Intellectual Excellence Research Articles

Is Scientific Paradigm Important for Pharmacy Education?

One of the most profound changes in higher education in the last century has been the rapid differentiation and proliferation of academic disciplines. While generally welcomed and inevitable, some scholars in the early 1900s argued that disciplinary specialization translated into “scholarly disintegration” of American academics and a decline in the standards of intellectual excellence. As a result, many attempts have been made to understand how disciplines differ; the most notable of these has been to differentiate preparadigmatic from paradigmatic disciplines. The concept of paradigm considers the degree of consensus or sharing of beliefs within a scientific field about which problems require investigation, which methods are appropriate to their study, which findings are considered “proven,” and which concepts should be taught to undergraduate and graduate students. For the last 50 years, studies have examined the practical implications of disciplinary progress. This paper explores the concept of paradig...

Newman's Challenge to the Contemporary Academy

Newman challenges the contemporary academy by raising afresh the question of what constitutes intellectual excellence. J. M. Roberts' diagnosis of the postliberal world leads to the conclusion that the very idea of intellectual excellence is being held hostage by materialism and moral disintegration. In the midst of the pluralism that this disintegration generates, the voice of libertarianism seeks to dominate the debate. It either sidesteps defining excellence, as Bill Readings observes, or it elevates individual rights over an academic freedom subordinated to the pursuit and advancement of knowledge. Newman's voice joins this pluralism, entering into a fruitful collision with it. He reminds us that intellectual excellence cannot be adequately understood without grounding it in the true and the good and considering how human rationality appropriates this ground. He reminds us that conscience links intellectual and moral excellence into an indispensable reciprocity. He reminds us that religion and theology mediate this excellence because they constitute its condition of possibility. Committed to this view of intellectual excellence, religious sponsorship sustains for posterity Newman's idea of a university, even as his idea defends reason against reduction, superstition, and hypocrisy.

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships: A Missed Opportunity

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships: A Missed Opportunity

Development of the facial midline.

"Intellectual excellence lies in having faith in the observation of apparently nontranscendental and unimportant facts. To observe an anatomic element calmly, with an open, analytical spirit, and with spiritual freedom, can lead to an explosive vortex of new knowledge."-Miguel Orticochea, M.D.(1) Traditional descriptive embryology based upon the interaction of frontonasal, lateral nasal, and medial nasal prominences is incapable of explaining the three-dimensional development of the facial midline. The internal structure of the nose and that of the oronasal midline can best be explained by the presence of paired A fields originating from the prechordal mesendoderm, associated with the nasal and optic placodes, supplied by the internal carotid artery, and sharing a common genetic coding with the prosomeres of the forebrain. Mesial drift of these fields leads to fusion of their medial walls; this in turn provides bilateral functional matrics within which form the orbits ethmoids, lacrimals, turbinates, premaxillae, vomerine bones, and the cartilages of the nose. This two-part paper reports six lines of evidence supporting the field theory model of facial development: (1) An apparent watershed exists in the midline of the base between the territories of the internal and external carotid systems. Isolation of the ICA in injected fetal specimens confirmed that the demarcation was distinct and restricted to the embryonic nasal capsule. (2) Field theory explains the developmental anatomy of the contents of the nasal capsule. (3) The neuromeric model of CNS development provides a genetic basis for the anatomy and behavior of fields. (4) Mutants for the Dlx5 gene demonstrate A field deletion patterns. These experiments relate the nasal placode to the structures of the A fields. (5) Separate regions of the original nasal placodes give rise to neurons, which are dedicated to separate sensory and endocrine systems. The A fields constitute the pathways by which these neurons reach the brain. (6) Non-cleft lip-related cleft palate, holoprosencephaly, and the Kallmann syndrome are clinical models that demonstrate the effects of anatomic disturbances within the A fields.

From centrally mandated to locally demanded service: the Russian case

This paper first highlights recent changes in the environment of Russian universities and considers how institutions of higher education (HEIs) are responding to the challenges and opportunities of the new environment through drawing on case studies of three relatively successful universities. Secondly, it considers how the recent changes, by pushing universities to seek new and more locally based sources of revenue, have lead to a significant modification of the concept and practice of university service. While the Russian university in the Soviet period was expected by virtue of the collectivist ideology to supply service to the people, these activities tended to come from above as gifts to society. In the new environment, service is both increasing and is becoming more sensitive to local needs. The overall effect may be to energize the Russian university, but there is considerable concern that it may at the same time erode the long-standing tradition of intellectual excellence.

