Paxson encouraged Brown’s newest students to embrace the concept by questioning, thinking critically and seeking evidence — the best defense in an era of automated answers and AI-generated summaries, she said.

“The probability that you will be confronted with false ideas masquerading as facts has increased astronomically,” Paxson said. “Across the centuries, it was the skeptics — the people who doubted, who asked hard questions and who looked for new evidence — who moved us forward toward truth. And that’s what we demand of all of our Brown students: to be the ones who search for truth and generate new knowledge and deeper understanding.”

But that quest for knowledge must be underpinned by humility, said Paxson, who called on students to approach their learning “with open minds and open hearts.”

“Your professors don’t know everything, you don’t know everything, and I certainly don’t know everything,” she said. “While you’re at Brown, you may find that things you believe wholeheartedly to be true are not universally agreed on, [and] that’s a good thing, because it will prompt you to question the very foundations of your beliefs.”

The opportunity to learn from others and understand their experiences and how they think is one of the greatest gifts students can glean from their time on campus and carry with them after graduation, Paxson said.

“Sometimes, when confronted with evidence or logic or new insights [and] fresh perspectives, you have to be prepared to discard or modify what you believe to be true,” Paxson said. “Irreverence gives you the courage to question others, constructiveness gives you the humility to question yourself, and the two belong together.”

‘What you stand to gain is enormous’

The power of asking questions and seeking evidence was woven throughout Opening Convocation.

Keynote speaker James Kellner — a professor of environment and society and ecology, evolution and organismal biology — referred to the timeless language in Brown’s mission, which for centuries has charged the University with “educating and preparing students to discharge the offices of life with usefulness and reputation.”

As members of the Class of 2030 transition from high school and other experiences to their education at Brown, they will be challenged to chart their individual paths toward knowledge and usefulness, Kellner said. 

“We all know that the purpose of a university is to educate people, but Brown is not like every university,” he said. “Here, we educate people to be useful to society… Brown is an answer to a question: What does society need? It needs you, to be useful.”

In remarks titled “Why Openness and a Willingness to Take Risks Will Drive Your Success at Brown and Beyond,” Kellner encouraged students to unlock their minds and interrogate their beliefs to “be useful, build character and participate in civil society — that is what Brown is for,” he said.

The ability to look at problems differently, collaborate across disciplines and use new methods of discovery is the key to creating knowledge, particularly when new ideas meet resistance. Kellner used the example of the extinction of dinosaurs, originally believed to have occurred slowly over millions of years. But in the 1980s and ’90s, scientists challenged that understanding and found evidence of an asteroid strike that filled the atmosphere with dust and ash and blocked out the sun, collapsing the food chain and causing mass extinction. 

“It turned out that an oil company had known about [the asteroid impact] at least as early as the 1960s, but no one connected the dots to the dinosaur extinction until people from different parts of science came together,” said Kellner, who has served as a researcher, teacher and adviser at Brown for 13 years. “And do you know what happened? People changed their minds. This didn’t happen immediately and it wasn’t easy… There was a clash of worldviews and status, and fights broke out, but eventually, the weight of evidence was overwhelming.”

Drawing a parallel to the present day and to other kinds of arguments, Kellner encouraged Brown’s newest students to ask questions, assert their beliefs and be willing to change their minds.

“The university has given you the freedom to explore, so use it, don’t waste it — point your freedom toward knowledge [and] have the courage to say what you think,” Kellner said. “Develop the character to change your mind and do this because your education demands it, because this great university — and society, too — needs people who are willing to say things, who know things, and because that is what an education is for.” 

The afternoon before first day of fall classes at Brown, Kellner encouraged students to embrace openness, flexibility and a willingness to listen.

“If you are willing to exercise that choice to engage in your four years at Brown with openness, a willingness to speak and to listen, and the ability to change your mind, what you stand to gain is enormous,” he said. “You stand to become someone who is educated and prepared in the most fundamental sense — someone who is useful.”