Posted on 06/23/2009 6:47:08 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Universities serve as society’s critics and conscience. We are meant to be producers not just of knowledge but of doubt—of understanding rooted in skepticism and constant questioning, not in the unchallenged sway of accepted wisdom. More than perhaps any other institution in our society, universities are about the long view and about the critical perspectives that derive from not being owned exclusively by the present.
For nearly four centuries now, Harvard has looked beyond the immediately useful, relevant, and comfortable to cast current assumptions into the crucible of other places and other times. Universities are so often judged by their measurable utility—by their contributions to economic growth and competitiveness. We can make a powerful case with such arguments.…But such contributions are only a part of what universities do and mean. We need universities for much less immediate and instrumental ends.
I worry that we as universities have not done all we could and should to ask the deep and unsettling questions necessary to the integrity of any society. As the world indulged in a bubble of false prosperity and materialism, should we—in our research, teaching, and writing—have done more to expose the patterns of risk and denial inherent in widespread economic and financial choices? Should our values have posed a firmer counterweight and challenge to excess and irresponsibility, to short-term thinking with long-term consequences?
The privilege of academic freedom carries the obligation to speak the truth even when it is difficult or unpopular. So in the end, it comes back to veritas—the commitment to use knowledge and research to penetrate delusion, cant, prejudice, self-interest. That truth may come in the form of scientific insights freed from ideology and politics. It may come in the interpretive work of humanists who show us how to read and think critically and offer us the perspective of other places, other tongues, and other times. It may come through the uniquely revisionary force of the arts—which enable us to understand ourselves and the world through changed eyes and ears. It may come through placing questions of ethics and responsibility at the core of our professional school programs.…
The enhancement of our role as critics and doubters must come as well through the education of our undergraduates, where we seek, in the words of the new General Education program, “to unsettle presumptions, to defamiliarize the familiar…to disorient young people and to help them to find ways to reorient themselves.” As we adapt to a rapidly changing world, we must build anew on Harvard’s long traditions of liberal-arts education and of humanistic inquiry. These traditions can generate both the self-scrutiny and self-understanding that lead through doubt to wisdom.
Universities as engines of opportunity; universities as the principal sites of America’s scientific research; universities as truth tellers: these are three fundamental aspects of our understanding of ourselves. Yet each faces challenges in the new era that lies ahead of us—challenges of structures, of affordability, and of values. And we are challenged in turn to demonstrate our commitment to these principles, which have so long been at the heart of how we have defined ourselves. We must not take these principles for granted, and we must not lose sight of them as we make the many choices about what to keep and what to forgo in the months ahead. But we must devise new ways of sustaining them for changed times. We are accountable to and for these traditions and the values they represent—the belief that the open and unfettered pursuit of truth will build a better world for us all. This is what inspires all that we do and all that we are—for now and in the years to come.
I don't want to send my children to college to become "disoriented" or to "doubt" things that are true but to *build* on the education that they gained from their schools, their parents, and their own reading. Of course, "doubt" that homosexuality is moral or that men and women should play exactly the same roles in society will not be tolerated (Faust's predecessor, Larry Summers, lost his job for expressing doubt regarding some feminist orthodoxy).
My, really full of ourselves aren’t we?
The sewer declares its self fresh and flowery.
The whole speech is pretentious.
Not too surprising; the word ‘pretentious’ pretty much describes everything and everyone even remotely associated with Harvard.
I hope you would consider me an exception , even though I went there for a B.A.
Veritas? I think not.
More likely a Faustian deal with the Devil.
Actually, nothing new about this. I went to Harvard as a freshman in 1954—back in the age of the squares. The Dean of Freshman greeted the class with a speech in which the one thing I remember him saying was, “We intend to make you doubt everything before you leave Harvard.”
I also remember at the time thinking to myself. “Uh, sure. You wish.”
Sounds like a cult...
Just sayin'.
The reactionary blogger Mencius Moldbug has developed a social theory of America in which the university serves as the "Cathedral": It sets the bounds of acceptable debate, credentials people for public service and business, and uses its power to extract funding from government. Oh, and it ostracizes any significant "heretics."
