Crisis on Campus_ A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities - Mark C. Taylor [22]
And yet, many faculty members continue to insist that if education is practical or profitable it must be kitsch and should no more be included in university curricula than commercial art should be admitted to the sacred precincts of the museum. This point was driven home to me more than a decade ago. In the late 1990s, I cofounded a for-profit company, Global Education Network, whose mission was to provide high-quality online education to people of all ages throughout the world. We were concerned about the escalating cost of education and the growing financial pressures on colleges and universities. By using new communications technologies, we developed a strategy for increasing and diversifying educational opportunities at a lower cost, while at the same time generating a new revenue stream for colleges and universities as well as for faculty members in the arts and humanities. As we will see in a later chapter, the importance of finding additional sources of income beyond tuition has become urgent. We invited eight leading universities and four top colleges to join us in this venture, and all but one turned us down. Though we devoted considerable time, effort and financial resources to the venture, the company eventually failed. The reason universities and colleges declined to join us was that faculty members, primarily in the arts and humanities, refused to participate in a for-profit venture, even though their own institutions would be equity partners and they would have complete control over the content of the courses on the network. In meetings with representatives from colleges and universities, faculty members time after time declared that higher education should not be corrupted by money and therefore should not be involved with for-profit ventures. This point of view is as outdated as the patronage system on which it relied. Academics have yet to admit what artists learned over two hundred years ago—it is possible to pursue art for art’s sake or knowledge for knowledge’s sake only if someone else is paying the bills.
As I said earlier, Kant’s plan was first implemented by Wilhelm von Humboldt at the University of Berlin, which was founded in 1810. Von Humboldt, a follower of Kant and close friend of many influential German philosophers and Romantic poets, was a distinguished linguist, philosopher, diplomat and educator. He is widely acknowledged as the architect of the Prussian educational system, which served as a model for countries from the United States to Japan. The University of Berlin was the crown jewel in von Humboldt’s system. In words that clearly echo Kant’s vision for the philosophical faculty, von Humboldt insisted that university study should be “unforced and non-purposeful.”4 The goal of education is the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, which leads to the process of self-cultivation. The personal quest of self-discovery is, in effect, an internalization of the traditional grand tour or year abroad that has long been enjoyed by the privileged sons and, more recently, daughters of wealthy Europeans and Americans.
By following the model that Kant defined and von Humboldt implemented, universities throughout the world have attempted to combine research, teaching and professional training in a variety of ways. Even in countries with different traditions, where research institutions were slower to develop, these principles of organizational structure and educational mission exercised considerable influence on educational policy. In England, for example, Oxford and Cambridge established residential colleges in rural settings and a tutorial system for individual instruction. Education extended beyond the classroom and lecture hall to the playing field and personal life. Though subject to utilitarian pressures, which usually originated in Scotland, British universities like Oxford and Cambridge remained dedicated to ideals of self-cultivation