Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Not about business models



Before I'm jumped on by the readership of this list, I would like to say
that I also think there is a difference between state supported institutions
and private institutions both in mission and student body. I have taught
with colleagues who have taught in both types of intitutions and prefer the
private over the state supported because of the differences in the missions
of the schools and the student body.

I recognize that Roger is correct in his perception that the difference
exists. We have children who are on faculty in both types of institution,
and my wife and I teach in an aspiring Enormous State University (ESU*)
here in Canada. What I am trying to get across is that one of those
kinds of universities is *better* than the other. I attended UC Berkeley
as an undergrad and grad student. It is the archetype of the multiversity,
but it still retained an air of the traditional university in the fifties.
It is a shame that politics has moved it away from that ideal position. I
am advocating that we try to get back to it, and unless advocacy for that
ideal comes from within the university there is no chance that will
happen.

If you argue that the state has no business supporting the kind of fine
university education it used to support then it has no business supporting
the arts either, or the pure sciences, or anything which does not serve
the iterests of commerce in the most direct possible manner.

Leigh

*This is the charicature of a large state supported institution portrayed
in a U.S. comic strip called "Tank MacNamara".