I write fairly often about specific classes I’m teaching at the University of Pennsylvania but far less frequently about what’s going on in universities more broadly, including the crisis that threatens to engulf them today.
There are a few reasons for my reticence. First, I don’t have tenure, so it would be imprudent of me to risk antagonizing colleagues (beyond the antagonism that inevitably, and unavoidably, follows from my politically focused punditry). Second, I’m much less sweepingly critical of universities than most writers on the right (and some on the activist left) tend to be—and at a time when colleges are often under politically motivated attack, my instincts are to rally around my fellow professors and help them defend against the barbarians baying for blood at the gates.
The problem is that the “barbarians” are our fellow citizens, our potential students and parents of students, and therefore those who might (in other circumstances) be willing to (re)consider the value of higher education. Our goal should be to reach, and not denounce, them, and to listen to their (sometimes reasonable, sometimes misinformed) critiques, and offer a respectful response. If we can.
I will try my best to do that, with a light touch and tentativeness, in this post.
