Virtual Commons - Bridgewater State University

Contentious Compatibility and the Common Good: The University as Servant and Critic in a Democracy

Hart 117

The themes of this presentation include philosophies about the university as well as what the university expects of itself and that U.S. society expects of it. This talk features pivotal controversies and challenges that have shaped the university in its role as both critic and servant. It suggests how key players including successive generations of leaders and commentators have articulated the role of the university as a crucial institution in the United States and its interests as a commonwealth and as a body politic. Its conclusions suggest how the ideas that have been a part of the fundamental foundation of the academy in the United States have been instrumental, changing and adapting where needed, but maintaining firm ground as the basis for what the university must be amid the competing demands and interest of the society and its citizens.