Scot Douglass challenges Students to be Authentic

September 14, 2011

What is unique about you? What does it mean to live out your specific qualities? What does it mean to be authentic? What does it mean to be about what you are about?

Scott Douglass came and spoke to the first year students about addressing these questions of authenticity by owning their flaws and good strengths. He started with an exercise in stubbornness, which morphed into a discussion of understanding how we deal with our faults. In short, professor Douglass pointed out that humans have developed a number of ways of deflecting blame rather than authentically owning their mistakes.

Professor Scot Douglass is the founder of the Engineering Honors Program. He is the first University of Colorado Professor to be a resident of the campus, in Andrews’ Hall with his wife and two daughters. He is committed to the Andrews’ Hall Environment, which has made the dorm the prime interconnected community on campus.  He not only teaches but also organizes Friday night basketball and a class on Harry Potter. The people in the hall see him as a mentor and his authenticity shown through in Tuesday Night Lecture.

Scot Douglass’ impressive narrative of accomplishments did not define his lecture. Instead he spoke about the difference between narratives and adjectives in defining good traits. He said that no one could live up to the adjectives of loyal, trustworthy, caring all of the time. The narrative of life is messy. Scot shared personal stories that proved that narratives were messy and that we justify the mess in our own contexts; he talked about how irrational thoughts can come out of harmful situations. In a lecture titled Authenticity, he was the most authentic in the room. He gained a connection with the audience by being honest about experiences that have shaped him.

Professor Douglass challenged the first years to not only write our own story but to reinterpret what their story means. Authenticity, Professor Douglass said, is about setting your own measures of success and owning up to your own views of the world

What is Scot looking for in life? “The beauty of a story that includes both the good and bad parts of our world.”