Universities as Unsettling Institutions

By Jonathan R. Cole*

In a brilliant, concise Report to the University of Chicago faculty in 1967, the Kalven Committee(i) concluded that "by design and by effect, [the university]... is the institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones... a good university...will be unsettling." If a university's fundamental mission is to create and disseminate knowledge, how is it to foster those ambitions while preventing the natural tendency to suppress ideas that question existing knowledge and power relationships in the society? It does so by articulating, reinforcing, and defending itself against attacks on the core university values of academic freedom and free inquiry.

To many members of the educated public, academic freedom is nothing more than a protective shield that scholars and scientists hide behind to avoid criticism and censure for their offensive speech or research that challenges existing beliefs and dogma. And for that same public, academic tenure represents an inappropriate structural mechanism that protects radical thoughts or incompetence(ii). Such beliefs betray a gross misunderstanding of the history of efforts to suppress free inquiry at universities and colleges, and a lack of understanding of the conditions needed for the growth of knowledge.

Properly understood, academic freedom is as Louis Menand, the Harvard literary scholar, has said: "...the key legitimating concept of the entire [academic] enterprise." It is the mechanism that establishes control and authority over the critical decisions in the university. It places in the hands of highly trained, competent professors, who have met standards set by the disciplines, the power to create criteria for entrance into the profession, to establish what is valued as "high quality work," to determine hiring and promotion standards, to construct examinations, and to determine the content taught in classes run by those professors. Academic tenure, if properly accompanied by rigorous standards linked to promotion, is the final defense against the power of external authorities and those inside the university to purge ideas from the community that they find opprobrious. It should not be surprising therefore that during perilous times the effort to fire or censure faculty members at colleges and universities focuses on the non-tenured and adjunct faculty.

Great teachers challenge the biases of their students and colleagues. They present unsettling ideas and dare others to rebut them and to defend their own beliefs in a coherent and principled manner. The best of America's universities and colleges push and pull at the walls of orthodoxy and reject politically correct thinking. In this process, students and professors may sometimes feel intimidated, overwhelmed, and confused. But it is by working through this process that they learn to think better and more clearly for themselves. The goal of academic freedom is to establish an environment in which it is possible for the inquisitive mind to flourish.

If we are not to stifle the thoughts of those at universities and colleges who hold unpopular views, then we ought to embrace a number of important principles. The university cannot and should not attempt to decide what ideas or perspective are appropriate for the classroom. For one student, a professor's ideas may represent repugnant stereotypes or efforts at intimidation; for another, the same ideas may represent profound challenges to ostensibly settled issues. If we place fetters on the open marketplace of ideas, who is to be cast as the "Grand Inquisitor?" Furthermore, the university is not a place where we exclusively house or train the kind of scientist or scholar who advises the prince - those currently in control of government. Some will voluntarily do so, but it is not the point or the rationale of universities to furnish such advice, nor to have the thematic pursuits of inquiry in the university shaped by the interests of the prince.

Finally, no one speaks "for" the university. There is, in fact, no "university position" on essential matters of science and public affairs. The university does not decide which ideas are good and bad, which are right or wrong. That is up for constant debate and deliberation. For a president, provost, or Trustee to speak "for" the university only serves to stifle debate, alienate those whose views differ from those of the institution's leaders, and create a chilling effect on free discourse.

Unsettling by nature, university culture is also highly conservative. It demands evidence before accepting novel challenges to existing theories and methods. The university ought to be viewed in terms of a fundamental interdependence between the liberality of its intellectual life and the conservatism of its methodological demands. Because the university encourages discussion of even the most radical ideas, it must set its standards for establishing "facts" at a high level. We permit almost any idea to be put forward - but only because we demand arguments and evidence to back up the ideas we debate and because we set the bar of proof at such a high level. Those two components - tolerance for unsettling ideas and insistence on rigorous skepticism about all ideas - create an essential tension at the heart of American universities and colleges. They will not thrive without both components operating effectively and simultaneously. Other national systems of higher learning, like China's, will have to fully comprehend and internalize this necessary tension if their universities are to achieve true greatness.

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i. The Committee was chaired by the great legal scholar, Harry Kalven, Jr. and included a distinguished set of faculty members, including Nobel Prize economist, George Stigler, and the distinguished African American history professor, John Hope Franklin.
ii. Would the public also hold similar views toward tenure for federal judges, and does the public understand why protection of federal judges from political influence is essential for the proper functioning of the federal judiciary?

* Jonathan R. Cole is the John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University and was Provost and Dean of Faculties at Columbia University from 1989 to 2003. A wider discussion of these issues can be found in The Great American University: Its Rise To Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Rose; Why It Must Be Protected (PublicAffairs, 2010)

Freedom: Just Another Word or a Way of Life?

There's been a lot of attention paid to freedom lately. Jonathan Franzen's new book with that title has made a big splash, of course. And, there's been much debate about the freedom of a group to place a mosque next to the 9/11 site in New York City and the freedom of a pastor to burn copies of the Koran.

But what exactly is freedom, anyway?

We live in a nation that fancies itself "the land of the free and the home of the brave," so I suppose all of us have at least a minimal understanding of the concept. What's often missing, however, is an equal level of understanding of how freedom happens.

