Liberal Arts and Sciences in a Changing Region (original) (raw)

The Institution in the Mind_Final.May15.2016.docx

There is no shortage of works in higher education ready to diagnose the problems of modern universities and colleges and to predict their demise. It is fair to say that no institution, outside of Congress, comes up for more criticism today than schools and the charges levelled against colleges are often quite severe. 1 Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, for example, in their provocatively titled work, Higher Education?:

The Task of the Liberal Arts in Troubled Times

Heterodox Academy Blog, 2020

As universities reconvene after a summer of protests around race and policing in America, many of us are questioning what our response in higher education should be. As citizens we contribute in many ways, but as scholars the most important contributions we can make to a nation in turmoil lie not in the actions or even the stands that we take but in slowing down and asking the right questions, often the questions that no one is asking, listening especially to the voices that the prevailing opinion within our own social bubble is inclined to scorn and to exclude, and creating constructive dialogue between diverse and even clashing perspectives. Our task is to be more helpfully relevant precisely by stepping back and being more deeply reflective.

Chaos in the Academy- A History of and Challenges to Liberal Education

Georgetown University-Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2018

For more than twenty-five hundred years of recorded history the acquisition of knowledge has increased in quantity and complexity. The method of communicating that knowledge has evolved in difficulty along with the vagaries of politics, social evolution and revolution, and other quirks of the human condition. The two constants throughout have been the chaos accompanying humankind’s quest for knowledge, and the method of communicating the knowledge. Nowhere is chaos more discernible than in the university, where every possible dynamic is in play, as well as the increasing though not unprecedented intervention and intrusion by government, corporations, and other outside entities. Chaos resulting in change is not a bad state of affairs in the university. As society evolves for better or worse, the university evolves as well. Chaos in the university is also an interdisciplinary theory of apparent randomness of complex systems of education where there are underlying patterns, feedback lo...

Introduction to Section A: The Role of Higher Education in a Post-Conflict Society

Interchange, 2010

Post-conflict governments and international communities are confronted with major challenges of reconstruction, rehabilitation, and reconciliation of post-conflict societies. A lot of discussion is devoted to economic recovery and development, rebuilding physical infrastructure, recovery or rehabilitation of population at the individual level, and reformulation of social networks. Collier (2000) discusses the risk factors that led to the conflict (ethnic dominance, economic opportunities, and the extent of natural resource rents) and which threaten the post-conflict society. While these factors are highly contextual and there appear to be few blueprint solutions, the reestablishment of education contributes to normalization, democratization, and economic recovery. One might expect that higher education is an area of fast development because higher education institutions are traditionally centres of knowledge and research. However, Baldwin and James (2000) state that higher education is a prominent area among those which are resistant to change. The expectations of societies that education is a path and means that will bring a competitive advantage to a country in a global competitive arena has been emphasized in the last decades. Economic expansion and growth are the goals and tools of survival in the global markets. In order to accomplish this goal, universities and other higher education institutions are persuaded to change, become more responsive, and most of all, to better respond to the needs of students, stakeholders, and the environment in general. In a way it seems that higher education itself is increasingly becoming a commodity and sometimes reflective of a business or an enterprise. Such understanding of the role of higher education and the way it should be structured leads to marketization and privatization of higher education. Kenway, Bigum, and Fitzclarence (1993) note that "economic restructuring is the master discourse which informs all policy decisions and corporate management is the master discourse which informs all

review of todd giltin intellectualsflag.pdf

Todd Gitlin's The Intellectuals and the Flag is an important and thoughtful essay-style book organized around a tragic event, three heroes and a political message directed at fellow Americans and egalitarian academics of good faith. Gitlin is a prominent sociologist of media who now teaches at Columbia University; before this academic career he was during the 1960s one of the most visible leaders of the student radical and anti-war organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In the fall of 2001, Gitlin was writing a book on the various intellectual influences in his political and scholarly career, when two jet planes slammed into the World Trade Center about a mile from his Manhattan home. Like many New Yorkers and citizens of the world, he was moved by the courage and solidarity of average American citizens that terrible September morning. He put up an American flag on his balcony for a time, something unusual for a left intellectual and sociologist of his generation who had come to political maturity fighting against racism during the civil rights movement and protesting the brutal violence of the war in Vietnam. This small act provides the title for the book, and helps anchor Gitlin's political and intellectual reflections in a very personal way while leading us towards a discussion of global issues of common concern. After the solidarity and emotion of the immediate aftermath of 9/11 had subsided, however, Gitlin and his wife took down the American flag since American solidarity with the 9/11 victims had morphed into nationalist fervor over George W. Bush's war on terror. As a result, Gitlin's deeply felt American patriotism came into conflict, once again, with the politics and morality of American militarism and the blinders that distort this great nation's understanding of the world outside of its borders. Five years later, Gitlin produced this pithy little book of essays that discuss the sociology of David Riesman and C. Wright Mills, the literary and political insights of Irving Howe, and the political implications of patriotism, post-modernism and higher education. The book is largely focused around American political and academic debates, but the analysis holds many insights for Canadian sociologists and the general public. It is a serious intervention, worth thoughtful consideration.