Drawing from decades of experience as a scholar and civil rights activist, Dr. Cornel West implored Utah Valley University students and the community to follow Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s example and connect with their common humanity and capacity to love during a dynamic keynote address on UVU’s Orem Campus on Jan. 18.

“I think if we leave anything with Martin, it would be courage to love, and that takes us, for me, to the very core of the best of what it means to be human,” Dr. West said. “Human beings are at their best when they love something bigger than them that is connected to serving and enabling others.”

Dr. West’s lecture served as the capstone of UVU’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration Week, which included lectures, service activities, breakout workshops, and celebrations of Dr. King’s legacy.

Referencing a wide range of sources, including Plato (“The unexamined life is not worth living”), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (“Hell is those who suffer from the incapacity to love”), W.H. Auden (“Love one’s crooked neighbor with one’s crooked heart”), and frequently referencing his own religious background, Dr. West encouraged the UVU audience to “wrestle with what it means to be human” and to avoid cynicism.

“The worst thing that can happen is we become cynical,” West said. “And when you become cynical, you become both a spectator and you disarm yourself in terms of being fortified to fight.”

Dr. West also spoke on the power of education to create three important things: formation of attention, cultivation of critical thinking, and maturation of compassion. “Don’t confuse education with schooling,” he said. “Schooling is a nice thing — get the facts and evidence, get your information. But education is about transformation.”

Immediately following West’s lecture, he answered questions from the UVU community, hosted by Jamey Williams, outreach program director at UVU’s Center for Social Impact.

Dr. West — often known as “Brother West” — is the former professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and professor emeritus at Princeton University. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in three years and earned master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy at Princeton. He is the author of 20 books and serves as the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary.

Multiple UVU organizations collaborated on this year’s MLK Commemoration Week events at UVU, including the Center for Social Impact, LGBTQ+ Student Services, UVU’s Black Student Union, the African Diaspora Initiative, the Clubs office, the Office of Academic Affairs, and University Marketing and Communications.