[lbo-talk] College & University

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Sep 10 15:22:56 PDT 2010


As an institution or formal organization, the "university" (whatever the term covers) can only be concerned with what can be formally taught. As Doug's doublt-quotes around teamwork suggest, probably "working together" is not a mattere which such an organization should be formally concerned with.

Buty as Dennis C's short posts suggest, the university has a lot of side effects, merely by bringing a large number of young people together in the same general context for a few years. Cardinal Newman comment on this in reference to the British University in the 185h-c: totally corrupt and wonderfully successful.

"Working together," of course, doesn't name anything but lumps together radically different activities under a vague label. Two persons on opposite ends of a two-handled saw work together in a rather different way than do elementary school teachers making up a committee. And both are different from the minister and the financial manager of a congregation. And so forth. By itself the phrase is empty.

I have said a number of times ovcer the years, only somewhat facetiously, that my grad school education occurred mostly in the cafeteria of the Michigan Mens Union and in Metzger's Bar. But neither of those institutions would have been able to provide its educative powers had not the students been brought together by the formal requirements of the ph.d. program. And that is as it should be. The university consists of both formal and informal 'parts.' Both are important. More and better-paid secretaraies and fewer Deans would probably improve things considerably, but that's another question. Faculty do need to learn to cooperate _politically_ for their own survival, but that too is another question.

Incidentally, u.s. society reeks of cooperation. No institution could survive without it. I really don't see the point in fussing about it.

Carrol



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