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CRITICAL THINKING

 

​March 31, 2025

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Scholarship and Activism Are Two Different Things

 

Excerpts (link in the original):

 

“Disciplines have been central to the organization of academic life since the dawn of the modern university. They serve as communities for organizing the interrogation of knowledge, each making claims to expertise in a distinct approach or subject matter.

 

“Yet many disciplines now seem to be destabilizing. The complexity of the world never fits into neat boxes, and there is an increasing recognition that major problems require interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle. Disciplinary coherence is also being challenged by constantly shifting border claims in knowledge production.

 

“At the same time, some disciplines have become highly ideological, creating echo chambers that stall progress. This in turn has diminished the image of universities in the eyes of the general public, posing a profound political threat. Some disciplines have become, one might say, undisciplined -- freely pronouncing on matters outside their putative field of expertise, or expanding their claims of special knowledge to match political exigencies....

 

“The question is particularly salient in light of the variable stances of disciplines with regard to core governance questions. Disciplines are not uniformly disciplined in exercising their role as gatekeepers of good scholarship, nor are they all equally tolerant of dissent. Some of them purport to speak via collective associations about issues of the day, a major trend in our era. And many are not content with knowledge formation as the sole or primary mission of academe but instead seek to advance versions of activism....

 

“When one’s scholarship is designed to include advocacy -- what Tarunabh Khaitan has called ‘scholactivism’ -- risks are obvious. Advocates may reject or downplay inconvenient results, distorting academic debates. More deeply, they violate the “role morality” -- the notion that some roles entail specific ethical commitments -- of scholarship, which is the very basis for the social tolerance of academic freedom in the first place. While of course there is always a deep politics of scholarship, for example in the selection of topics for inquiry or methods for approaching them, these biases ought to be examined and minimized in genuine inquiry, not celebrated. This requires a humility about the limits of one’s own perspective....

 

“In a prescient observation in 2001, Clark Kerr noted that there was a conflict between the traditional view of the university that flowed from the enlightenment, embodied in a vision of seeking truth and objectivity, and a postmodern vision in which all discourse is political, with university resources to be deployed in ways that were liberatory and not repressive. He thought the conflict might further deepen, and noted that ‘any further politicization of the university will, of course, alienate much of the public at large.’

 

“As we stand at a moment of deep alienation, stepping back from the further politicization of scholarship is an existential step.”

 

Full op-ed by U Chicago Prof. Tom Ginsburg at Chronicle of Higher Education and initially published at Inquisitive (Prof. Ginsburg is also the founding faculty director of Chicago's Forum on Free Inquiry and Expression).

 

See also Part 4 of our Back to Basics at Stanford webpage where we have long advocated that the 200 to 300 centers, accelerators, incubators and similar entities that do little if any front-line research or teaching but instead are engaged primarily if not exclusively in advocacy and implementation activities need to stop using the Stanford name and need to be moved off the core campus.

 

How Campuses Can Better Cultivate Critical Awareness, Civic Engagement, Student Development and Global Literacy

 

Excerpt (link in the original):

 

“In 2019, sociologist Musa al-Gharbi called for a college education that would help students ‘understand biases and cognitive distortions (including and especially their own!)’ and prioritize civic education and engagement.

 

“Al-Gharbi noted that despite significant increases in the number of Americans with college degrees and a rise in average IQ levels, civic, historical and cultural literacy have remained stagnant. Meanwhile, political polarization, mistrust and social fragmentation have intensified, with many Americans increasingly reluctant to marry, date or even befriend those with different political views. Trust in one another and confidence in the future have steadily declined.

 

“Al-Gharbi’s observations raise a troubling question: If more Americans than ever are educated, why hasn’t this translated into greater civic knowledge or social cohesion? One answer may lie in the fragmented structure of today’s college curriculum. While most universities attempt to balance breadth, depth and choice, these elements often don’t work together to produce the kind of well-rounded, civically engaged graduates higher education aspires to cultivate....”

 

[Followed by a discussion of these topics:

 

• Addressing deficiencies in civic and cultural literacy

• The need for holistic multidimensional development

• Toward a transformative and cohesive curriculum

• Development of an integrated and purpose-driven program of learning

• From passive learning to active engagement

• Redefining faculty roles

• Enhancing the student experience

• Strengthening civic and ethical engagement

• Encouraging critical self-reflection and self-awareness

• A path toward holistic education]

 

Full op-ed by U Texas Prof. Steven Mintz at Inside Higher Ed.

 

Other Articles of Interest

 

Brown U. Student Asked Administrators: What Do You Do All Day?

Full article at Chronicle of Higher Education. See also the student-created website, “Bloat@Brown." (NOTE: the students' homepage says that after they went public with their investigation, someone with a Brown IP address hacked their website and that access to a public data base also was blocked; some of their webpages nevertheless remain in operation while they are working to restore all of the website's functionality.) See also article at FIRE website.

 

New Law Requires Utah State Students to Study Western Civ in General Ed Revamp

Full article at College Fix.

 

How Universities Could Reduce Poor Teaching and Shoddy Research

Full op-ed at Heritage.

 

Feds Tell Med Schools to Stop Discriminating

Full article at James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

 

AI Ethics in Higher Education

Full article at Ed Tech.

 

Cornell Says Deletion of DEI Language Was a Clerical Error

Full article at College Fix.

Senate Committee Probes the Censorship Industrial Complex

Full video at YouTube (1 hour 40 minutes) including references to the Virality Project at Stanford and similar activities at other universities and nonprofits. See also “Stanford’s Roles in Censoring the Web” at our Stanford Concerns-2 webpage.

 

Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford

Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites. 

 

Can Generative AI Tackle Global Health Problems?

 

Science-Backed Ways to Combat Self-Doubt

 

Roles of Nature and Nurture in Brain Organization​​​

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