Feminist Studies: Bridging the Gap Between Job Markets and Intellectual Excellence?

Feminist Studies: Bridging the Gap Between Job Markets and Intellectual Excellence?

Making the City Safe for Philosophy:Nicomachean Ethics, Book 10

The perennially problematic relationship between philosophy and politics, though recognized as an important theme in the Platonic corpus, is virtually ignored in the writings of his most famous student. This is not due to the absence of the problem but the deftness of Aristotle's treatment. Attentiveness to both the requirements of moral-political life and the nature of philosophy gives rise to the rhetorical design of theNicomachean Ethics.In the final book of theEthicsAristotle establishes the value of philosophy by placing his argument within a broader context that reveals to what extent moral and intellectual excellence can be regarded as similar and even complementary. Without actually denying the existence of a fundamental tension between the requirements of philosophy and civic virtue, Aristotle succeeds in winning an at-least-partial acceptance of philosophy on the part of those who are (or will be) most responsible for the welfare of the city.

How Academic Program Review Can Foster Intellectual Conformity and Stifle Diversity of Thought and Method

Among institutions in Western society, the university has been one of the most persistent and vociferous in its espousal of noble ideals. Though these ideals which date back to the Middle Ages and are proclaimed in university mottoes, mission statements, and promotional literature vary slightly from one institution orjurisdiction to another, they typically include such values as intellectual excellence, honesty and courage, moral purity, disinterested pursuit of knowledge, and unfettered search for truth. Like other agents that espouse commitment to noble ideals, the university has encountered practical difficulties in pursuing them: the problems arising from what Isaiah Berlin [ 10] refers to as the inevitable clash of different values; the fallibility of human character; and the conflict among differing interpretations of what is right, good, or true, combined with intolerance of one for another's interpretations. For example, excellence has sometimes been thought to conflict with freedom of inquiry. Deficiencies of moral character have been revealed with alarming frequency in reports of fudged experimental results. A recent book by an eminent historian [26] describes the average American university historian as manipulative, mean-minded, provincial, and envious. In reviewing a book which asserts that the most important social function of the university should be to provide moral leadership in society, Clark Kerr observes that there is no evidence that morality is higher on campus than off, and he suggests that

Africa and the Nobel Prize

By BERNTH LINDFORS When Swedish Academy awarded 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature to Wole Soyinka, it did far more than honor one more literary giant who had produced outstanding work an ideal tendency.1 It also signaled to world at large that prize itself was no longer entirely an intramural Aryan affair, monopolized by authors from Europe and European diaspora. True, there had been earlier winners from India and Japan, but these exceptions had come from parts of world long recognized for their cultural achievements. Soyinka was first black laureate, but more important, he was first from black Africa, a region that Europe had been accustomed to dismissing as devoid of advanced civilization. Soyinka himself was alert to symbolic significance of award: have not been able to accept prize on a personal level, he said; accept it as a tribute to heritage of African literature, which very little known in West. I regard it as a statement of respect and acknowledgement of long years of denigration and ignorance of heritage on which all of us have been trying to build.2 Whether such restitution was real intention of Swedish Academy, only time will tell, but certainly Eurocentric bias in previous Nobel Prize selections cannot be denied. Before World War II all but one of awards in literature had gone to European and American writers, nearly one-quarter of them Scandinavians. Following war, and particularly since sixties, awards have been distributed more widely; but even occasional winners from Guatemala, Colombia, and Australia have been authors who have expressed themselves creatively in European languages. Soyinka himself writes almost exclusively in English. So while Swedish Academy in recent years has been adventurous enough to explore fresh literary terrain, it has not yet managed to rid itself of a pronounced preference for authors who employ familiar European tongues. Of course, it would be exceedingly difficult for any jury of eighteen, even with help of an army of translators, to monitor literary production in all languages of world. Nonetheless, until members of Swedish Academy make an honest effort to do so, their judgments will continue to be open to charges of bias, chauvinism, parochialism, and outright racism. The Nobel Prize in Literature will still be perceived by other language communities not as an international honor for which their best authors are eligible but as an instrument of European cultural domination, available only to a select few who betray their mother tongue and adopt an alien, metropolitan medium of communication. A Nigerian critic, Chinweizu, has already ridiculed the conceit that a gaggle of Swedes, all by themselves, should pronounce on intellectual excellence for whole wide world. 3 The Nobel Prize, he has argued, is neither a world prize nor a reward for excellence; rather, it a western European reward for those who render specific kinds of service to Western power and Western global hegemony. ... A Nobel award to any African, therefore, not a matter for rejoicing.4 Such disgruntled reactions notwithstanding, it probably makes sense for a small academy based in Europe to limit its awards to writers working in international languages that at least a few of its members can read without intervention of translators. Otherwise jurors would have to rely entirely on secondhand contact with texts and on secondhand opinions regarding their literary value. The problem one of assessing quality vicariously. That problem aggravated when there a shortage of experts available to offer authoritative advice. In Africa institutions for promoting international awareness of local literatures simply do not exist. There no Tanzanian Academy to counsel Swedish Academy on merits of authors who have contributed masterworks to Swahili literature. The rare individuals and groups who study literatures written in Yoruba, Hausa, Sesuto, Xhosa, Zulu, Shona, and three dozen other African languages lack a proper vehicle for transmitting nominations to Stockholm each year. Some of them cannot find adequate means to disseminate their literary views even within Africa, for indigenous outlets for academic appraisals of Africanlanguage literatures are scarce and tend to be restricted to a tiny audience of specialists at one or two local campuses. Those who succeed in publishing critical studies abroad are usually foreign scholars separated by space, race, class, and culture from authors they comment upon. Given these crippling limitations and handicaps, these infrastructural constraints on spread of African literary reputations, it appears unlikely that anyone writing only in an African language will ever be considered seriously for Nobel Prize in Literature.

