A favorite professor of mine was fond of quoting the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gassett’s definition of education: “the imaginative consideration of learning.” This phrase resonates with me—deep inside most of us graying 60-something university professors resides the soul of a medieval scholar whose happiest workplace is a huge and poorly lit reading room in a quiet library. The prospect of being accidentally locked up overnight in a modern university library is not something many of us would regard with abject horror. We are good at focus and contemplation.

Garrison, T. 2007. Education: The times, they are a changin’. Oceanography 20(3):125–126, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2007.39.

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