Colleges Transformed Mission Misses the Mark
RealClear Politics | Peter Berkowitz
Berkowitz takes aim at the mission statements of Harvard, Princeton and Yale — “little recognition is found within the mission statements of our institutions of higher education that among their chief responsibilities is conserving the wisdom of the ages and of our civilization in particular.”
Regarding Harvard College’s mission statement, Berkowitz writes that “gauzy change counts for nearly everything; safeguarding and transmitting what is best in the nation and the civilization in which it is rooted count for little.”
“…Those paragons of progressive faith — Harvard, Yale, and Princeton… dominate the academy and set the tone for elite culture and national politics. Their conversion of liberal education into social justice consciousness-raising and vocational training for political activism subverts colleges’ mission and distorts civic life. It polarizes the electorate… It deprives students of historical knowledge and comparative frameworks…. it impedes the formation of workable policies and viable compromises for a divided nation.”
What is the solution? “To cultivate a generation of thoughtful reformers — and preservers — it is necessary to restore a proper liberal education, one whose point is not to remake the world, but to understand it.”