Confrontation & Courage

Dean of Students David Leedy thinks about the Honor Code and what it requires from community.

Convocation
Home News & Events Stories

Ask any King’s student what they find most difficult about the King’s Honor Code. Most will confess that it is the latter half—that pesky bit about confrontation. I get it. Confrontation is hard. It makes my heart pound and my hands clammy. It brings up all sorts of fears: How will the person respond? What if I say the wrong thing? Will this ruin our relationship?

It’s easier to ask a King’s staff member to intervene. So why do we ask students to confront rather than report? Simply put, courage. We prepare students to transform society. They need guts for such a task. So we want to impart to students an education of consequence—and character of steel.

Alumnus Ray Davison (PPE Class of 2013) writes of his experience with confrontation as a freshman. Rather than address the misdeeds of his then roommates, Ray went to a student leader in the House of Churchill, Nick Swedick, and asked him to deal with the situation. Nick asked Ray if he had confronted his roommates. When Ray replied in the negative, Nick told him he wouldn’t do anything until Ray did so. Dissatisfied, Ray approached the House of ChurcCowardice and courage. Confrontation requires that we overcome the former, and fosters in us the latter. Yes, confrontation is uncomfortable. But when we know something must be confronted, and we shirk our responsibility to do so, we give into cowardice. Conversely if we, like Ray, step into a difficult situation to confront with grace and truth, courage grows in us.

That’s life in the real world. We need courage to confront difficult situations in our job, our family, and our communities. The Honor Code calls us to courage.


View more stories about: