"Politics is something good and noble and valuable, but it is not everything," says Tim O'Neill.

"A good liberal arts education ensures that students have the kinds of perspectives, drawing upon all the realms of knowledge, to be informed, consenting participants in our governing process. They need to grasp how history, economics, psychology, the sciences and the arts mold the world within which we act."

O'Neill teaches courses in American politics, law and thought. He specializes in comparative legal systems - "the roles played by lawyers and courts in the broader political system with a special emphasis on courts in the United States, China, the European Union and India."

He says, "Studying a legal system is one of the best ways to grasp what a society aspires to be 'codified in its written law and what it really is - reflected in the law in action.

"The emphasis on non-American systems serves as a professional check on the parochialism that afflicts too many people who concentrate on any one part of the world. Too often we overlook those important threads that bind the world's political systems together."

In line with his specialization, he's spent a good deal of time helping Southwestern students apply to law school and serves as chair of a three-member faculty pre-law advisory committee.

O'Neill says he came to Southwestern 12 years ago "to work with students who are bright and different. They are open to new ideas, playful with those ideas, yet willing to take ideas seriously while not accepting them unreflectively. What more can a teacher want?

"If the purpose of a good liberal arts education is to make the teachers dispensable, so that students can leave equipped to teach themselves and others about the world within which they live, then Southwestern works."

O'Neill holds a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Univ. of California at Berkeley. He says, "One of the splendid perks' of my profession is that I am paid to do many of the things I love to do - read, write, and travel. But my most precious time is family time: participating in Boy Scout high adventures with my sons, movies and quiet dinners with my wife. I also find the occasional hour to work in the yard or volunteer for The Caring Place or my church."

-Carrie Johnson '93