ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 20, 1996 TAG: 9603200022
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: E. GORDON GEE
ACCORDING to a recent nationwide survey, Americans are losing faith in their future.
The gist of the survey, sponsored by Harvard University, The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, is that we're a cynical bunch.
Three-quarters of us no longer trust the government. Half of us say most people would cheat others if given the chance.
In general, Americans have little faith in their neighbors and probably less in their institutions.
The 1990s certainly don't feel like the 1950s, to those whose memories stretch that far.
And President Clinton's last rites for big government bear little resemblance to President Lyndon Johnson's pledge in the 1960s to end poverty in America.
The smart money is behind a new realism: I've got mine, you earn yours. Government and its institutional progeny are incompetent. Nothing works.
Well, forget the new realism. Some things do work, and public higher education is one of them. In 1857, when Rep. Justin Morrill of Vermont introduced a bill to provide federal land grants for universities, his was a vision of popular access to higher education.
Today, 106 land-grant colleges and universities, along with about 1,400 two-year and four-year public colleges and universities, enroll more than 10 million students annually. They have educated hundreds of millions of Americans, mostly at bargain-basement prices.
Nearly three out of four undergraduates attend institutions with tuition averaging under $2,500 a year.
Yet it is easy to understand why the Harvard-Post-Kaiser survey revealed extraordinary depths of cynicism about public institutions.
Other surveys indicate most Americans fear that a college education is being priced out of their reach. They worry that students are an afterthought and that graduates aren't ready for the work force.
Unfortunately, even the noble ideas embodied by our land-grant system are no guarantee of a bright future, particularly in light of today's anxious public mood.
Public and land-grant institutions face the most formidable challenges in their history. Meeting those challenges will determine whether they will continue to be vibrant and relevant.
With Kellogg Foundation support, 22 university presidents have banded together to study their common problems. The presidents represent east and west, large and small, predominantly white campuses as well as historically black and tribal ones.
With education at all levels in turmoil - and with commissions aplenty to study it - what's special about the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities?
The various pressures on state and land-grant institutions set them somewhat apart. So does their historical development.
Public and land-grant institutions have been the foundation on which Americans have built access to higher education. If this foundation erodes, the public's anxieties will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When Morrill brought his ideas forward, he was determined to broaden access beyond a narrow elite to include the farmhands, laborers and their children. This premise undergirds the land-grant system today.
Subsequent federal laws developed agricultural research and teaching, established cooperative ``extension'' services and, in 1890, required states to admit students without regard to race - or establish separate institutions for black citizens.
In 1967, the system was extended to districts and territories, including the District of Columbia, Guam and American Samoa. And in 1994, Congress gave land-grant status to 29 tribal colleges.
Given that kind of political and demographic stew, it is hardly surprising the public sometimes doesn't know whether land-grant institutions are educational fish or fowl.
Our commission has a straightforward goal: Help these institutions set a new standard for excellence in teaching, service and research. We have identified five key areas.
Access: The hallmark of our institutions has been access, the ability of a broad segment of Americans, almost regardless of income, to obtain a solid education.
How can we remain true to Morrill's vision of a practical college education for all? Asking the question is easy. Answering it may be the hardest work this commission faces.
Engaged institutions: Engagement has been the land grants' second-most important hallmark. By ``engaged,'' I mean productively involved with the community, particularly through extension and outreach programs.
We must go beyond rural problems to confront urban challenges. How can we fashion a university that is both a partner and servant to all segments of society?
A learning society: Higher education cannot become the victim of today's knowledge explosion.
We have the tools to deal with the challenges of the information age. How can we support lifelong learning?
The student experience: As one national commission observed, ``undergraduates too often become at best a responsibility, at worst an afterthought.''
Americans value our research and appreciate our outreach, but they support us because we have historically provided a quality academic experience. How can public and land-grant institutions focus on their responsibilities to students?
Faculty-campus culture: Finally, the very culture of the campus needs attention. Few would quibble with the criticism that research is more important with the faculty than teaching or service.
How can we correct that imbalance while preserving what is best in the present system?
We must make a start, otherwise our institutions of higher education run the risk of being consigned to a sort of academic Jurassic Park - places of great historic interest, fascinating to visit, but increasingly irrelevant.
The Kellogg Commission is the best opportunity we have to frame the debate about the future of public higher education in America - in many ways, the debate about the future of America itself.
We can start by observing that sometimes government manages to get it right, as it did when it created land-grant institutions.
E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University, chairs the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities.
- Knight-Ridder/Tribune
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