Academics are cynical. We have to be. We criticize our students, our peers and ourselves. This is how we train. That’s how we write, publish and receive grants. But sometimes you have to know when to declare a victory.
There are many troublesome higher education. The Trump administration is canceling research grants, changing the indirect cost rate, proposing to cut future federal research funding, and reduce the size of demand-based Pell grants, and increase taxes on certain university endowments. The state prohibits criticizing racial theory or other “schizophrenia”; disbanding diversity, equity and inclusion programs; attacking unions; and undermining term. In many parts of the country, enrollment has decreased. It’s easy to pay attention to this moment. It is easy to focus on issues within our department, within the dean’s office or within the university.
If we do not consider President Trump’s first 100-plus days, but rather regard higher education as an institution for the past 100 years, it is clear that we should celebrate the victory of higher education, not to make it perish. American universities lag behind their European counterparts a century ago. In fact, many household names today are still teachers’ colleges (San Diego State University is the San Diego State College of Teachers), or have not yet been established (University of California, San Diego). Ivy League campuses such as Harvard, Princeton and Yale University actively exclude Jewish and Black applicants. The concepts of academic freedom and tenure are very new. The National Science Foundation does not exist.
The university did a great thing in the 20th century. Presidents and teachers find strength and legitimacy through relevance. They helped to win the full effort of World War II. University foresees the need for the Cold War. Products produced in research laboratories improve people’s daily lives. The University of Minnesota has obtained a patent for Honeycrisp Apple. The University of Wisconsin has obtained a patent for strengthening milk using vitamin D.
University not only solves practical problems, but also helps us understand ourselves. Teachers explore and legitimize new research areas: women’s research, race research, regional research. They incorporate disciplines in the creation field to understand our bodies and minds, such as neuroscience and biotechnology.
As universities expand their graduate education, they train researchers and professionals from population, federal and international institutions. For example, the rise of global environmental movement has traced back to the emergence of participants communities with similar motivations to scientific understanding and identification and addressing hazards. The almost exponential growth of university training and scientific production is not limited to our shores. This is the world. In the 20th century, the rapid expansion of large-scale education, until higher education, triggered the educational revolution and created a “society of education.”
challenge
Many teachers talk about higher education as if it was weak, at the time it was arguably the most successful and influential social institution in the past 100 years. If we have a long-term perspective, higher education will not be lost. Higher education wins. But the game is resetting.
The victory of higher education is hard. They are political. They negotiated. They need collective action. Over decades of battle, the university has passed the scope of applicants based on race and gender. For decades, they took affirmative action and then conducted a holistic review to accept students more equitably. They established norms for academic freedom and term of office. They became sites for open debates and social and political protests.
These types of wins are not easy to achieve. They need common principles and interests, and a shared awareness of knowledge and how the world works. If everything is socially constructed and morally relative, then it will be difficult to mobilize if we look for ways to criticize rather than agree.
In this new era, our challenge is mainly one of the legitimacy. Too many politicians and voters think we are illegitimate because it doesn’t matter how much we do. I have criticized voter turnout because they didn’t correctly guess which of the following is the preferred term for commenters: Chicano, Chicano/O, Chicano/A, Chicano, Chicano, Chicano, Hispanic, Latin, Latin and Latin, Latin/o, Latino/a, latino/a, latino/a, latin@latin@, latinx, latinx, Latine. Despite a place to think about the name and its usage, the focus of the paper is: How do we get more Hispanic students to vote?
Good news
Some of the most direct efforts to limit the impact of higher education are taking place on our own turf. The profits of making money and Trump aides are trying to establish conservative centers at Ohio State, University of Texas, University of Austin and University of Florida. When building such a center, we should recognize that we have a home field advantage. We should interact with their leaders and teachers – we don’t have more than one person. We should send students to their courses and invite their students to talk to us. We have huge cultural and social capital and a huge network. Our disciplines have rich traditions that can understand the world and solve their problems. We have insights into the human condition, think about natural law, and question the appearance of the social contract in the 21st century.
We should look back at how teachers have made such great progress in the last century. For example, in 1915, the American Association of University Professors adopted a declaration of principles. The document is the basis of the principles of academic freedom and tenure in the next 1940s, and the statement was developed in conjunction with the American College Association (now the American College Association). The 1940 document was very promising because it represented consistency between faculty and university leaders.
These documents deserve a reexamination of their essence and process. For example, we should remind our critics that academic freedom comes with accompanying responsibility. We are criticized for trying to brainwash American youth, but AAUP’s 1915 Declaration of Principles,
The university teacher is not obliged to hide his views under a series of miscellaneous words when guiding controversial matters, and should… ignore, without restraint or Genesis, the disagreement of other investigators, but he should make his students familiar with their own familiarity, and should not have appeared in a familiar manner, he should not have published it in a familiar way, he should have appeared in a familiar way, he should not have had any problems, and he should have enjoyed any problems. Ready-made conclusions, but train them to think for themselves. ”
In the world of social media and generative artificial intelligence, it may be more important than ever to train students to think about themselves. As teachers, we should practice thinking like early leaders of AAUP and try to build national unity and articulate the common purpose of higher education.
We should be accepting that conservative politicians are attacking higher education not because it is weak, but because it is so powerful. During this time, we must reshape ourselves into a career that makes our careers more than ours, which is why it is worth the collective effort of generations of scholars. We must promote the public interest. By improving the public interest, we will have great significance and relevance to it, and we will gain legitimacy. We have to show that we can do things that Google and Chatgpt cannot do: we can train students to think and be good citizens.
