As our campuses herald the return to community of a new academic year, we face the welcome process of reuniting and beginning again, and the expected evolution of change and disruption. The extended liminality of pre- and post-pandemic experience is now layered on the sustained upheaval in higher education in which the demise of residential college programs and the liberal arts institution has been identified in the perfect storms of demographic shifts, pre- and post-pandemic changes in attitudes, and widespread suspicion of higher education.
And yet, here we are. Ready for another academic year, ready to evaluate and anticipate the continuity and the change needed to keep our institutions vibrant and viable. As college and university presidents and leaders, we must build and rebuild the terra firma on which our institutions stand and thrive. Within our tempest-tossed sector, how do we establish and affirm our solid ground?
At Grinnell College, we champion the practice of asking hard questions and questioning easy answers. Through this practice we build and rebuild our solid ground: our purpose and consequence. Asking questions that foster a community of inquiry through their complexity shapes our constituents and the communities they, in turn, will shape. In this way, each of our campuses is our society at large in the making. The hard questions I share below define higher education’s critical role in sustaining a multi-cultural democracy and building civic trust: the terra firma we need for our vital work as educators in a democratic society.
The first hard question queries our values and our accountability to them in this turbulent 21st century. We hold education in trust. But what of personal and community well-being? Equitable opportunity? Community engagement? Identity development? Preparation for employment? Commitment to engaged citizenship? An enduring principle for our work comes from the renowned educator John Dewey, who, in 1936, claimed that “[d]emocracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” Higher education renews democracy, not as a static institution, but as a vital, ever-evolving process to nurture and model in our academic and civic practices.
The pandemic prompted us to seek connection in new ways by scaling down to the local and interpersonal, even as we supported a national and international student constituency through a global shared experience. Understanding the intertwined health, economic, and social needs of our campus and community during the pandemic instilled a renewed relevance to community relationships and resulted in our institutions deepening partnerships that lead to research, collaborations, deliberation, and civic engagement—all fundamentals of democracy.
Across the country, institutions became flashpoints for politicized and divisive disputes over masking, vaccination, and public health measures. Our experiences at these crossroads evoke the second hard question: How will we uphold the distinction between politics and democracy? Polemical, targeted public discourse that puts forth easy answers about education, health, and work is politics. Sitting down together to do the complex, collaborative work needed to sustain our communities is democracy. Like the most rewarding experiences in higher education, democracy best serves its constituents when it is solving problems in teams energized by multiple perspectives and experiences. We see democracy at work in the academic modes of research, deliberation, and collaboration, for those are also civic modes.
Thus, the third hard question: How do we sustain our principles and change practices to engender the civic trust essential to a thriving democracy? The answer begins at the heart of what we do: We teach and we learn. At Grinnell, we offer an individually advised liberal arts curriculum with no general education requirements. This model—a partnership with advisors and mentors—requires that students examine their assumptions and justify their assertions.
Within a dominant discourse that continues to divide individuals into factions that exchange rhetoric and encourage spite at a distance, we know as educators that sitting down across from someone with different views can be a transformative experience crucial to democratic well-being. We create that experience every time we teach through research, deliberation, and collaboration. Democracy needs communities of inquiry in which individuals learn the contexts, cultures, languages, research skills, and methodologies that build and rebuild our terra firma to launch knowledge into action for a more just, vibrant, and equitable society.
This work with democracy is not additional to all that we do with market forces, budget considerations, legislative changes, and the many dynamics within which we fulfill our institutional missions; it is a fundamental framework, a foundational affirmation. If we remember this, we have our solid ground–and our direction.
Anne F. Harris, PhD, is the president of Grinnell College.
Share on LinkedIn
