On election night in 2016, I went to bed early, believing Clinton had won. But I woke up to a different reality.

Not knowing what else to do, I went to campus to teach my morning class, a first-year seminar with all female students.

As I walked into Jordan Hall, I felt dazed. What could I say to these young women? Climbing the stairs, I passed a sign I’d seen a thousand times but never stopped to read. This time, I stopped. It was the core values statement for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences:

Think for Yourself and Act Wisely and Well in the World

As students of the liberal arts, we cultivate as fully as possible the legacy of human thought, imagination, creativity, and research; observe nature; confront and evaluate important theories that shape our understanding of the world and how to care for it; figure out how societies, our own and those of others, work and can be improved; weigh the costs and benefits of modern human life to the individual and the planet; seek to grasp and reduce the sources of human hatred and conflict; aim to understand and strengthen what inspires human cooperation; explore the workings of the human mind and body; unknot claims of teachers, politicians, advertisers, scientists, preachers, columnists, and your roommate; ponder history from the earliest epochs to the unfolding present; investigate the mechanisms of the cosmos, from the atom to the stars; delve into the past experiences of our own and other societies, as well as the current news; make ourselves at home in other cultures; make those from other cultures at home among ourselves; see the interplay between our beliefs about the natural world and our beliefs about religion, politics, and culture; search out purpose, ponder the meaning of life, scrutinize the human heart, weigh conscience; discover the sweep of living systems, from microbes to biomes; learn to account for ourselves in a moral world that is neither black nor white; engage in a careful search for truth; know the ways of money and the nature of work; wrestle with ideas about God; fathom the relations between technology and human life; raise children, our own and those of others; consider the well-being of future generations; appreciate the beauty and uses of mathematics; forge agreements with loved ones, friends, and enemies; engage ourselves in the principles, purposes, and practice of public life.  

My God, that’s stirring. It makes me want to run through a brick wall for the liberal arts. I was still thinking about it as I walked into class that morning. Normally a chatty group, the students were silent until one said, “I wasn’t sure if we would have class today. A lot of professors canceled.”

“Have you ever heard of Woody Guthrie?” I asked, surprising myself. I told them he was a folk singer in the ‘40s. On his guitar, he wrote the words, This machine kills fascists.

Guthrie wasn’t violent, I explained; he wasn’t talking about murder. He was talking about the power of music, art, beauty, and truth—antidotes to the worst impulses of our fellow humans.

I told them about the sign by the stairs. This, I said—this class, this university, our whole educational system—is our machine that kills fascists. It’s just as battered as Guthrie’s guitar, but it can still play a damn fine song.

And now, here we are again, on the eve of another election. The sign is still by the stairs. I’m still teaching first-year seminar. And my college, along with our students, is still playing a song. It can be hard to hear over the rising howl of fascism, but it’s there if you listen for it.

This year, may our nation choose the song over the howl. May it be a song of truth, hope, and all our best impulses. And may we sing it together.