My ex is an MIT grad. Her motto: “Better dead than Crimson.” Al MIT, all libraries were, at one time, open to the public. Not so at Harvard, an ID is required. My apologies to all you Harvard educated Conservatives out there.
Voted for zero, I bet.
The problem young Drew has is evfident from the outset; universities have only one obligation to society - to educate our young. Teach them to be mathematicians, astronomers, scientists, writers, philosophers, historians, architects and archeologists. Develop young minds with the skills to learn from the past and push the boundaries of the known world by developing the tools, knowledge and skills to carry us forward into the future.
What universities have morphed into are pretentious platforms of liberal indoctrination that eschew the goals of knowledge in favor of one thought. As a society, the more knowledge we have acquired and the more technical advantages we have developed, the more primitive we have become.
One day, hopefully in the not too distant future, young Drew may re-read this piece in horror at the pretentiousness and hypocrisy he documented. That's the polite way of saying that this kid is full of more crap than a Thanksgiving turkey!!!
(But, he probably got an A from his professor for spouting the party line!)
Drew Faust may sound like a foolish sophomore, but she (not he) is in her 60s and is President of Harvard University.
Reorient them to the Left, of course. Bill Buckley started his career with God and Man at Yale, documenting how another Ivy school systematically turned the offspring of affluent mostly conservative parents into leftists.
We've slid a long way toward the abyss. Harvard and most of the Ivy schools were actually founded to train Christian clergy.
MIT also has a an open courseware project. If you can get your hands on the texts, you can self-direct through the syllabus, lecture notes, and assignments for several different courses. You don’t get professorial feedback or credit, but for some people it is a way to pick up specific knowledge for free.
No, the speech is just plain drivel. I can’t believe this is what counts as an intellectual argument. It seems more like a monologue in a bad play.
“My, really full of ourselves aren’t we?”
That they are, indeed. And, capable of reaching twice around themselves as they pat themselves on their backs.
Yep, I discovered that this morning. Makes it all sound that much worse when that information is factored in.
As they say, there is no fool like an OLD fool!!
Check out this student response at the end of this article:
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2009/06.04/bacca.html
” Serena Wolf, a graduating senior from Mather House, said Faust’s speech hit home, echoing the concern Wolf and her classmates share about finding work after graduation.
“All of us are extremely nervous about graduating, especially those of us who are unemployed, including myself,” said Wolf, a sociology concentrator. “She did a really great job of not only inspiring us but also making us feel comfortable with our graduation and moving into the world.”
Faust ended her speech with reflections on her own commencement, in 1968. Students in the late 1960s and early 1970s graduated at a time when dramatic social change seemed possible. That promise was lost, but has returned today, Faust said, urging graduates to seize their opportunity.
“Keep mastering your instruments. Keep mastering the music. Keep saying ‘yes’ to your fellow improvisers,” Faust said. “And come back from time to time and let us know of your progress. There is no group to whom I would rather entrust this task.” “
First of all what task? The task of coming back?
And the part that just slays me is that Faust basically abdicates the university's entire responsibility to educate, and then receives the students’ praise(!) for telling them that we didn't really mean to *teach* you anything in the first place! So off you go!! Come back and see us sometime! We can chat about all the veritas towards which we decided it best not to orient you!
Lastly, here's one more quote from the Harvard Magazine report:
“ Looking back to her own graduation year, 1968, Faust saw a similar crossroads: “My class believed we would do nothing less than end racism, poverty, and war. The only question in our minds was whether we’d get it done by the time of our fifth reunion.” But gradually, she said, “I watched that sense of possibility…erode, as later graduates retreated into the private sphere, into adults making the best life they could for themselves.” “
Argh! They actually became ADULTS! I just love that ‘adult’ is a dirty word for Liberals... how rich!
(Harvard Graduate School of Design, M.Arch ‘02) Maybe she can round up some adults to assist in paying off my student loans... But I'm not holding my breath.
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