Academy is key resource, speaker says

Carol Geary Schneider expects more from the academy.

Schneider, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, delivered an eloquent speech last Thursday on how universities - their faculty and students - can, indeed should, help build a better democracy in the United States and throughout the world. Schneider was the final speaker in the Faculty Senate-sponsored “Rethinking the University” series that has run as part of the University of Washington’s Conversation About the Future initiative.

The widespread tendency to describe the university as a vehicle for economic advancement isn’t necessarily wrong, according to Schneider. But alone, it’s inadequate.

“Economic values are important. Technology is important,” she said. “But they’re not all that matter. It is equally essential to reassert the academy’s role and responsibility in developing what we might think of as civic or democratic capital in our society.

“It’s a central part of our university, and one we do not emphasize enough, to educate students who are both prepared and inspired to take personal and collective responsibility for the health, the integrity and, finally, the long-term viability of a democratic society.”

Her top priority is to reverse patterns of racial segregation and separation. She compared the United States to the fledgling democracy in South Africa and found disturbing similarities.

For example, Schneider said that while whites in the United States are among the world’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens, racial minorities are more frequently living in conditions similar to those in many third world countries.

“Our situation is not the same as South Africa, but it’s not fundamentally different either,” she told the Kane Hall crowd of about 100. “We remain a society both stratified and divided by centuries of racial separation.”

Another priority for Schneider is to embrace racial and ethnic differences, rather than trying to enforce homogeneity on society. She made a fine distinction between tolerance and true appreciation, saying that college undergraduates should have to consider traditional coursework from nontraditional perspectives.

“The fundamental moral challenge we confront at the turn of the 21^st century is the continual struggle all around the world to create viable democratic societies in which ethnic and cultural diversity are considered a resource and not a threat.”

The university can be responsive to this challenge in five ways, she said, paraphrasing five recommendations from the AACU. The university should respond: