THE $23,390 QUESTION
University of Richmond senior Larina Orlando has come up with a question about truth that has made her $23,390 richer in a campus-wide competition called the Richmond Quest.
Orlando, who is from Warrenton, Virginia, is a philosophy major with minors in Ancient Greek and French. Her question is, "Is truth in the eye of the beholder?"
Richmond President William E. Cooper announced today that Orlando's question was selected from 593 entries by a committee of faculty and students. Cooper had announced last November that he was offering free tuition and room and board for a year to the winning student or the cash equivalent to a winning senior.
The question will form the basis of a year-long series of activities beginning in January 2000. Faculty and administrators across departments and programs will assemble reading lists and invite speakers from off-campus to search for answers to the questions. Richmond students also will be invited to submit answers to Orlando's question. If the author of the winning answer is a student, he or she also receives a free year at Richmond. If the winner is a faculty member, the prize will be a summer research grant.
In a rationale accompanying the question, Orlando said: "We need only consider the recent Presidential impeachment proceedings to see that the truth is just as elusive in this information-dominated modern age as it was in the time of Socrates. To answer the question, we must establish a universal definition of truth, examine the available methods for arriving at the truth and deal with the concept of how observational bias influences our understanding of the truth."
Orlando said each university department will probably raise its own set of secondary questions. Such questions might be: "What is the relationship between metaphor and truth?" (English); "Can democracy exist in an environment of absolute truth?" (political science); "Is absolute truth best obtained through empiric observation?" (natural science); and "Will the truth set us free?" (religion).
Also, "Is truth self evident?" (philosophy); "Does truth transcend cultural boundaries?" (social science); "Is mathematics the natural language of truth?" (mathematics); and "Is art a higher form of expressing the truth?" (the arts).
"Judges noted that Ms. Orlando's base question is 'disarmingly simple,'" says Cooper, "yet her rationale was particularly well reasoned to meet our criteria of breadth and depth. The judges also sensed that the expanded discussion of truth--its nature, its utility, and its changing role in civilization would be a fitting topic for our first Quest year."
The question lends itself to a broad range of topics that occupy center stage in academic circles, such as deconstructionism and post modernism, the role of falsifiability in scientific inquiry and decision making under uncertainty, says Cooper.
"The role of truth also seems to be shifting somewhat in matters of public discourse and decision making, so we think it is an appropriate time for the academy to highlight this question and its broader implications," says Cooper.
Orlando is a senior at Richmond. She reads Greek philosophers in Ancient Greek, performs Scarlatti, Debussy and Mozart in solo piano recitals and plans to study French language and literature in the M.A./Ph.D programs at the University of Virginia.
"It somehow didn't seem fair to choose a graduate program that taught just in the English language," she laughs.
Orlando entered Richmond as a music major, thought about English but finally opted for philosophy. As a University Scholar, Orlando got to choose her own curriculum, which has been heavy on the humanities. That has been wonderful for her, but it led to some interesting conversations with her father, Dr. Michael M. Orlando, a pathologist at Fauquier County Hospital in Warrenton, VA.
So when the Orlandos received a post card from Dr. Cooper, urging all students and their parents to think about a large question that would unify the campus in a year-long pursuit of answers, Larina naturally started developing one.
Larina thought the concept of the Richmond Quest sounded very much like the conversations she and her dad always seemed to be having. When she sat down to compose the question, she wanted to get people thinking about the educational process as a whole.
"English is one part of the jigsaw puzzle, history is another, political science is yet another. I was trying to come up with a question that would get people to think about how we approach each discipline and where it fits into the grand theme," says Orlando. "What happened was that one of the current attitudes that truth is relative seems to be in conflict with what goes on in education. Math and science think they are coming up with truths. I just came up with a question that has a poetic thrust that might get people to think."
Her question plays on "Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?" and Keats' "Truth is beauty, beauty truth. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know."
Cooper believes the Quest will become one of the University's "signature programs."
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If you would like to speak with Dr. Cooper of Ms. Orlando, please contact Kim Bolger, UR's Executive Director of Communication, at 804-287-6488. Or contact Randy Fitzgerald, director of public relations, at 804-289-8058. Please contact Steve Infanti of Dick Jones Communications at 814-867-1963 or [email protected] if you need any assistance.
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