Word: barzun
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Pusey's testimony was discouraging for liberals hoping to head off repressive legislation. He and other administrators who testified were unable to promise anything better than a hope that they will be able to deal with future disorders. Jacques Barzun of Columbia actually told the subcommittee: "Colleges have shown that they can't deal with the crisis...
...problem with the new university is that it has become relevant; it is doing things that it has not been equipped to do. The new function of service--no matter how much men like Pusey believe it is the modern thing to be doing--is tearing the university apart. Barzun writes: "Knowledge is power an its possessor owes the public a prompt application, or at least diffusion through the training of others. It thus comes about that the School of Social Work aids the poor, the School of Architecture redesigns the slum, the School of Business advises the small tradesman...
...Barzun's analysis is that the university has become too much a servant of the outside world. It has become too new and too big. He sees its future as dim: ". . . the parts will being to drop off, as the autonomous professor has begun to do; or go into spells of paralysis, as the student riots have shown to be possible. Apathy and secession will take care of the rest, until a stump of something once alive is left to vegetate on the endowment or the annual tax subsidy. The change will be gradual enough for everything to adjust...
...Barzun believes that the university has become too heavily dependent on the federal government and foundations for its money. But the large donors have created more problems than they have solved: "So far, the new university desired by the nation has been stimulated by its suitors but not fed." The universities, now grown huge with little control over their parts, are forced into the business of business to make money--"the mirage of owning factories and handling patent rights." This gets the university into problems that SDS has recently brought to the surface at Harvard--should the university...
...thought come from? Even thought come from? Even though the service are very fine, they essentially serve the status quo. And then there are problems of whom to serve. And then there is the problem of serving a particular war. And then there is the problem of ROTC. Like Barzun, the essay above argues for the old university, for the return of simplicity and commitment to learning and teaching--not to vast research projects and commitment to the "national interest" and the federal government. Like Barzun, the essay above argues that to serve society best, a university must produce...