Some 15 young scientists win student awards

Winners of the Materials Research Society's Graduate Student Awards for 1984 will address nine of the technical symposia. A record number of award winners were selected from an unprecedented avalanche of applications-more than three times the number submitted last year.“A significantly greater number of graduate students will participate in this year's Fall Meeting than ever have before,” says Kathleen C. Taylor, Treasurer, who initiated the awards program for students. “Applications were received from a number of academic institutions which hadn't participated in previous competitions, indicating that the program is achieving one of its principal goals, which is to encourage the broadest possible participation in our meetings.”The awards are made to outstanding students recommended by their major professor who will present papers judged superior by the chairmen of the MRS symposia. Thus, explains Kathy, “the students selected have demonstrated the intellectual excellence, technical competence, and hard work required to achieve distinguished research results.”The award winners and the titles of the papers they will present are:Thomas C. Banwell, applied physics, California Institute of Technology; “Ion Induced Mixing in Ni—SiO2 Bilayers.”Bobbi Roop, physical chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; “Reactivity of XeF2, F2, and CF3 on Si(111)7×7 and Si (100) 2×1.”Gary B. Bronner, electrical engineering, Stanford University; “Physical Modeling of Backside Gettering.”Ali S.M. Salih, materials engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh; “Extrinsic Gettering via the Controlled Introduction of Misfit Dislocations.”James Kakalios, physics, University of Chicago; “Amorphous Semiconductor Doping Superlattices.”Evert Jan van Loenen, physics, FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics, Amsterdam; “The Orientation of Ultrathin NiSi2 Films: Correlations with Film Morphology.”

Convergence of Tax Systems in the European Community

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has earned for itself a high reputation for intellectual excellence, a quality which I am sure will be much in evidence during this symposium. As the Member of the European Commission responsible for taxation, I welcome this opportunity to take part in your discussions and hope I can bring to them something unique: the experience of someone working at the frontiers of taxation technology, attempting something that has never been done before, namely the design and realisation of a common European tax system.

Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia; Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership (review)

