Abstract
AbstractThis essay is organized around four questions, the answers to which should, in my judgment, be helpful in thinking about universities now and in a post-pandemic world. My goal is to contribute to discussions and actions that result in the creation of democratic civic universities.
Highlights
In 1947, as a 19-yearold freshman at Morehouse College, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote an article for the campus newspaper on the “Purpose of Education” that powerfully captures this idea
In a paper delivered to the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Jane Addams, the activist, feminist founder of Hull House settlement in Chicago’s poverty-stricken immigrant 19th ward neighbourhood, claimed that it was essential to “attempt to test the value of human knowledge by action” and “to apply knowledge to life.”
Except for the University of Pennsylvania, was founded largely to educate ministers and religiously orthodox men capable of creating good communities built on religious denominational principles
Summary
The Council of Europe identified four purposes for higher education: preparation for sustainable employment, preparing students for active citizenship, personal development, and creating a broad advanced knowledge base through stimulating research and innovation. The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts have led me to see these purposes as part of a larger purpose of developing and maintaining good democratic communities and societies, characterised by participation, cooperation and a commitment to the public good. This involves the education of students for democratic citizenship and the creation of knowledge to advance the human condition. “We must remember,” he wrote, “that intelligence is not enough.
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