Harry Targ
The university is a site for intellectual excitement: debate
about new theories and hypotheses; rigorous examinations of competing ideas;
and research, teaching, and community service. Most men and women who pursue a
career in the academy are inspired by intellectual curiosity, the prospect of
educating and inspiring students, and serving diverse communities of citizens.
Moreover, the Morrill Act passed by Congress in 1862
committed the United States to construct and support state universities which
would serve the people, in those days largely rural populations. Great state-funded
public universities grew over the subsequent 150 years to facilitate the
education of a growing population. They
enriched that population with varieties of knowledge and the tools to improve
the lives of the citizenry and, as a result, helped build a more vibrant
democracy.
But there are darker truths about the growth of the
modern university. First, higher education is stimulated by, and financially
beholden to, governments, political processes, corporations, and banks. These institutions
affect what research is done and what subjects are taught in the university.
Second, and related to the first, conceptions of
disciplines, bodies of knowledge, appropriate methods, ideas accepted as unchallengeable
truths in various fields, and the basic principles of whole universities are
shaped by economic interests and political power.
Third, professional associations, journals, forms of
peer review, and general procedures for validating the quality of academic
research and teaching are also affected by the same economic and political interests
that dominate universities.
Fourth, therefore, in the main, the university as an
institution is, and has always been, designed to serve the interests of the
status quo, a status quo again that is governed by economic and political
interests.
The following examples are from one university, Purdue
University. Similar examples can be found at virtually every large and
prestigious university in the country. David Smith and Scott Bauer (The
Lafayette Journal and Courier,
“Daniels: Georgia Trip Was Good for Purdue,” May 1, 2014) reported on Purdue
President Mitch Daniels’ attendance at a conference of the conservative think
tank the American Enterprise Institute. Daniels said he attended the meeting to
learn and to touch base with one of Purdue’s biggest donors.
The meeting, held every year since 1982, was populated
by presidential candidates, and conservative governors from Michigan and
Florida. Other attendees included former Vice-President Dick Cheney, former CIA
Director David Petraeus, and former Amway President Dick DeVos, and current or
former CEOs from TD Ameritrade, Apple, and Google. Karl Rove, premier
Republican operative, also attended. Inadvertently highlighting the connection
between corporate and political power and the university President Daniels
said: “I considered this a trip of use to Purdue.”
Academic advocates for large-scale government and
corporate commitments to increased space exploration, such as President Daniels,
who served as co-chair of the National Research Council, can be seen as serving
the economic needs of research universities. The NRC issued a 286 page report in
May, 2014, suggesting that a huge and redefined commitment would be needed to
land on Mars by the 2030s (Reed Sellers, “Report Calls for Increased NASA
Budget,” The Exponent, June 9, 2014).
Despite the document’s skepticism about the possibilities of achieving new
goals in space, Daniels said “human space exploration remains vital to the national
interest for inspirational and aspirational reasons that appeal to a broad
range of U.S. citizens.”
The report outlined a range of steps that would be
needed to achieve long-term goals in space, from a one-year mission of persons living
on the international space station, to flight tests, rovers exploring Mars, and
the development of new technologies involving health, transportation, robots,
vehicles, and many other components of space travel. These multi-billion dollar
research-based programs could occupy the research agendas of academic
departments in universities such as Purdue for decades and enrich the biggest
corporations in America.
Daniels was not the only university affiliated spokesperson
of note who recently made news. Board of Trustees member Don Thompson,
President and CEO of the McDonald’s Corporation, weighed in on the debate about
raising the minimum wage for fast food workers after a nationwide set of
protests against McDonald’s on May 22.
Thompson at a shareholders’ meeting declared that
“McDonald’s is often a first job for many entering the work force. About
one-third of our employees are 16 to 19. We are proud that we open doors to
opportunity” (Bruce Horowitz, “McDonald’s Plays Offense on Wages,” USA Today, May 23). Thompson praised his
corporation for being a worker-friendly employer and added that it was the
largest employer of veterans in the nation. Later he hinted at the possibility
of raising the minimum wage at McDonald’s. However, protestors argued that the
median age of fast food workers was 29, most worked at today’s minimum wage,
and economic survival on McDonald’s wages was virtually impossible.
Finally, the Purdue news service has announced
increased collaboration of the university with the notorious Duke Energy
Corporation, most recently in the news because of its responsibility for a coal
ash spill in North Carolina that coated 70 miles of the Dan River along the
North Carolina and Virginia border with 60,000 tons of toxic sludge. A North
Carolina judge ordered Duke Energy to immediately eliminate the source of
groundwater pollution from company coal ash dumps. A criminal investigation of
links between the spill and Duke Energy and state government officials in North
Carolina is still underway.
Purdue
News
(June 11, 2014) reported that the university would collaborate on the expansion
of an education program to create the Duke Energy Academy at Purdue, a six-day
instructional program to inspire high school students and teachers to work in
STEM-related disciplines related to energy. The article erroneously claimed
that “the amount of students entering the STEM fields is declining.” Other
co-sponsors of the six-day educational experience include Bowen Engineering,
General Electric, Kidwind Project, Siemens Energy, and Windstream Technologies
Inc.
Higher education is at a fork in the road. One path is
to maintain its traditional mission to educate and inspire students while
sharing knowledge with communities at home and abroad. Another path is to expand
the needs of special interests, political and corporate, at the expense of the
traditional role of higher education. Growing social movements should include
demands that universities continue to serve the needs of the people, rather
than politicians and corporations.