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES121 The glimpses that are afforded to Carey's quite extraordinary aunt, Hannah Whitall Smith, are significant in the final analysis of Miss Thomas' career situation as this book concludes the portrayal of the formative portion of her life. How effectively H. W. Smith influenced her headstrong niece in the period immediately preceding the opening of Bryn Mawr College is clearly shown in the publication of Smith's letter of advice to Carey Thomas and the carefully phrased but remarkably tactful yet confident letter which follows in which Miss Thomas offers her services to Dr. James E. Rhoads. Altogether these two portraits, the one of "Mr. Gummere" and the other of "Aunt Hannah," give a fresh new dimension to an appreciation of Carey Thomas. There is little doubt that in her childhood and young adult life Miss Thomas felt constrained by much that she had to accept in the particular Quaker milieu in which she grew up. The vigorous yet intemperate view which emerges in her comments and indeed strictures on the culture of Victorian Orthodox Quakerism in Baltimore prepares the reader for many struggles ahead to reach accommodation with the Quaker trustees who with her shared the fortunes of the nascent college. For specifics on these struggles , however, we cannot count on this volume, since it closes widi her triumphant return from abroad with valuable doctorate in hand, ready to take on the world of scholarship. In her long years of service to Bryn Mawr College, M. Carey Thomas maintained an increasingly tenuous relationship with the Society of Friends. This was done not from any sense of need for a religious framework for her own life, it seems clear, but rather from the practical realization that the aims of the founding Quaker, Joseph W. Taylor, as implemented by the Board of Trustees, must be respected, though subject to adaptation as time advanced. Intellectual excellence could not yield to any form of religious orthodoxy. Miss Thomas attended worship at Haverford Monthly Meeting on occasion, but never brought her membership there from Baltimore . Ultimately, she decided to formally resign from Baltimore Monthly Meeting and from the Society of Friends in 1927. Haverford, PennsylvaniaBarbara L. Curtis Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia; Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership. By E. Digby Baltzell. New York, NY, The Free Press, 1979, xii+585 pp. $19.95. E. Digby Baltzell has written a book that uses the history of Boston and Philadelphia to make a point on leadership. He says that the United States needs leadership and has been losing it, nay, turning against it. He describes Boston as a place where it has been nurtured and Philadelphia as one where it has been stifled. He uses information mostly about the lives of Boston Brahmins and Proper Philadelphians but also includes passages on the lower rungs of the social ladder. One chapter, for instance, argues that Roman Catholicism in the two cities absorbed the traits of their upper classes. Professor Baltzell is a sociologist and after the manner of his kind leads off with theoretical propositions, mainly from Max Weber. They concern society, class, authority, the function of beliefs, and so forth, but not change 122QUAKER HISTORY or continuity over time. In brief, Baltzell is convinced that the beliefs and values people hold determine the character of their society and that the rich and powerful largely give the beliefs and values to the whole. He says that Puritanism spawned hierarchical, authoritarian, intellectual, and communal values, while Quakerism bred egalitarian, anti-authoritarian, antiintellectual , and individualist values; that these values shaped early Boston and Philadelphia, creating contrasting social syndromes. He presents evidence to show that they have persisted ever since. The qualities attributed to Puritanism produce "class authority," which means dominance of society by a group of leaders who are conscious of their collective position at die top of a hierarchy and imbued with a sense of responsibility to lead not only in economic and governmental power but also in all aspects of culture. They have class pride, pride in the public institutions they found and lead, pride in individual achievements that build lasting monuments of civilization. They enjoy the...

Adult development and adult learning styles: The message for nontraditional graduate programs

Both the content and process of graduate education promote adult development. As developing people, adults usually enroll in graduate programs at times when they are building or changing the structure of their lives. Graduate programs, particularly nontraditional programs, can address both the growing adult as well as uphold relevant standards of intellectual excellence and professional expertise.

Can Science Survive in the Modern Age?

A recent newspaper account of the 1970 annual meeting of the AAAS was headlined, "Science's Blank Check Bounces." I am not, however, advocating that giving a "blank check" to science will solve all our problems. The discussion of science policy in the last three decades has too often confused necessary with sufficient conditions. A strong basic science is a necessary condition for a strong economy, a livable environment, and a tolerable society. But it is by no means a sufficient condition. That a vital science is an indispensable tool of human welfare in the present stage of evolution of man on the planet does not mean that it is the only tool or that it cannot also produce the opposite. Indeed, there seems almost to be a complementarity between the power for good and the power for evil inherent in science. Nuclear energy poses the possibility of nuclear holocaust, but is indispensable to a continuing supply of energy after fossil fuels run out. The computer threatens us with "big brother," but seems indispensable to the rational management of our complex social structures. Molecular genetics could be used for frightful purposes, but opens up the prospect of the final conquest of human disease and food supply. Drugs which control human behavior have opened up frightful possibilities for abuse and self-destruction, but they also offer the hope of conquest of mental illness. What I have referred to are really technologies, not science, but science is needed to use them wisely, although it will not guarantee their wise use. Although science cannot ask for a blank check, there is a part of it which must have the autonomy to "do its own thing"if it is to continue to serve society. How much of science should have this autonomy, and what sort of accountability should be required of it will be matters of continuing debate. Some accountability outside the scientific system itself is essential, as in any other human activity, but the degree of external accountability which is necessary will depend also on the success with which science maintains its own system of internal accountability, guaranteeing the intellectual excellence and integrity of its results. Although I do not believe scientists can be held accountable for the uses which society makes of the knowledge they produce, they do have an obligation to make clear the implications of this knowledge insofar as it is within their special intellectual competence to do so. However, I believe that the highest allegiance of science must continue to be to truth as defined by the validation procedures of the scientific process itself, and that the distortion of scientific results or the selective use of evidence for political purposes, no matter how worthy, is unforgivable insofar as it is presented cloaked by the authority and imputed objectivity of science. That science should have a measure of autonomy does not mean it cannot also respond to new social priorities. As in the past, new social missions can open up exciting new scientific questions, as fundamental as any generated by the internal workings of science. However, what is important is that no matter how much the broad strategy of science might be influenced by social priorities, the tactics should be largely governed by scientific criteria. Furthermore, it is essential that some science be supported and cultivated for its own sake alone. Here the primary criterion must be excellence as judged scientifically, that is, by internal standards. The fraction of the total technical effort that is supported in this way should have some degree of constancy over the long term. You are no doubt wondering what is the answer to the question posed by the title of this article. I cannot give a definite answer one way or the other. The threats to the integrity of science, both from within and from without, are probably greater than at any time in the past, because science is much more a part of the total social and political process, no longer the semihobby of a few dedicated and somewhat eccentric individuals. But I am an optimist. I do not think that the scientific enterprise is going down the drain. It will change, as science has always changed. It will respond to new social priorities, but, like an organism responding to disease, it will develop antibodies which will fight and finally contain excessive control by external criteria, and in fact will transform these external pressures into new opportunities and new fundamental fields of inquiry. But I could be wrong!

