CAMPUS

Education First, Saving the World Later

Let me start by saying I go to the University of Oregon, the motto of which is “mens agitat molem.” The UO often clumsily translates this as “minds move mountains,” but it actually means “minds move matter*.” Apparently I go to a school that espouses telekinesis.

This is a roundabout way of saying I’m not happy with the University of Oregon’s, and the university system at large, performance in its primary job: higher education.

The goal of the university is, first and foremost, education. Not research and certainly not “making the world a better place.” I for the most part take the same stance as Stanley Fish, author of “Save the World on Your Own Time.” According to Fish, the sole job of the professor is:

“(1) Introduce students to bodies of knowledge and traditions of inquiry that had not previously been part of their experience; and (2) equip those same students with the analytical skills – of argument, statistical modeling, laboratory procedure – that will enable them to move confidently within those traditions and to engage in independent research after a course is over.”

I can say from experience that college students appreciate this type of teaching immensely.  My favorite liberal arts professors in college, as well as many of my friends’, have been the ones who don’t simply teach the material; rather, they teach their students how to critically approach the material. They encourage, often require, students to formulate and defend their own positions.

On the other end of the spectrum are the professors who use their classrooms as little more than a recruiting ground for their vision of social justice or morality or whatever. For example, here’s the syllabus for a sociology class at the UO taught by Chuck Hunt. It’s not hard to see what Professor Hunt is up to. Students with half a brain find this sort of thing not only patronizing but rather boring.

With this in mind, I’m against universities explicitly working towards the moral advancement of students (disregarding private religious institutions, of course). I’m not going to throw out any wishy-washy moral relativism arguments, but we can all see what happens when professors take it upon themselves to take the “moral high-ground.”

*Well, to be technical, it’s a quote from Virgil referring to the mind/soul animating the body. Nonetheless, I still take issue with the UO’s ham-fisted translation.