Crisis on Campus_ A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities - Mark C. Taylor [20]
Kant’s related distinction between usefulness and uselessness has proven to be equally problematic for higher education. The contrast between knowledge that is practical and knowledge that is impractical leads to a series of oppositions that continue to define the structure of the university. Not only useful/useless, but: practical/critical, profitable/unprofitable, professional schools/arts and sciences. The conflict of the faculties in the title of Kant’s essay refers to the clash of values between these faculties, which is still going on today. Within this scheme, professional schools privilege the former alternatives and the arts and sciences faculty values the latter.
These hierarchical oppositions also form the basis of the distinction between research and teaching, which creates further divisions in colleges and universities. As I have noted, Kant proposes independent academies, funded by the government, which are devoted exclusively to research, and gymnasia, in which faculty members teach but are not expected to conduct research. In universities, faculty members are expected both to engage in original research and to teach. But these two activities are not regarded equally; research and publication are consistently valued much more highly than teaching. The former are misleadingly represented as the production of knowledge, the latter its transmission. Those who can, conduct research and write, according to the old cliché; those who can’t, teach. Unfortunately, this hierarchy still lies at the heart of today’s research universities and reinforces the disrespect for teachers that plagues not only universities and colleges but also society as a whole.
It is important to note that the role of teaching differs significantly in colleges and universities. In colleges the evaluation of teaching by students and colleagues usually plays a significant role in the assessment of faculty members. In universities, by contrast, the emphasis on research and publication completely overshadows the quality of teaching. Though most universities pay lip service to teaching and rely on student course evaluations, in my experience, teaching ability plays no significant role in hiring and promotion decisions. Publications and the evaluations of other specialists in the field are virtually all that count. Furthermore, some universities actually disdain college faculty members. When I was considered for tenure at Columbia, the administration would not accept letters of evaluation from any faculty member who teaches at a college. Having devoted most of my professional life to undergraduate liberal arts education, I was puzzled by this practice and, when I asked for an explanation, was told that the reason for the exclusion was that college professors do not train graduate students. So much for the value of undergraduate education.
The implications of this vision of the university become clearer when we cast a glance in an unlikely direction—the history of modern art. Most people have heard about the idea of art for art’s sake, but what few realize is that it was Kant who first formulated this idea in its modern form. What occurred in the art world at the end of the eighteenth century holds important lessons for what is happening in the world of higher education at the beginning of the twenty-first. Kant’s analysis turns on the distinction between high or fine art and low art or craft. In developing his plan for the university, he gives high and low art reversed roles. While low art is produced for the market and is intended to be profitable, high art,