Greetings to all,
We are now one month away from gathering for our colloquium, “Emergent Orders in Higher Education: The Idea of a University Reconsidered.” Bill has served you with fair warning that you would be receiving some comments from me, and here they are. To begin, I might as well get our big (and I think engaging) surprise out of the way. It is the attachment to this letter, an essay that you may substitute for the Tappan address now slated for session four, one that fits chronologically between the Gilman and the Turner addresses. If one of the central considerations of this colloquium becomes an inquiry into the distinctiveness of American institutions of higher learning, the Steffens essay highlights an extraordinary chapter in that historical narrative. (Lincoln Steffens, “Sending a State to College,” The American Magazine (1908/09).)
Many of you are familiar with the workings of a Liberty Fund colloquium, a model that we shall follow in March. As discussion leader I shall try to follow the k.i.s.s. principle, beginning each session with a question and then serving as a traffic director, keeping a queue of those who wish to speak. At the beginning of our first session I shall fill in a few more practical details. The quest in such gatherings as this is to achieve a conversation, not an exegesis only, but a consideration of the context of each document and the ways in which each connect with other readings for the colloquium. As all of us recognize, based on “the lamp of experience,” the likelihood is great that we shall engage in an exploration where strongly different views, strongly articulated will find expression. The consequence of such interest, properly tethered, becomes a conversation memorable for the fruitfulness of the blending of distinctive voices.
I am not an historian of American higher education; so when I agreed to participate in the building of this colloquium, I had no clear idea of just what I was volunteering for. And quite a rollercoaster ride it has been so far with, I am glad to say, no clear end in sight. There has been much regarding specific documents and their context that has been all new to me. The order of the readings represents an intentional configuration of diverse sources, one that at the beginning I, and others, did not have in mind. So, like Topsy, this colloquium “just grow’d.”
Surely Thomas Paine’s 1776 observation in The American Crisis that “these are times that try men’s souls” applies to the contemporary world of American higher education, a world awash in confused and confusing opinions, bad habits, and prescriptions for an almost infinite variety of problems and a plethora of often conflicting legislative, judicial, executive and regulatory orders, all happening within a larger setting of political, legal and economic crisis. The readings for this colloquium do not offer resolutions. They may, however, shine some light on how Americans got themselves to this present state. Our conversation will look at different elements of governance; different understandings of and aspirations for American colleges and universities; and different views of the political economy of higher education. It is our hope that all of these elements will combine in such a manner as to contribute to a greater understanding of the sources and the developments that aided in the birthing of the glaring questions and problems currently outstanding.
I look forward to meeting you and to our conversations, both in and out of session.
Best,
G. M. Curtis