Culture and the University

Abstract

In this article the author, who is the present Director-General of Unesco, gives both an overview of the development of links between culture and higher education in Europe and suggestions for the continued expansion of these links. Universities are called upon to assume major roles in the Plan of Action of the World Decade for Cultural Development (1988-1997) and in other Unesco activities, in Europe as well as worldwide. For the university has a role to play not only in preserving that which is best in European culture but in furthering cultural innovation and cultural dialogue in Europe itself and between Europe and other regions of the world. The university is equally well suited to bridge the gap between the technical and the humanistic cultures, humanizing the one while making the other more rigorous, as well as the gap between popular and academic culture. In fulfilling its role worldwide, as preserver, transmitter, synthesizer, and innovator in the realm of culture, the universities will contribut...