“Intelligent Internationalization”: A 21st Century Imperative

Abstract

sionally donors that attempt to bypass priorities, developed internally and on academic grounds, etc. I have never seen an outstanding research university that does not enjoy academic freedom or a form of shared governance. One has to be clear. I am in no way implying that all people who share in governance should be university insiders; but internal academic voices need to be heard and considered. It should also be stressed that academic freedom— the freedom of teachers and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge without unreasonable interference—is not the same thing as political freedom, although they are practically twins. The ever-present challenges are obvious. Twenty years is not a very long time, and one can assume that the intellectual climate will not be subject to abrupt change. And that introduces another predictable challenge: professionalism and/or an increasing anti-intellectualism. In the United States, and elsewhere also, I am referring to the view that learning for its own sake is somehow a frivolous activity—perhaps a luxury and not deserving of support. From the point of view of the student, the purpose of education is job and career. That is how curriculum is frequently structured—accounting: Yes; computer science: a shouted Yes; Shakespeare: if there is a little spare time. From the point of view of the state what matters are “human resources to meet workforce needs.” Basic science needs support because the study of biology may lead to a cure of some disease, especially the diseases that afflict funders. There is some truth in all of these propositions, but why does it also imply that sociology is quite useless and that the humanities are not deserving of support? I am, of course, familiar with the more standard challenges to higher education: disruption caused by technology, high cost, massive open online courses making residential education a useless indulgence, and others. I do not dispute their great importance, but I add disinterested learning—for undergraduates we would call it liberal education—because it is only rarely mentioned. Yet, fundamental intellectual progress has most often started with disinterested investigators attempting to solve a problem, because it is fascinating and has not been done before. In the social sciences and humanities where problems are very rarely solved in definitive form, each generation of students and teachers needs its own reinterpretation of the big questions asked by these fields of study and investigation. These endeavors are the intellectual essence of research universities. “Intelligent Internationalization”: A 21st Century Imperative