The remarks below were delivered by Kristin Hall, Agnes Scott  College Class of 2007, at the Tower Circle Dinner April 19, 2007 -- part of the college's alumnae weekend.

Each of the voices we will hear about tonight fit together to make the complex puzzle that is an Agnes Scott woman.  One important piece of the puzzle we have not yet discussed is the academic side of an Agnes Scott student’s life.  Through its challenging and enriching curriculum, an Agnes Scott education aims to help students develop a special voice more elusive than the rest:  that is, an academic voice.  I am here before you tonight, at the close of my Agnes Scott education, to talk about the importance of finding an academic voice, and to tell you how this world for women has helped me to develop my own.
     
But first, what is an academic voice, anyhow?  Most people, if they were to answer honestly, would probably scratch their heads for a few moments before replying with, “Um…well…boring.”  If a person has endured a few particularly painful readings for a class, he or she might go on to elaborate with words such as “incomprehensible,” “long-winded,” and “pedantic.”  After nearly four full years of academic courses, I unfortunately have to agree that these descriptions can often apply…but there are other aspects of the academic voice that many people forget.  At its best, an academic voice is clear, precise, and above all authoritative.
 
That word, “authority,” can in itself highlight the ideal mental transition between college freshman and college senior.  One aim of a successful liberal arts education is, after all, for a student to enter as a high school kid with routine trust in the authority of her professors, and to exit four years later as a young woman with trust in the capability, the authority, of her own mind to form educated opinions uniquely hers.  In order to do this, all of us must grasp the realization that academia is really just one big conversation, a conversation in which scholars all over the world share their opinions with one another, sometimes agreeing with one another, sometimes adding on to what another scholar has already claimed, sometimes entering into heated debates that can often span decades or longer.  If a liberal arts education has done its job, a student will graduate with the belief that she herself has a place within that conversation.  She will believe that she has something to contribute to this greater academic discussion, and when she does contribute, she will do so in a voice both strong and confident.

How does one develop such a voice?  How can a student in her late teens and early twenties make the mental leap to realizing that it is okay, and even encouraged, to disagree with what a respected professor at Harvard has claimed about Shakespeare?  It takes encouragement from inside ourselves, of course, but it also often takes encouragement from outside ourselves as well—and that’s the kind of encouragement we receive from the Agnes Scott faculty.  From first year onward, we students enter an academic environment in which our voices are valued.  Our professors, while imparting their wisdom, also treat us as equals.  Many of them challenge us to question both their own beliefs and the beliefs of other scholars in our fields.  And under this encouragement, every year our voices get stronger, clearer, more authoritative. 

I would like to close with an example of how Agnes Scott can foster an academic voice.  When it came time for me to write my capstone project for my English major this year, I chose to explore whether or not the author F. Scott Fitzgerald had ever written plays in addition to his fiction.  After my preliminary research I discovered that in fact he had—and I also discovered that there existed little to no scholarship on this topic.  Rather than feeling daunted at such a discovery, under the enthusiastic support of my faculty advisor and other members of the department I was able to craft a 30-page scholarly paper, one that I believe can actually contribute something significant to the field of Fitzgerald scholarship at large.  That’s a great feeling.  I am currently in the final stages of editing this paper, and will soon send it off to be considered for publication in the national journal "The Fitzgerald Review".  When I sent it to one of my favorite professors to look over, she returned it to me -- covered in red ink, of course -- with the following comment at the end:  “You’ve done a beautiful job with the style, by the way,” she wrote, “it’s very professional and authoritative.”

As a graduating senior, I don’t claim to know everything -- on the contrary, I hope to spend my whole life learning.  But I thank Agnes Scott for teaching me that I do know something, and furthermore, that when I express that something I can do so in a voice that’s authoritative and confident.

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