What does it mean?

Below is a message received today, Wednesday, September 19, 2007, from new BGSU Provost Dr. Shirley Baugher. I am not sure what to make of it, what exactly it signifies, or where it will lead, although I am nervous about its mention of both the Spellings report and a European commission, both of which seem to be interested in the standardization of higher education. I am all for access, and increased access, to higher education, but I find myself nervous about exactly this sort of rhetoric (or, I should say, around the rhetoric and ideas in the Spellings report, which I take to be largely at odds with truly successful higher education).

I also note, with some worry, this description from the email of the tripartite purpose of higher education: “personal/professional development… developing citizen engagement in our society… sustaining competitiveness in a global society.” I feel decidedly old-fashioned in insisting that I care primarily (if not only) about the second part of that list, although I hate the nominalization “citizen engagement.” As an educator, I am most interested in helping students to become the best, smartest thinkers that they can be in order that they might best be members of (and promote the ongoing creation of) just societies. But I fear that education is sliding more and more toward professional development, seen as a way to maintain or improve a certain form of national corporate competitiveness.

Can’t we, as educators and citizens, do better? And can’t we push for and demand better of education? I understand that we need to work with the state, and that the state of Ohio has certain ideas about education, professional development and competitiveness being the primary issues at hand. But are there not means by which we might work with the state while working, actively and seriously, to change the terms of the debate, and to insist upon the primary importance of public education for a critical, informed citizenry? And equally, of the importance of a critical, informed citizenry to a truly functioning democracy and healthy, progressive world?

I am not doubting that Provost Baugher desires those things just as I do. I just wish that public pronouncements from this university actually stated, and emphasized, them. Before Provost Baugher arrived, those sentiments seemed to be absent or lost (buried, for example, in the middle of a list). I hope and hope and hope that they will find their way into her work for this university.

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A MESSAGE FROM PROVOST SHIRLEY BAUGHER

As I walked to the door of McFall Center my first day on campus, I
looked up and read “religion, morality and knowledge–being necessary
to good government and the happiness of mankind–schools and the means
of education shall be forever encouraged.” Regardless of the many who
have entered the doors of BGSU, we have remained committed to values,
knowledge, democracy, the welfare of humankind–to education.

As a first-generation college graduate, I have a deep commitment to
the role of higher education in personal/professional development. I
believe education to be the most significant factor in developing
citizen engagement in our society as well as sustaining
competitiveness in a global society.

This is a significant moment in the life span of higher education in
the United States and the world. In 1998, UNESCO coordinated a World
Conference on Higher Education in the 21st Century. Since then we have
seen an international focus on the role of higher education in
societies as well as the productivity of higher education for societies.

In Europe, the Bologna Process aims to create a European Higher
Education Area by 2010, in which students can choose from a wide and
transparent range of high-quality courses and benefit from smooth
recognition procedures. The process has put in motion a series of
reforms needed to make European higher education more compatible and
comparable, more competitive and more attractive for Europeans and for
students and scholars from other continents. Reform was needed then
and reform is still needed today if Europe is to match the performance
of the best-performing systems in the world, notably the United States
and Asia.

ERASMUS seeks to enhance the quality and reinforce the European
dimension of higher education by encouraging transnational cooperation
between universities, boosting European mobility and improving the
transparency and full academic recognition of studies and
qualifications throughout the Union. Inspired by a mobility tradition
that dates back to the Middle Ages, the Erasmus action and its
different activities henceforth fit into the mobility policy promoted
by the Bologna Process.

In the United States, A National Dialogue: The Secretary of
Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education (the
Spellings Commission) has focused the attention of all of us in higher
education on the relevant and strategic questions that are imperative
to the future of higher education. What does it mean today to be a
scholar? What is the scholar’s responsibility to society in a world
that is more and more complex? How are universities to define and to
prioritize all of the various functions and activities that
traditionally fall under the scholarly rubric, including the teaching
of undergraduates; the education of future scholars; inquiry that
advances knowledge; applied research that supports innovation and
problem resolution in many spheres; citizenship activities that
support professional development, scholarly or disciplinary
advancement, and university governance; and social and political
engagement in the life of the community? The questions have become a
local reality with the established University System of Higher
Education in Ohio in August 2007.

And so, this is a significant time in the life span of Bowling Green
State University. In the next few years, we will shape the next
century of this great university as we prepare to celebrate our
centennial!

I chose to join you at Bowling Green State University because of your
proud history and our bright future. I am excited to share that with you.

Shirley L. Baugher
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

http://ec.europa.eu/index_en.html
http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/llp/erasmus/what_en.html
http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/index.html
http://universitysystem.ohio.gov/