Supplement for
Fifth Meeting of MSC Spring 2022
What Do
Colleges and Universities Owe Democracy?
Copyright © 2022
Bruce W. Hauptli
A.
Discussion:
I have extensively
revised my Supplement on Deliberative Democracy and would like you to look at
the new version:
An Introduction to "Deliberative Democracy" and
Democratic Education especially the new discussion on Democratic
Education and the difficulties in implementing it as well as links at the end
regarding “civics education” in primary
and secondary schools.
B. Summary from Chapters Three and Four
Creating Knowledge, Checking Power,
and Purposeful Pluralism:
Creating
Knowledge and Checking Power:
pp. 23-24 Chapter Three
“considers universities as fact-producing and fact-checking institutions.
Liberal democracies need reliable knowledge and a shared sense of truth
for citizens to make informed decisions as voters and community members, for
legislators to develop rational public policy, and for holding institutions
like the free press, leaders, and governments to account.
With the founding of our first research universities in the 1870s,
American higher education has been among
the most important institutions for credentialing expertise; for conducting
advanced research; and for unearthing, preserving, and disseminating facts.
In time, democratic societies came to embrace universities as beacons of
factual truth, and government support of research across the natural sciences,
social sciences, and humanities has unleashed countless discoveries and
strengthened the university’s role as an anchor for democratic life.
Yet this relationship has frayed in recent years, as questions from
within and without the university have accumulated about the objectivity,
legitimacy, and accuracy of the academy as a locus of truth and facts.
pp. 143-184
a historical discussion of how colleges and universities “create knowledge” and
“check power:”
pp. 143-144 The genius of
combining an undergraduate college, a graduate school, and a research facility
into one institution was that it created an educational ecosystem in which
pioneering scholars and scientists could be trained in universities, venture new
discoveries, bring those discoveries into the world, and infuse future
generations with a deep appreciation for knowledge and inquiry.
This arrangement, in short, achieved a
critical mass of teaching, credentialing, research, and publication, with each
function feeding and strengthening the others. Although
the German university had been its inspiration and the American college the
foundation upon which it was built, Hopkins adapted and combined these forms in
a singular way to create an institutional type unique in the modern world.
A cornerstone of this new arrangement was the independence of the
university—and, critically, the research its faculty conducted—from external
interference. In an era when more than
80 percent of all liberal arts colleges claimed a denominational affiliation
(and tensions between an ascendant science and a defensive theology were high)
and with the nation still reeling from the unprecedented political rupture of
the Civil War and the Reconstruction era, the first trustees of Johns Hopkins
were anxious that both the president and the institution be free from what they
called “sectarian bias and political spirit.”
Important factors in all of this
were the founding of University Presses and journals [p. 145]; professional
associations [p. 149]; and use of nonpolitical funding reviews by organizations
like the National Defense Research Committee, NSF, NIH SSRP, and NEH [p.
150-156].
However there is also a history
of “political” challenges to such research: State and Federal
Committees on Un-American Activities [pp
156]; “science wars: structuralism, post-structuralism & postmodernism (Kuhn,
Lacan, Barthes, Derrida, and “Sokal’s Hoak” [158-162]:
162-163: the science wars exposed
deep divisions at the heart of the post−Cold War university, raising serious
questions about the limitations and contingency of scientific inquiry, about
what methods and knowledge it was legitimate to interrogate, and about the role
politics and culture played in academic research.
164-166 the consequences of
private industry funding (moving away from “basic research,” consequences for
open and objective research (conflicts of interest, journals needing to require
documents).
169-178 Daniels makes a lot of
“problem of repeatability” in scientific experiments [169].
Here he is being much too quick—as he has been throughout this
discussion. He says scientific
experiments must be repeatable, and this is no more true than that science is
based on observation. Observation
is important, but it must be guided by theories and oriented toward testing.
In the testing verification (or confirmation) is valuable, but
disconfirmation, discovery of error and anomalies is yet more useful.
They lead to modifications of theories.
Repeating results is helpful, but if a hypothesis can be supported by
differing experiments that can count more than repetition!
176-185 He discusses the “open
access science movement” which wants to undercut the monopolies of expensive and
restrictive peer review, and discusses the changes brought about in the COVID-19
research procedures:
p. 181 Driving these innovations
was an open, collaborative approach to academic work that the urgency and scope
of the pandemic necessitated. From the start, scientists were sharing the
results of their research instantaneously on Twitter, Slack, and a number of
collaborative scientific portals that are used to collect genomic sequences and
anonymized clinical data.
p. 183-184 …it is now almost
undeniable that a more open approach to science, one that makes the barriers
between scientists and between scientists and the public more permeable,
presents a historic opportunity to renew the promises of knowledge creation and
diffusion that have inhered in the modern university since 1876.
pp. 185-188 His conclusion of all
of this is that “What is needed is openness with guardrails.”
Purposeful
Pluralism:
Chapter Four addresses [p. 24]
“…the question of diversity and speech on campus.
Colleges and universities are microcosms of pluralistic, multiethnic
democracy that have the capacity to model for students how to interact with one
another across a vast spectrum of experiences to forge democratic compromise,
consensus, and will. Our campuses
today are far more diverse than in past eras, yet we do not fully or adequately
encourage the interactions and exchanges across differences that are
foundational to a healthy democracy.
In a multitude of ways, universities have essentially given students a
pass to opt out of encounters with people dissimilar from themselves.
Higher education has rightly focused on promoting diversity in
admissions, but it has neglected to foster pluralism once students arrive, which
has given rise to an undercurrent of silencing and a dearth of substantive
debate. The answer to this dilemma,
I argue, lies in a move toward a more
purposeful pluralism on our campuses, undergirded by policies that drive
students to have more encounters with those unlike themselves, and that then
help deepen and enrich these interactions.”
pp. 187-218 as was the case in
all the other chapters, there is an initial discussion of the importance of
diversity for democracies, and a discussion of factors which encourage and
broaden it a well as those which diminish it (187-193).
It is followed by a long historical discussion of how college and
universities initially provided students the opportunity to leave their local
communities and meet others from: other communities, religions classes, races,
genders, and nations pp. 193-217).
He notes that p. 195 “unlike the previous chapters of this book, which have
focused on admissions, curricula, and research, this one turns to the less
formal social interactions of campus life, to those moments of contact—sometimes
spontaneous and serendipitous, sometimes structured and deliberate—across the
unfamiliar that have occurred on campuses for two centuries.”
pp 217-218 “as we struggle to
realize the promises of multiethnic democracy, eruptions of anger, resentment,
fear, and violence by those who feel they are being displaced ripple throughout
our society. As universities
continue to walk the path of making our campuses more racially and ethnically
diverse, and see increased representation from first-generation students and
others, it is imperative that we ensure these voices enter the conversation of
the academy. History and science
teach us that this task requires purpose and intent.
It will not happen on its own.”
On pp. 218-231 he discusses recent efforts to facilitate diversity
(roommate selection processes, dining options, club and social group options,
and he issues that arise regarding invited speakers).
This leads him to the section on
“Purposeful Pluralism:”
pp. 232-233 “diversity
is being invited to the party. Inclusion
is being asked to dance,” writes social commentator Vernā Myers.
Universities have been so focused on the
invitations that they have allowed themselves to be blinded to the dance.
They have devoted far more attention to
creating a diverse class of students and minimizing the tensions that inevitably
emerge (sometimes at the risk of infantilizing students who are in fact young
adults) than promoting substantive exchanges across that diversity once they
arrive on campus or modeling how to engage perspectives or statements that are
unfamiliar or uncomfortable. As campuses
become more diverse and new voices accumulate, this deficit will be all the more
glaring. I want to propose that what we
have seen play out on campuses in the past several years is not yet a crisis but
rather a steady, unremitting beat of frustration at the state of speech whose
remedy will require more than a referee. What
our universities need is a more encompassing, affirmative conception of the
university’s responsibilities toward pluralism that is built for this moment,
one that dares to reach beyond admissions (on the one hand) and academic freedom
(on the other) to embrace our capacities as educators and community builders.
At a point when so many in our society
feel more distant from each other than eve r, we should be deliberately
designing campuses with an eye to engagement and dialogue.
We should be working toward a more
purposeful pluralism.
He quickly discusses efforts by
universities to study their physical and residential spaces, roommate selection
procedure, and first year courses so as to promote opportunities to interact,
connect, and x connect students across difference.”
Then he claims [p. 238]: “Our
universities should be at the forefront of modeling a healthy, multiethnic
democracy.”
But so many colleges and
universities have a mission of educating students in the theology of a religion,
the intricacies of a profession, the preservation of culture....
In conclusion he says: p. 241
“throughout this book, I have sought to develop a holistic mapping of the role
that the university plays in liberal democracy by focusing on four key
functions: promoting social mobility, educating for citizenship, checking power
with facts and knowledge, and modeling and promoting pluralism. In each of these
functional areas, I showed how universities in the United States evolved to take
on these responsibilities and how well (or poorly) they are requiting them
today.” He then summarizes his proposals on pp. 241-244:
ending legacy admisssions
institute a democracy requirement
for graduation to better educate citizens,
embrace “open science” with
guardrails
reimagine student encounters on
campus
Midcoast Senior College Website
Email: hauptli@fiu.edu
Last revised: 04/06/22