|
|
The most exciting reform taking place in higher education today may not be assessment, accountability, or new uses of technology, but rather the rediscovery of an old mission, the transmission of fundamental social and ethical values as we prepare our students for lifelong active participation in civic affairs.
For many of us, who as faculty or students were active in the 1960s in the Civil Rights movement and the antiwar movement, the progression to university curricula reform was a natural one. A profound social, political, and cultural revolution off the campus fed an equally crucial overhaul of what was perceived as an outmoded university curriculum no longer suited to the needs of the students we would serve. As we reexamined and revised the curriculum, we opened up the university to new ideas, new teachi ng strategies, and new populations. Internally, as well as externally, there was a heightened commitment to the values of equity, justice, and diversity.
But in most other respects, over the past three decades we have not seen the identification of a new set of civic and moral values to replace those that were discarded, indeed there was a conscious effort to make the classroom and the university value-free communities. Depending on their political point of reference, critics objected to right wing proselytizing, or left wing political correctness.
After a three decade hiatus, however, educators are once again discussing the university mission in terms of values, particularly those of active citizenship. This revival of what our colleague Tom Ehrlich has called civic and moral learning started more than a decade ago when a small band of college and university presidents committed themselves and their institutions to community service by creating Campus Compact. Now numbering almost 600 member institutions, Compact has grown into the most exciting movement in higher education as the concept of community service has evolved into service learning, the linking of the community and the classroom so that the education of the student is influenced and affected by the community service involvement. With our scores of service learning classes and strong leadership from our Office of Community Service Learning, San Francisco State University needs no persuasion about the value of service learning, but there is an urgent need to consider how we move from service learning to civic and moral learning. Not just at this University, but across the nation, students are responding eagerly and in huge numbers to service learning and volunteer opportunities; on this campus, 41 departments already offer service l earning courses. According to the annual national college student survey done by Professor Alexander Astin at UCLA, student volunteerism is at an all-time high.
I have said on a number of occasions that Campus Compact and service learning, are a remarkable First Act for higher education. But what will be our Second Act? It is suggested by a paradox: Although individual student volunteer activity is on the increase, participation in civic life has dropped precipitously. Our students have good hearts, but many of them do not vote. They want a fairer and more just society, but many are paralyzed by cynicism about politics and politicians.
It is not just students. Among the more interesting articles I have read in recent years is Harvard University Professor Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone. The title refers to the fact that while there has been an enormous increase in bowling by individuals, the number of bowling leagues has decreased significantly. Putnam goes on to note that virtually every volunteer or civic organization, from the PTA to the Elks Club (and everything in between) has witnessed a similar decline.
These are matters that I believe are our responsibility to meet head-on. Our Second Act may well be to produce a student population that believes in something and will act on those beliefs, will participate in community, will become engaged in civic affairs, will run for public office, will vote in elections, will take risks, and will join and work actively in volunteer organizations.
If this is to happen, then all of us, faculty, staff, and administrators, have to provide the stimulus and the model. The University itself must become a civic leader, not simply educating our students but embracing a mission of community partnership, as expressed in courses, community projects, research activities, and publications.
What we must add to our mission is a conscious, clearly articulated focus on civic responsibility. Yes, we should discuss what is wrong with our society, but we have an obligation as well not only to propose change but to reaffirm what is of value in our culture. Our students must learn from us that individual good works are not enough, that communal civic effort is required to produce change. Those members of our faculty and staff who attended our 1998 Commencement heard Kathleen Kennedy Townsend describe a conversation with a student who had spent a semester visiting an elderly woman, bringing her meals and getting to know her as a person. But when the woman asked for help in solving a problem with Social Security, the student dropped out of her life. When Townsend asked him why, he responded simply: "Oh, that's politics. I don't want to get involved in that." Nonsense, said the daughter of Bo bby Kennedy, "Politics is community service writ large." That is a message our students must hear time and again. To be sure, many of our students graduate with a clear sense of a need for civic and moral engagement and awareness of what the current struggle for equity and justice entails. But many do not. Some university campuses have become the conscious partners of the communities in which they reside, but the majority have not.
I would like to see this view of our work become a collective vision, a shared set of values, a source of campus pride and energy. I look back with pride on the difficult but rewarding changes of the 1960s, changes often spearheaded by this campus, and would like to see higher education engaged once more with questions of values, in particular, with the responsibility that each and every one of us has to participate actively in the civic and political life of the community.
We are bringing a larger and more diversified population of students to our campus than ever before, the future leaders of our community. Thus, this mission, preparing new generations of principled and active citizens, has become absolutely critical.
Return to November First Monday
SFSU, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132
Last modified October 29, 1999, by Webmaster & Co.