Care Writ Large
by Roger Martin
The words "care" and "sorrow"
meet at the root. The old English word "caru" meant "sorrow." When we
care, we permit ourselves to share so completely in the life of another
person, or believe so deeply in a cause, that we suffer when something
hurts the person or thwarts the cause.
Paradoxically, caring is also the way out of
sorrow, however. In sharing someone else's burden, we help lighten the
load.
We often say our university cares about the
public, but is it true?
Some KU researchers and clinical practioners
are, indeed, engaged in the old-fashioned kind of caring. They are ultimately
trying to spare people -- and the people who love those people -- of
suffering and sorrow. In this issue of Explore:, read "You Shake,
Then Freeze" or "Tumors in Walleye" or "Drugs for Two" as examples of
that manner of caring.
But researchers here also show care in other
ways.
- They gather new evidence to create pictures for
the mind's eye of how the Earth looked hundreds of millions of years
ago; piece together the relationships among species to better understand
the web of life; throw glimmers of light on the ancient human past.
"Me and My Fossils," "Ourfeatheredfriendosaurs" and "Old Scroll
Gets New Home" exemplify these forms of caring.
- They reveal recent changes in the environment and
in doing so provide us with the knowledge we need for intelligent
planning: "Crops to Prairie: Step Aside" and "Sheet Tells No Tales"
illuminate this kind of activity.
- They furnish us with new technologies or new techniques:
"Road Donkeys No More" or "Learning Is like . . . like . .
. " illustrate these forms of caring.
- They rethink the past, helping succeeding generations
to grasp the meaning for their own lives of the art and artifacts
of the past. See "The Uninvited Escort," and "An Odyssey
for Old Guys?" as examples of this kind of caring.
Some of these ways of caring
seem, at certain historical moments, self-indulgent. In the depths of
the Great Depression, many Kansans probably wondered what good it was
to tax impoverished or jobless citizens so that their children could
study the Greek poet Homer.
Nevertheless, as an institution we decrease
sorrow -- show our care -- in many ways. Even as we discover new roles
for ourselves, such as helping to spur the Kansas economy, we maintain
traditional ones -- including acquainting students with the pleasures
of opening their minds to the kinds of timeless questions raised by
Homer in the Odyssey.
Taking mind-bending excursions of the kind
that brave Odysseus took may not always be comfortable. At times, it's
bound to be the opposite. But a university education is, in part, about
taking that excursion. We are confident that the sorrow-decreasing thing
called wisdom waits for those who make the voyage.