Non-Governmental Agencies and Their Role in Development in Africa: A Case Study

The purpose of this study is to examine the problems of development in Africa. The word “development” is used here in a much broader sense than in the accustomed meaning assigned to it by an economist seeing it narrowly as economic growth. It is used here to encompass social growth by which I mean not only the development of new social institutions and cultural forms in keeping with modernization and the development of a technological civilization in Africa, but also the development of social attitudes, skills, and, if you will, “mental sets” which will favor modernization in the economic field, in education, in politics, and in religion. In my view, the demands for modernization are such that they will challenge traditional cultural norms, values, and prejudices. I do not assume here that the adoption of modernity will necessarily condemn all traditional values and social forms. I only assume that the challenge of modernity will be so thorough-going that no area of African life will go unchallenged. The values and institutions which will show themselves adaptable will survive while those which fail to pass the test of usefulness and meaningfulness will be discarded. In my view, there is nothing to worry about in this, for, as I have had occasion to poinṭ out before (Vilakazi 1957), there is neither moral nor intellectual excellence in a people's sticking to the past merely because it belongs to their forefathers.

H.R. 12406

IS THERE a change in the intellectual climate in this country? The launching of Sputnik by the Russians in 1957 made us realize the importance of scientific brain power, and the Congress responded with money for scientific research and scientific education. Recently we have begun to realize that our nation cannot thrive on scientific education alone, but that the arts and the humanities, which received such notable encouragement and recognition during the Kennedy Presidency, must be experienced and valued by the American people if they are to achieve intellectual excellence and cultural understanding. The 88th Congress passed a bill establishing a National Arts Council and, over bitter opposition, broadened the National Defense Education Act to include such politically sensitive subjects as geography, history, civics, and English literature. Dare we now hope that the climate is favorable for the passage by Congress of a bill which I introduced on August 17, I964, H.R. 12406, to provide for the creation of a national humanities foundation. My interest in this legislation stemmed from a reading of the Report of the Commission on the Humanities sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States, and the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa-all of them organizations that are linked to humanistic endeavor. This report, which I understand was more than a year in preparation, came to my attention early last summer. After reading it, I had extensive conversations with Gustave Arlt, president of the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States. He has been extremely helpful to me in the preparation of H.R. 12406 and in mapping a campaign to create a national humanities foundation as an independent agency of the federal government. Some people have expressed surprise at my interest in this legislation, because I am not a member of the House Education and Labor Committee. It is true that in our complex life today the members of Congress, like many other American professional people, are becoming specialists. A vast number of subjects clamor for our attention. Sooner or later, every member of Congress becomes selective. First, he studies those

School Spirit in the Context of a Liberal Education

The college must be the place par excellence in our society for the highest intellectual motivation and achievement. . The college, however, is more than a mind factory. College students do not live and work in isolation but in a social milieu in which their emotions, their morals, and their social outlooks are influenced at least as much by their fellows and their environment as by the courses of instruction which they take. The college, therefore, does not face a choice between intellectual excellence and the education of the whole student. It is not a question of either-or but of both together.1

In Defense of Sports

Abstract A message from the president of a college which has pioneered in making a rational place for the physical in education and in making the playing field a classroom for character. Intellectual excellence is not enough to expect; the whole man—body, mind, spirit—is the proper object of education.