You aren't free if you live in a free nation. Not really. You may enjoy the benefits of freedom in such a happy situation, but you aren't being free. You see, freedom is a noun achieved with a verb. In other words, you have to exercise your freedom in order truly to be free.

In a democracy, that means caring enough to vote, to participate in the governance of the nation. In a career, exercising one's freedom means caring enough to act on your own behalf, to participate in the governance of your career.

A recent poll by Time magazine found that over two-thirds of Americans don't think their fellow countrymen and women are meeting their citizenship responsibilities. Sadly, more than a few Americans are also falling short in meeting their obligation to their careers.

Becoming an Active Citizen of the Workplace

As you know if you've been following our journey through my book Work Strong, we can either be the master of our career or its victim. There are no other choices. And, the only way to take charge of your career is to acquire the skills and knowledge of effective career self-management. That expertise enables you to act on your own behalf and to do so in a way that serves your best interests.

I see that kind of "career activism" beginning to happen in the posts on the HigherEdJobs blog. People are asking their peers about this tack in the higher education field or that one, about working for a for-profit university or building a career around adjunct positions, for example. If we've learned anything at all in the aftermath of the Great Recession, it's that such individual initiative is the only form of renewable energy that we can count on today.

There's another factor to this dynamic, however, that we should also recognize. I address it in the final three exercises of the Career Fitness regimen:
· Work with winners
· Stretch your soul
· Pace yourself.

The common thread that runs through those three activities is an acceptance of the fragility of our freedom. Though guaranteed in our nation's founding documents, it is not invulnerable or inevitable. Therefore, we must protect our freedom by working only for employers that respect our talent, by sharing our talent with our community and our planet, and by calibrating the use of our talent for a lengthy (and satisfying) career. Taking those three steps is as much a part of building a healthy career as attaining an advanced degree or being published in your field.

Thanks for reading,
Peter

Unleash the Leader Within

Exercises III and IV of the Career Work-In involve exercising your skills and increasing your flexibility -- your range of motion allowing you to cover more job descriptions. One of the strategies used to increase your flexibility is unleashing your inner leader. Even in turbulent times, hiring managers are looking for leaders to fill the positions they have. The same rings true in higher education as hiring committees search for the best candidates -- the leaders in the pack will be selected first.

Being a leader in higher education is more than holding department or committee chairmanships. It is about being the go-to person in a particular field, being reliable and a proactive problem solver. One way to go about being a leader in your field is to let people outside your department know what you are doing. Something as simple as starting a blog about your discipline where you discuss issues, news/research, and how you are bringing this alive in your work will gain you attention. Do you have instructional strategies that are particularly effective? Share them. Do you have a different take on a topic than is commonly held? Share it. There are professors who use their blogs as test areas for future research and papers.

A way to be viewed as a leader in higher education is by being the go-to person for comments and ideas. Many colleges and universities have media inquiry links on their websites for members of the media to find experts who are willing to give interviews or opinions to the press. Get yourself on that list. Finally, be a proactive problem solver. If your university or department is running into issues that require creative solutions, share your opinion and work through the problems.

No matter if you are currently in-between positions or sitting as a tenured professor, your career can benefit by establishing yourself as a leader. Like Weddle mentions in his book, Work Strong, "...we all have the DNA to become a leader, to infuse our approach to employment with a commitment to serving others, to imbue the purpose of our work with a more inclusive, more impactive vision." Put yourself out there and others will take note of your leadership.

All of Our Eggs in Too Few Baskets?

America's premier research universities are the gears turning our nation's economic engine. Dotted across the landscape of America are great institutions where professors, fellows, and students are working to better our lives. Universities, both public and private, are responsible for researching and developing many of the technological advances we have experienced in the past 75 years. These advancements are not cheap; research and development facilities are expensive investments. As a result, those institutions with greater financial support are able to continue to drive innovation better than those who are lacking in great endowments.

In The Great American University, Cole writes that large endowments are one of the essential components to a great institution (1). As with many things in our society, success breeds success, and likewise a large endowment is associated with perceived quality. Right now, our nation's universities are seeing the greatest disparity between endowments than ever before. The top dozen or so universities have endowment holdings that far exceed the remaining 400 research universities combined (2). When you separate out the public and private institutions, the disparity among the top dozen is even greater with privates such as Harvard and Yale out-pacing public schools such as University of Michigan and University of Texas easily. Competition for resources is fierce and this disparity in endowment size gives a few institutions a great advantage. The fruit of the collective research labor from the top universities is great, and Cole mentions many of those achievements throughout his book. However, what happens when we shrink the number of successful research universities from several hundred to just a few dozen, or worse, just the current top ten?

This brings to light the question: are we placing too much money and resources into too few institutions? What happens when we realize we have lost a lot of great talent to foreign institutions who are willing to throw big dollars at research and development? To shrink our nation's ability to innovate and drive technological advances is committing economic suicide. Forcing people to leave the country to conduct research or dissuading future researchers from even entering these fields is not a sound long-term plan for our nation's success. What measures, if any, do you think should be taken by the top universities to lessen this disparity of wealth?

1. Page 113, The Great American University.
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/education/04endowment.html
3. 2008 Endowment numbers, comparing private vs public universities: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/04/20/education/edlife/20080420_EDULIFE_PRINCETON_GRAPHIC.html