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I love this plaque. When I read the sifting and winnowing statement for the first time as a freshman at the UW, I felt a bracing thrill of determination. A thrill I still feel every time I read it. And even though I am far from Wisconsin, I carry with me a commitment to the statement’s ideals.

Historically, the quote is associated with academic freedom. Back in 1894, UW Economics Professor Richard Ely was teaching communist and socialist economic theories to his economics classes. When the State Superintendent of Public Instruction got wind of Professor Ely’s subversive curriculum, he demanded that Ely be dismissed. Responding to the hailstorm of criticism stirred up by the State Superintendent, the university regents investigated Ely. The sifting and winnowing statement is part of the regents’ official announcement to retain Ely. Since then, the statement is carted out every time an academic freedom debate erupts on campus.

For me, the statement speaks to more than academic freedom. The sifting and winnowing statement beautifully and succinctly suggests a way to be in the world and clearly marks the perimeters of that path. Though I don’t think that the truth is out there like some perfectly cut gem waiting to be picked up compact, whole, and shiny. My sifting and winnowing has uncovered truths that are nothing like diamonds. Truth is multifaceted but it also pretty grimy. Truth is noisy and truth is big. Very big. Maybe that is why we have to be fearless. You think you are going to get a little gold nugget after all that sifting and winnowing, but instead you get this huge crazy mixed-up thing that you are pretty sure you can’t hold let alone carry, cuz it is just too big, but somehow after falling over a couple of million times learning how to handle the weight and the strange shape, and after planting your feet firmly on the ground and taking several very deep breaths, you do. Gosh I love the truth!