What are Universities Really For?

What are Universities Really For?

The overriding conversation around this question since the 1990s has been that universities are important players in a global information-driven system where ideas and knowledge are paramount for success. The world we live in is increasingly dominated by knowledge which has become the main driver of economic growth. Education, in essence, has become the foundation for individual prosperity and social mobility. Around the world, more people are realizing the value of higher education and the role it should play in their success. In the United States, for instance, someone with a University degree is likely to earn twice as much in his lifetime compared to someone with just a high school diploma. These statistics are replicated across the world, including Africa. While we appreciate the fact that University Education is important for success, we fail to recognize the true value of a University Education.  

What are Universities For? Well, the main thing is to teach people how to make a living; educating young people to become engineers, biochemists or economists. But there is another stranger, bigger ambition lurking away there somewhere in the background, and it sometimes comes up during commencement addresses or at the lyrical moments of graduation ceremonies. It is the idea that Universities Should Teach Us How to Live. Universities should be places where we go to figure out what really matters; who we are; where our society should be headed, and how we can be happier and more fulfilled. A great many universities were founded in the mid-19th century. It is no coincidence that this happened at the time when belief and religion were undergoing a severe, and in the eyes of many, an alarming decline. At that time, a lot of questions were asked about where people would go to find meaning, consolation, wisdom, and a sense of community; all the things that they had once found in the Church. To certain educationalists, there was one answer that stood above all others. What people had once found in Churches, they would now be able to discover in the things like the Dialogues of Plato, the plays of Shakespeare, the Novels of Ernest Hemingway, the paintings of Pablo Picasso, et cetera. In other words, as the world became increasingly secular, culture was destined to replace scripture. 

That is a beautiful and moving idea. And it has been responsible for the construction of so many universities, as well as museums, concert halls, and libraries. But there is a big problem. Go to any of the world's leading universities today and you get shocked with what are given priorities. Modern universities are not asking big questions like "Where should I do with my life?" "Where is Meaning to be Found?" "How can we Change Things in this Troubled World?" These are just what you are not allowed to ask. Things that matter; like love, sex, life, and death are not given priority in most universities of today. The mood in modern universities is far cooler, more abstract, and oddly removed from anything too practical or urgent. Big questions that many modern students have, like "How can I learn About Relationships?," "What Should I Do with My Life?," "How can I Reconcile my Demand for Money and my Requirement for Meaning?" "How Does Power Work Out There in the World?" are not necessarily well addressed or answered. Currently, universities have departments named after big academic disciplines like "History" or "Literature" or "Philosophy." However, such titles really just reflect archaic priorities rather than actually picking up on issues that trouble people in their lives. 

In the ideal University of the Future, that original dream that Culture could replace the Scripture would be taken so seriously. The departments would also be reorganized to reflect the actual priorities of our lives. So for example, there might be a department for Relationships, and another for Death; a Center for Anxiety, and an Academy for Career Self-Knowledge. At the University of the Future, you wouldn't study 18th Century history or the picturesque novel. Instead, you would study "How to be Less Anxious," "How to be More Compassionate," and "How to Die Well, " et cetera.

Complaining about how many universities there are today isn't a way to give up on them. Instead, it is an attempt to make them live up to their original promise. Which is: In a busy world where most of us are just scrupling around full-time trying to make a living, they should act as centers which can generate those ideas that will truly help us to live and to die well. 

 Jude Juma, Esquire.