Abandoning Their Mission
Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 55, No. 10, p. A50, October 2008
3 Pages Posted: 14 Nov 2008
Abstract
This brief essay explores Christopher Newfield's strong claims that the successful culture wars of the political right have "severed the public university from its broader base" and "led to [their] abandonment of egalitarian and democratic impulses". I offer my own experiences as president of the College of William & Mary as partial ratification of Newfield's arguments. But, ultimately, I conclude that Newfield overstates the impact of the culture warriors. We are witnessing, I claim, a dramatic abandonment of the public mission of our strongest public universities; an abandonment that betrays the central purposes of public higher education. The causes, though, lie considerably closer to home.
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