What is a University for?
I just came across this video/ initiative on twitter.
Enlivened Learning an introduction from Multi-Sense Media on Vimeo.
Lately I have been asking myself the same kind of questions… as I am still searching… trying to make a meaningful contribution! What is the University for? What is my role in it? And how can I help make it a place of “useful learning“?
In the current changing environment, I think these are questions that need to be debated urgently.
In the video, one of the authors alludes to the need to re-connect education to “land, place, community and history”. How do we make Higher Education part of who we are? It is also a matter of identity, and values, and purpose, is it not?
How do we consider ourselves within the HE universe? A large percentage of the world population – the majority(!) – does not identify themselves with the University , because it’s far removed from their social, cultural and economic backgrounds. It just isn’t them, or so they think…
The University has always been an exclusive place, but knowledge has/ should not. Especially in the current socio-technological and economic context can Universities afford to continue to be what they were 200 years ago, with the aggravating ambition of becoming a business…?
I wonder!
”Knowledge is sacrificed when Universities become businesses” ~ a member of the Buffalo tribe
