WHAT ARE UNIVERSITIES FOR?

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) has produced a paper called What are universities for? The authors’ contention is that a university that moulds itself only to present demands, and market forces is not performing as a university should.

“We assert that they [universities] have a deeper, fundamental role that permits them to adapt and respond to the changing values and needs of successive generations, and from which the outputs cherished by governments are but secondary derivatives.”

The paper is an interesting and in parts inspiring argument about the need for universities to operate within an environment of freedom in order for creativity to flourish. It is this creativity, say the authors, which enables universities to produce solutions to society’s needs and advance human knowledge.

They argue against the increasing demand for immediate results and the ranking of one university against another. The authors quote Drew Faust’s inaugural address as President of Harvard. “A university is not about results in the next quarter; it is not even about who a student has become by graduation. It is about learning that moulds a lifetime; learning that transmits the heritage of millennia; learning that shapes the future”.