaker, I immediately noted that his speaking style might be tough to relate to a LU student. But his content seemed incredibly valuable.

As Lawrence students, Honor Code means something tangible. The Honor Code is an acronym. According to Appiah, however, the Honor Codeis about the way people relate to each other through a system of globalized values. Ultimately, I did not relate to all of Appiah's key points and I believe his entire argument can be summed up within this quote, "It is with honor that we can have unanimous and reasonable pursuit of a decent life."

My personal disagreement with any of his points stems from one simple fact: Appiah was identifying real, global issues, but could not identify real, global solutions. For Appiah, Honor Code implies something explicitly intagible. I think that this convocation raised some very interesting questions, but did not provide many of the answers I was looking for.