Beyond rhetoric: reinventing the public mission of higher education

Abstract

The concept of the "public mission" of higher education institutions has several dimensions. In the broader and more general sense, it is the institution's public mission to provide knowledge, critical reflection and discourse on the larger and more fundamental questions of society. This general function has become recently challenged as some governments openly question or simply dismiss scientific evidence. The discussion of this more fundamental dimension of "society engagement" is therefore very timely. The second meaning, "community engagement", emphasizes the more instrumental dimension: collaboration of various kinds between higher education institutions and their "communities". To many universities and other higher education institutions are attributed three major, interrelated missions: education, the generation of new knowledge, and engagement with society or "the community". While the processes and structures associated with teaching and research are relatively well defined and analyzed, this is less the case with the public mission. Mission statements, websites and promotional materials often underline an institution's commitment to community engagement and public responsibility. However, despite the growing importance of higher education's public mission at a declamatory level, its implementation in practice is not clear-cut. The wide range of activity incorporated in universities and colleges' community engagement suggests that a precise definition of the public mission is difficult, and that organizing and coordinating such external activities and internal policies and practices is a complex task. This task might begin with articulating, generally, the current and future public mission of higher education, and what difference this mission makes to society and the community as well as to the higher education institutions. Another question is which specific public missions apply to which universities and higher education institutions? This will depend on their respective internal characteristics (e.g. traditions, mission, structures and policies), external environment (e.g., demographics, sociocultural, economic and political), and the variety of the institution's stakeholders, both internal and external.

Using a Social Justice Continuum to Better Support Faculty of Color in Higher Education Settings

“…Thus, IHEs and particularly PWIs need to actively utilize components of social justice education in ways that provide educational opportunities that advance social mobility within their settings and beyond throughout communities across the globe. Impact is expected within the larger society as students graduate, faculty produce, and staff commit to the institution's public mission or that of the community (Papadimitriou 2020). Colleges and universities are often characterized as having three purposes: (a) educational services, (b) the creation of new knowledge, and (c) engagement with the community, broadly defined (Papadimitriou 2020).…”

“…Impact is expected within the larger society as students graduate, faculty produce, and staff commit to the institution's public mission or that of the community (Papadimitriou 2020). Colleges and universities are often characterized as having three purposes: (a) educational services, (b) the creation of new knowledge, and (c) engagement with the community, broadly defined (Papadimitriou 2020). Therefore, it is imperative that a PWI engages in continual reflection and refinement of its approach toward social justice (Hackman 2005;Jost and Kay 2010), especially since many PWIs were founded in the United States during the nineteenth century when practices, polices, and laws created during the 1800s and later were intentionally meant to subjugate people of color, women, and others, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) persons (Abel and Johnson 2013).…”

“…PWIs and other types of colleges and universities can be trailblazers in ways that fulfill their third mission of engaging with the community and helping to create education and societal outcomes in ways that embody social justice (Blaine 2000;Papadimitriou 2020). Our model for how a PWI navigates its work to result in a state of being that is committed to social justice is based on both the practical and the theoretical and presented as a continuum on which a PWI might move back and forth on depending on its institutional values.…”

“…The needed structures and resources are allocated in ways that support the overarching mission and allow staff and faculty to maintain work-life balance while providing quality learning experiences. The institution supports both academic and experiential learning in ways that nurture their propensity for change and equip participants with the dispositions, knowledge, and skills to affect outcomes that matter in their respective educational settings (Hackman 2005;Papadimitriou 2020).…”

Basic Medical Training for Refugees via Collaborative Blended Learning: Quasi-Experimental Design

“…Academic discourse on the role of higher education has long centered on liberatory or functional objectives seen through humanistic or utilitarian lenses. Regardless of one’s ideological stance on these matters, most academics agree that the mission of higher education is multifaceted [ 1 ] and hinges on 3 important goals: delivering education, generating new knowledge, and engaging with society [ 2 ]. Through established pedagogical systems and social institutions, human progress has harnessed education to clear a pathway for those who participate within its confines to better understand, learn, and succeed.…”