By Jim Gash,RealClearPolitics

Copyright realclearpolitics

We are on the cusp of a new academic year amidst a tempestuous time on university campuses and an uncertain moment in world affairs. Yet as I assess the state of our campus, curriculum, and faculty, and meet some of the 1,000 new students who just arrived on our Malibu campus overlooking the Pacific, I cant help but be optimistic. Something special is happening at schools like Pepperdine  something that gives me confidence for the future, not only for our campus, but of our society as a whole. Truly, its an exciting week to be a college president.

The American Founders saw that freedom, faith, and self-governance  leavened with humility  are interwoven and indispensable foundational values upon which a pluralistic and enduring society can flourish. These values, though freely received, must be cultivated and protected. While we were created to be free, we are not born knowing how to make the best of our freedom, nor how to deepen our faith or govern ourselves. We must learn those skills. Training in character begins at home and in houses of worship, but it cannot end there. This is where higher education comes in.

Virtuous character formation must be at the heart of a universitys mission, and that heart will beat with passion for what our students learn. It is why universities must teach great books and big ideas, preserving the best of what humanity has to offer. But we must be even more laser-focused on who our students are becoming. James Phinney Munroe, an MIT scholar who was successful in business, leadership, and education said it best: The question to be asked at the end of an educational step is not, What has the student learned? but, What has the student become?

The values we live by determine who we become. Colleges have a duty to see students learn and grow, and we must help our students cultivate a core set of values that will guide that learning and growth.

A free society requires civility among those with different beliefs and opinions. It demands our mutual respect for all citizens right to express themselves, no matter how much we may disagree with an idea. As we have seen, this is not the case on every college campus. Sometimes, faculty and students seek to establish an ideological orthodoxy by excluding competing viewpoints from their campuses.

Indeed, nowhere is the struggle to preserve core American values more obvious and intense than on university campuses. Nowhere are the passionate tensions of academic freedom and freedom of speech more tested. Therefore, it is imperative that our resolve to defend and cultivate these virtues is strongest within our academic institutions.

Our Founders also knew the value of faith. They experienced the threats to its free expression, and they knew it was a value not only to be held individually, but to be defended collectively. Religious liberty goes hand in hand with freedom of thought, speech, and viewpoint diversity.

Higher education leaders must remind students that their worth is not derived from fleeting and fickle sources like social media and popular political movements. The Founders asserted quite simply that everyones worth is endowed by their Creator.

Likewise, on self-governance, the Founders spoke plainly: We the People. Why are these the first three words in the Constitution? Because if the new republic was to survive, the people would have to be its primary bulwark. If the people were to be empowered to engage in a robust defense of the nation, the government itself would have to be limited and restrained. It was true then, and it remains true today.

The Founders humility in beginning the American experiment has allowed us  nearly 250 years later  to continue their work. These values can be fully realized only in an environment where there is a commitment to humility. The only way for me to fully embrace your freedom to disagree is if I humbly acknowledge that I might have something to learn from you. The only way for you to truly cherish and live from your faith tradition is to humbly defend my freedom to choose a different belief structure. The only way for a government to be restrained in its governance of the people is for its leaders to exercise the humility required to choose restraint.

Freedom, faith, self-governance, and humility may be simple-to-understand values, but they are not nearly as easy to live out. They require integrity and courage and discipline to remain committed to them. As our nation endures a tumultuous chapter, our underlying values and the institutions that cultivate them in young people are more important than ever.

From the instant new students arrive on campus, universities have a sacred duty to help them understand how these core values provide the framework for our successful American experiment, and also how they contribute to a complete, resilient, and thriving individual. We have a responsibility to communicate and model how these values result in skills, such as the ability to engage in civil discourse and dissent. As educators and leaders, we must practice these skills alongside our students.

For many students, college will be their most structured opportunity to engage with the virtues that will guide them  and their country  to success. It is our job to ensure that students are equipped for, supported through, and nurtured along the path of embracing these common values. A commitment to this task on the part of our higher education institutions is critical if these shared values are to endure.

I am convinced they can and will endure only if we are vigilant.

A statement often attributed to G.K. Chesterton rings true here: Education is not a subject, nor does it deal in subjects. It is instead the transfer of a way of life. When I see the kind of work that is being done at Pepperdine  where professors are not only preparing students to be worthy participants in the Great Conversation, but training them to be people of character  I am confident that real education is taking place. I am confident that the American way of life is being transferred. I am confident that our society has a bright future.

In recent years, we have clearly seen the failure of approaches to education that de-emphasize character formation and refuse to uphold the very values our free society has been built upon. I need not dwell upon that failure. A new dawn in higher education is here  or, rather, a return to the educational spirit that birthed our free society in the first place is underway.

University leaders nationwide are realizing that American higher education must recall its original purpose  forming citizens of wisdom and virtue. Schools that are already committed to that purpose will be at the forefront of a movement that will bring new life not only to our campuses, but through our campuses to the American public square and beyond.

The ascent has already begun. There is nowhere to go but upward.