11 Comments
User's avatar
Sam Bonfante's avatar

Thank you, Adil, for putting words the deep and profound experience that endures from higher education. Contrasted to the increasingly transactional nature of education being promoted by certain sectors within our society, you captured the irreplaceable human quality of a residential college education: the formation of intellectual trust, an ability to solve problems and conflicts without creating more of either, and the long arc of quality relationships.

Adil Husain's avatar

Thank you, Sam. "Intellectual trust" is exactly the right phrase, and you're right that it's precisely what the transactional model can't manufacture, no matter how efficiently it delivers credentials. Given your lifelong work in education, I suspect you think about the formation question more than most people.

Katherine Ebner's avatar

Beautiful reflection, Adil. Thank you for sharing your life and observations in this piece.

Adil Husain's avatar

Thank you, Kate. Coming from you, a Middlebury alum who helped shape that institution and more than a few careers, including mine, that means a great deal.

Timi's avatar

So deep, so perceptive, and as always, so good.

Adil Husain's avatar

It was one of the highlights of the weekend to run into you and learn that you've been reading my work. That made my day.

Mukhtar Husain's avatar

Loved reading it.

Adil Husain's avatar

Thank you Baba

Enjum Hamid's avatar

Very nice piece Adil. A very good point made about what a college education is actually about.

Adil Husain's avatar

Thank you. You know our family across generations. The idea of investing in relationships across decades and distances is something I keep coming back to in my writing.

Sarah Soule Oliva's avatar

As a post-secondary counselor who has worked in the field of advising high school students towards "life after high school" for four decades, what you have shared here is so meaningful. As an aside, I worked at Middlebury UHS and cannot say enough good things about Middlebury College - love the Panthers! Thank you!