A Deeper Look - Issue #7 | Feb 22 2021
A Trip to White Spot, The Future of the Research University, and the Pope's Address to the Diplomatic Corps.
Hello Friends!
This week we take a deeper look at two recent speeches:
An Address by Pope Francis to Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See (Feb 8 2021)
Remarks delivered by Harvard University President Larry Bacow: The Research University in Contentious Times (25 January 2021)
A short reflection: My dad and I went to White Spot this weekend. Since 1928, White Spot has served its usual diner fare; fries, chicken-tenders, burgers, pasta, milkshakes, salads and the like. But there is one item of legendary repute, the aptly named “Legendary Burger” which on closer inspection is anything but…. and perhaps I am being unfair. It is a very good burger. What is legendary, is consistency of the taste of this burger, it has tasted exactly the same for years.
Settling into the well worn and tattered booth, we began the familiar ritual of a father-son White Spot dinner. The hostess kindly asked us if we would like a menu: “Would you like a menu?” “Yes of course!” (Did we know what we were going to order before we even left the house? - Absolutely.) We flipped through the menu and looked through the dishes. We ordered, and patiently waited for the food to arrive. Of course, when the food did arrive we had the obligatory conversation about the food and how it had compared with our previous visit. “Oh the fries look good this time, much crispier.” Similar iterations of past conversations ran through my head, on one occasion the brioche bun was a tad softer, on another, the portion of coleslaw was a bit smaller, and on another, the coffee a little hotter.
And so as we sat there I thought, why do we ask for the menu when we know exactly what to order? Why do we flip through it hoping that something new will catch our eye? Why do we look for difference when what we really crave is familiarity? Perhaps this is a reflection of our own habits and tendencies, to seek and find change when it hasn’t happened, to convince ourselves that we need to find something new when what we want has sadly stayed the same. In a world of constant change, turbulence and turmoil the comfort of certainty is reassuring. That despite the vast and fleeting universe of our desires, hopes, dreams, aspirations for ourselves and those around us, there will always be small corner of the world - a well-lit and comfortable booth, that will feel the same, and in which the food will taste the same - long after we arrived, and long after we are gone.
Perhaps, we also just crave a good burger.
The Gomes Lecture: The Research University in Contentious Times.
Over the last few months we have been made aware of the impact of COVID-19 on tertiary education, yet dialogue around this focused largely on the administrative and operational challenges that students, and faculty face.
A recent report by Deloitte Insights entitled “The Hybrid Campus: Three Major Shifts for the Post-COVID University” explains that the way forward is a hybrid campus, “a holistic vision for delivering everything an institution offers from academic advising to courses to career services. This approach which sits between a physical and digital worlds is what students come to expect outside the college campus.”
However there is also another side of the equation, tertiary education institutes are not simply service providers, but centres of research and knowledge.
What do the current times mean for the future of research, and research universities? We are grappling with a social, economic and health crisis in the form of COVID-19 but we are also grappling with a crisis of disinformation, of political polarisation, and a crisis of erosion, of democracy, democratic institutions and the values which undergird them.
Delivering the Gomes Lecture, Bacow remarked:
“The insularity I have described is, I believe, the symptom of a much larger problem in my country, and, as I have learned, in this country as well. Much of our public discourse has become dysfunctional and coarse. Division and derision rule, and scorched earth is far more common than common ground. It feels as though we are always on the brink of some shift that will send the whole democratic experiment reeling toward chaos, toppling the foundations on which our society rests.”
He goes on to describe the importance of knowledge and the freedom to pursue this knowledge in the current environment. But he also is careful to note that such freedom is accompanied by responsibility.
Facts and truth are of course not the same, and we must be careful to define and honor the distinction. Research universities—and the universities we create and nurture—do not have a monopoly on truth. We must be willing to consider where our opinions begin to encroach on our knowledge, and we must be willing to have our truth tested on the anvil of opposing explanations and ideas.
In summary, the role of the research university is an important one that, it is reminder that the search for knowledge and the freedom to pursue that knowledge is not without an obligation, that a search for truth does not absolve oneself from recognising facts, that dialogue entails civility, and that the the cultivation of a world in which all can engage is an admirable goal. The question I have, is can our hybrid universities of the future meet these needs?
Address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See [8 Feb 2021]
Pope Francis occupies a unique position in global affairs, he is head of state but also a religious figure, and for many around the world, a source of moral authority and spiritual guidance. I cite his remarks here because they are representative of a different perspective on COVID-19, one that been more inspiring rather than instrumental.
Health Crisis: He speaks of COVID-19 as a health crisis, as one that has drawn attention to the fragility of human life, and of the value of human dignity. He goes on to make a plea for each individual to treat this as a matter of personal responsibility.
Even so, before so a devious and unpredictable an enemy as Covid-19, access to vaccines must be accompanied by responsible personal behaviour aimed at halting the spread of the virus, employing the necessary measures of prevention to which we have become accustomed in these months. It would be disastrous to put our trust in the vaccine alone, as if it were a panacea exempting every individual from constant concern for his or her own health and for the health of others.
Economic and Social Crisis: He elaborates on the broader consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic explaining that it has had serious consequences on already vulnerable and marginalised populations (migrants, refugees, and those in conflict areas). It also provides us an opportunity to re-think the foundations of our current economy:
“…There is a need for a new kind of Copernican revolution” that can put the economy at the service of men and women, not vice versa. In a word, ‘a different kind of economy: one that brings life not death, one that is inclusive and not exclusive, humane and not dehumanising, one that cares for the environment and does not despoil it.”
Crisis of Politics: Pope Francis spoke of the COVID-19 crisis as a crisis of politics in that it has become harder to find common ground, it has become more difficult to seek shared solutions to shared problems, and that democracies around the world today are facing an enormous challenge:
The democratic process calls for pursuing the path of inclusive, peaceful, constructive and respectful dialogue among all the components of civil society in every city and nation. The events that in various ways and contexts, from East to West, have marked this past year also, as I mentioned, in countries with a long democratic tradition, have made clear how inescapable is this challenge, and how we cannot avoid the moral and social duty to address it positively. The development of a democratic consciousness demands that emphasis on individual personalities be overcome and that respect for the rule of law prevail.
Crisis of Human Relationships: The last crisis he speaks of is one of a crisis of human relationships. In making this last point he notes that COVID-19 has brought long months of isolation and loneliness.
Artefact of the Week:
This week’s artefact comes from the British Museum’s collection. It is a mosque-lamp in the Iznik style from the Ottoman dynasty produced in 1549. The curator’s comments read “made for the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Inscribed with a hadith (saying) of the Prophet Muhammad comparing the believer in the mosque to a fish in water, and a non-believer in the mosque to a bird in a cage.”
May you all be fishes in water, whatever your ocean.
Until next week,
FK