Higher Education as a Force for Societal Change in the 21st Century
Brenda Gourley (The Open University)
Abstract
Societies, institutions and individuals demonstrate their values most powerfully by their actions rather than their words. Too often we fail to transform our rhetoric into reality. Take as an example universities which, metaphorically and philosophically, stand on three fundamental pillars: research, teaching and service to the community. Yet the vast majority of academic institutions lean far more heavily on the first two pillars than on the last.
In The Scholarship of Engagement, published more than a decade ago, Ernest Boyer clearly identified the need for universities to develop a ‘scholarship of engagement’ that “connects the rich resources of the [university) to our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems, to our children, to our schools, to our teachers and to our cities. Campuses would be viewed by both students and professors not as isolated islands, but as staging grounds for action”. That need has now become an imperative.
The young people of today will, more than at any other time in history, make a spectacular difference to what happens this century – and there needs to be an absolute determination to bring change about. This generation will collectively determine whether life on our planet (at least as we know it) survives, or not. As educators and people concerned with education we have a critical role in fostering, supporting, encouraging and, above all, equipping our students with the values and skill set necessary to drive forward such initiatives.
