Title: "If This Is a Movement, Why Don't We Feel Anything Moving?"
Abstract: To Serve a Larger Purpose: Engagement for Democracy and the Transformation of Higher Education John Saltmarsh & Matthew Hartley, Editors Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2011 By history, mission, and concept, American universities are uniquely woven into the fabric of American democracy. There is no comparable socializing agent with the same ability to train the students in their care to become civic agents, give heart and mind to their local communities, shape institutions, debate and develop policies, and critically reflect on the future direction of our country and our world. Democracy was not the central value in our Colonial colleges because at the time of their establishment, we were uncertain of our status, perhaps even about our aspirations as self-governing people. Colonial colleges did not operate with a view of the whole nation, but instead with the mindset of denominations. It was only with the emergence of our society as one hopeful for a continental and a political unity--a conviction nearly lost in the Civil War--that we began to see higher education as something that could help us to accomplish a unique vision for ourselves as a nation. While we can point to the Morrill Act that was passed at the end of the Civil War as repurposing colleges and universities as a means to build a nation out of a continent (literally from the ground up), the divisions that persisted through the remainder of the 19th and early 20th century still obscured and constrained the role of higher education in contributing to the success of the American democratic experiment. According to higher education historian George Marsden, World War I inspired a kind of patriotic hysteria that shot through the country (1996, p. 309). Universities and the nation as a whole began to think about the ways they could each use their resources to support an American free and democratic society. Marsden described this period's urge to serve the country this way: If the highest morality ... was to serve democratic society, then no calling was higher for professors as well as universities to put themselves at the nation's service (p. 309). There was an additional surge in our national commitment to higher education after World War II. President Truman charged the newly formed Commission of Higher Education with the task of examining the functions of higher education in our democracy and the means by which they can best be performed (Quoted in Thelin, 2004, p. 268). The Truman Report and the GI Bill asserted (for it could not yet be demonstrated) that the nation's universities, in cooperation with the federal government, should be aligned to most effectively further American democracy. This mandate, however imperfectly it came to be realized for several decades, provided the basis for an unprecedented investment in public higher education and support for many private institutions as well. In fact, it led to the promulgation of a new creed recited with reverence by policy makers and educators. We put our faith in higher education as a democratic machine turning out scientific discoveries and eager, thoughtful citizens with at least passable efficiency. In recent decades, many observers from vantage points inside and outside the academy have noted that universities have been moving farther and farther from incorporating the development and study of democratic citizenship into their coursework and activities (Marsden, 1996; Reuben, 1996) and have given less to building a common democratic experience than to offering economic and private benefits to individuals who happen to work and live in a democratic context (Kezar, Chambers, & Burkhardt, 2005). In fact this concern has been the primary focus of our work at the University of Michigan organized within the context of the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good. Since 2000, the National Forum has organized a series of studies, dialogues, and public engagement activities investigating the role of higher education in a changing society with the goal of furthering a professional movement and enhanced public understanding of what is at stake if we lose colleges and universities as significant agents of social, civic, and democratic cohesion and renewal. …
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-03-22
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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