Challenges and Opportunities for Higher Education

Abstract

The builders of the modern university expected that the research conducted within it would solve moral problems. The research would provide authoritative instruction on how to live and how to shape a more perfect society. But within a generation, it became clear that this expectation would not easily be fulfilled. Indeed, many of the faculties housed in these new universities were ready to wash their hands of moral concerns. The university faced a crisis: Did it serve to advance morality? And if so, how? The success of the university in producing knowledge and training skilled professionals has compensated for and masked the moral crisis. But nonetheless, the problem of morality continues to plague American higher education. Universities have been unable either to fully incorporate morality or to comfortably abandon a moral mission. This is the unresolved legacy of the creation of the modern research university. (Reuben, 2000, pp. 72–73)