I wish my university had had the clarity of thought and conviction in its mission to create a document like this in the heat of the 1960s. Today I cannot think of any university "faithful to its mission" in the way they describe:
" A university faithful to its mission will provide enduring challenges to social values, policies, practices, and institutions. By design and by effect, it is the institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones. In brief, a good university, like Socrates, will be upsetting.
The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic. It is, to go back once again to the classic phrase, a community of scholars. To perform its mission in the society, a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures."
Topol has been a sellout on this file for a while now.
When they explicitly acknowledge that an “institutional statement” ought to be guided by “consensus” and “expert opinion” is to tacitly admit it to merely be a religious utterance rather than any falsifiable evidence based position.
This is so important, and tells me everything I need to know about the NEJM today. I’m a big fan of Verghese’s fiction - seems he forgot to switch back to working in the real world when co-authoring the published piece.
Killer. You nailed the entire ontological issue that keeps happening over and over and over:
'The perspective piece demonstrates a corporatist mindset which places the values and importance of the corporation above those of its members. This is backwards. The purpose of the academic institution is to support the human beings that comprise its faculty, trainees, and students. An “institution” is not a human entity. It cannot have an opinion or a voice on any matter. As such, it’s “voice” will necessarily be that of its leaders.'
These are not really democratic processes yet people, because they don't know what real democracy looks like (I vote, right?? gee I must be in a democracy), will accept such pseudo-democratic attempts to parasite off their good will.
Until we change this approach, nothing else will change.
A wonderful and much needed article. Unfortunately that horse has left the barn. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Much like Washington D.C., almost all universities are "donor occupied territories". They have long ago forsaken their noble mission---the pursuit of truth. Open censure and denial of tenure are powerful weapons. Should they fail to silence a heretic,cuttinng off all funding will usually do the job. Read the story of the destruction of Peter Duesberg to get a full flavor for how this is done.
Agree - thanks again for bringing these issues forward. Academic institutions should be encouraging well thought out/researched/supported opinions and recommendations and fostering high level debate for the common good, not suppressing them in deference to political winds.
My, how things have changed in the academy. Academics should see the correlation between how the principles in the Kalven Report have been discarded and how academic institutions have fallen in the estimation of the public. Correlation is not (always) causation, but only an academic could ignore this one. Great article.
++ The Kalven Report: https://provost.uchicago.edu/reports/report-universitys-role-political-and-social-action
I wish my university had had the clarity of thought and conviction in its mission to create a document like this in the heat of the 1960s. Today I cannot think of any university "faithful to its mission" in the way they describe:
" A university faithful to its mission will provide enduring challenges to social values, policies, practices, and institutions. By design and by effect, it is the institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones. In brief, a good university, like Socrates, will be upsetting.
The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic. It is, to go back once again to the classic phrase, a community of scholars. To perform its mission in the society, a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures."
Topol has been a sellout on this file for a while now.
When they explicitly acknowledge that an “institutional statement” ought to be guided by “consensus” and “expert opinion” is to tacitly admit it to merely be a religious utterance rather than any falsifiable evidence based position.
And that is absolutely woke bunk.
This is so important, and tells me everything I need to know about the NEJM today. I’m a big fan of Verghese’s fiction - seems he forgot to switch back to working in the real world when co-authoring the published piece.
Killer. You nailed the entire ontological issue that keeps happening over and over and over:
'The perspective piece demonstrates a corporatist mindset which places the values and importance of the corporation above those of its members. This is backwards. The purpose of the academic institution is to support the human beings that comprise its faculty, trainees, and students. An “institution” is not a human entity. It cannot have an opinion or a voice on any matter. As such, it’s “voice” will necessarily be that of its leaders.'
These are not really democratic processes yet people, because they don't know what real democracy looks like (I vote, right?? gee I must be in a democracy), will accept such pseudo-democratic attempts to parasite off their good will.
Until we change this approach, nothing else will change.
A wonderful and much needed article. Unfortunately that horse has left the barn. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Much like Washington D.C., almost all universities are "donor occupied territories". They have long ago forsaken their noble mission---the pursuit of truth. Open censure and denial of tenure are powerful weapons. Should they fail to silence a heretic,cuttinng off all funding will usually do the job. Read the story of the destruction of Peter Duesberg to get a full flavor for how this is done.
Agree - thanks again for bringing these issues forward. Academic institutions should be encouraging well thought out/researched/supported opinions and recommendations and fostering high level debate for the common good, not suppressing them in deference to political winds.
My, how things have changed in the academy. Academics should see the correlation between how the principles in the Kalven Report have been discarded and how academic institutions have fallen in the estimation of the public. Correlation is not (always) causation, but only an academic could ignore this one. Great article.