This week’s readings all deal in some dimension with the relationship between the academy and the public. In short, all of them advocate for a new (or a return to, depending) collaboration between the work done in universities and colleges and issues relevant to communities in which these schools are located.
John Seely Brown, Ann Pendleton-Jullian, and Richard Adler, “From Engagment to Ecotone”: this piece studies the place of the 21st century land grant university, specifically looking at North Carolina. The authors argue that a partnership between the academy and local businesses—a partnership in which they actually share space—leads to innovation and collaboration and moves the university back in line with the original charter of a land grant school.
Jeremy Cohen, “A Laboratory for Public Scholarship and Democracy”: as an introduction to a special issue of New Directions for Teaching and Learning, this article sets up the arguments for connecting public work with scholarship that appear in later articles. Specifically, Cohen argues that there is a difference between public scholarship and service, and he concludes that there is a constitutional mandate for education, and education of a certain kind.
Rosa A. Eberly, “Rhetorics of Public Scholarship”: Building on the arguments of Habermas and Arendt, Eberly’s article argues that the university needs “a curriculum of consequence that connects learning to the common problems of shared democracy.”
Lakshman Yapa, “Public Scholarship in the Postmodern University”: This article uses postmodern theory in its epistemological sense to argue against metanarratives. Further, Yapa believes that structural ways of understanding the world create some of the problems that they would combat, even as they rob individuals of agency.
Joshua Gunn & John Louis Lucaites, “The Contest of Faculties: On Discerning the Politics of Social Engagement in the Academy”: These two communications professors explore the perceived divide between the civil, the political, and the public. As other authors in this week’s readings, they argue the benefits of doing public scholarship, yet they also trace the shortcomings of the academy in counting such public work as legitimate scholarship. They argue that such engaged scholarship is unavoidably political, and they invite more discussion on ways of quantifying engaged scholarship.
Questions for discussion:
On some level, all of these articles (with the possible exception of the “Ecotone” one) argue that one of the main goals of the academy should be to shore up democracy. True?
If so, what kind of democracy should the university be strengthening? (i.e. A popular democracy? A Constitutional democracy? Local, direct democracy?)
One of the topics that many of our discussions have danced around is interdisciplinarity. Jacoby’s idea of a public intellectual seems to necessitate a blending of disciplines; Fish’s article is more skeptical of such work. Several of the articles for this week (particularly Cohen) view interdisciplinarity positively. Should we?
I’m interested in reading these articles against Flemming’s argument that there is something gained by having the classroom as a space carved out from a larger public. How do Flemming’s thoughts change how we read these pieces?
The Centennial Campus at North Carolina is an interesting case study. How do we feel about such blending of the university with business? How benefits? Is something lost in such collaboration?
Most of the scholars we read this week cite Dewey, who is basing his theories of American pragmatism (and education more broadly) partially on Enlightenment models of thought. If we are building a university for the 21st century, does it make sense to use 18th century philosophy as a guide? What might be left off the table with such an approach?