Brett Mach
Double Major: Political Science and English Literature

Brett Mach is completing an internship in the Communications Office of the City of Kansas City, Mo., and continuing his volunteer work at the City Union Mission. His long-term plans include teaching, graduate school and mission work.

“The ideals of a liberal education are manifest in the particular ways in which we handle ideas. Confronting our own thoughts in real ways by submitting our paradigms to interrogation is one of the most vital ideals of liberal education. Recently, Dr. Rein Staal, professor of political science, confronted my class with a suggested fourth question as an addendum to the Critical Thought and Inquiry program’s ‘big three’ [What can we know? What is real? How should we behave?]: What do we want to be true? Our own desires and preconceptions—our identity in many cases—must be disentangled from what is true. It’s clear to me that filtering our investigative processes through an acknowledgement of our biases is one of the most difficult, important actions we can take as humans. But it is through this process that we actively engage the reality around us and make real decisions about how to respond. In achieving this ideal, the door is opened to one of the most unlikely of all human phenomena: genuine, substantive, undetermined change. This is one of humanity’s greatest gifts: the creative power to seek and struggle and grow and change; a process uniquely allowed for through liberal education.

“The image of a growing tree comes to mind as I consider the changes, development and new growth that have taken place in my spiritual life while at Jewell. Different seasons have brought periods of both growth and dormancy. New branches have stretched beyond old limits, and roots have delved into greater depths. On the whole, I haven’t really totally uprooted myself while at Jewell—for better or worse, I still carry the fundamental beliefs that I brought here—but there’s been a great deal of refining; a great deal of increased complexity; and a great many old things that have been pruned away in order to make room for new growth. Overall, I’ve been stretched, challenged and have developed into who I am today in ways that I couldn’t imagine as a freshman.

“Most of all, college has taught me that I’m still learning—still growing—and I don’t see that as ever changing in my life. I know that I will keep struggling to answer life’s call—to be honest with myself about life’s big questions—and to continue to search for what it means to lose myself and follow Christ.”