Talkback: What is the role of a university in modern day society?

Professor perspective

“Above all, in modern western societies, the university serves to educate people to a higher level than any other institution does. An educated population in these societies is considered (or should be considered) to be a good thing in itself, not simply because it provides society with a sufficient number of lawyers, artists, accountants, journalists, engineers, bureaucrats and so on . . . more important is the role the university plays in preparing people to communicate clearly and persuasively, to distinguish bad arguments from good ones, to challenge authority and tradition where their effect may be harmful, to exercise self-criticism, to innovate and to use the imagination, to understand the past and its meaning for the present, and to think about the human experience in a large context rather than in the immediate moment.”

— Mark Joyal, department of classics head

“The role of the university as providing ‘knowledge for the sake of knowledge’ has receded and been replaced by a more instrumental notion of the university as a centre of knowledge to develop and transfer technology and to provide students with skills required by the labour market.”

— Wayne Simpson, department of economics head

“I think that the role of the university in modern society should still be education for democratic citizenship and full participation, including taking leadership roles, in the public life of the nation-state and the globe within the various interconnected spheres demarcated by the economy, society, science, and culture. The role of the university is to prepare citizens to inquire into what constitutes the social good and the just society and to work toward these. The university must always balance transmitting the heritage of what we may learn from the past with encouraging questioning and the innovation to which it leads in the present. That is why it is important for the university to promote teaching and research as part of a codependent continuum, rather than maintaining each activity as a separate sphere.

"The university is a place where people may pursue knowledge for its own sake, as a public good in itself, but also as the best path toward achieving other public goods such as social justice. For knowledge to advance, and these goals to be fulfilled, universities must be free from interference from the state, religion, or private funders and from short-term perspectives that value narrowly instrumentalist aims over the longer term view and broader perspectives. Universities must be accountable, but to these larger goals of advancing knowledge and understanding, rather than to whatever happens to be the flavour of the day.”

— Diana Brydon, research chair, Centre for Globalization and Cultural Studies

“I think the question is silly, not frivolously silly, but misguided. I can try to convince you of this with a small analogy. Consider a person. Has a person a role in society? No. A person has many roles through the course of time and contexts. And the university is much more diverse than any one person, being composed of many persons and immortal to boot.”

— Robert Thomas, department of mathematics professor

Student perspective

Justin Marchildon

Second-year arts

“Educating people, having greater knowledge, throughout society. And also, the aspect of delaying people from entering the workforce, or else there would just be a huge wave of people. Also, just higher education, going along the lines of ‘knowledge is power.’”

Jordan Bauman

kinesiology

“To train up the “young’uns,” to fill the spots in the world of goodness and beyond. The whole training thing, to give them all the necessary skills to succeed in Canada.”

Eryn Mackenzie

Fourth-year fine arts

“I don’t necessarily think it’s to get a job anymore. I think it depends on people’s motivations to come here. It’s subjective to everyone. I don’t think anyone should come here right out of high school.

National Perspective

“The role is not static. The role is changing and evolving, and universities have to respond to change. The roles, clearly the traditional roles are terribly important, to meet student needs and demands, to educate and to train individuals, and in a ‘knowledge society’ in which we live . . . that role is absolutely vital. Another role that the universities have in relation to research and development [is] the advancement of knowledge, to participate actively in that community. Also, a third role would be to meet community and regional and provincial and national needs; and that, universities do in many different ways.”

— Robert Patry, associate director, Strategic Initiatives and Knowledge Exchange, Canadian Council of Learning

Global Perspective

“Universities should serve the multiple needs of society. They should not predominantly be the economic drivers, (although they must), they should also serve to educate and prepare people for active citizenship in democratic society, to be conscious of the responsibilities that people in society have. Universities also continuously need to make students and other people aware of the dangers of unsustainable growth, or environmentally dangerous development . . . I think universities also act as a cultural centre in many instances; they provide space for art, for culture to be cherished and promoted. They really play a fairly broad set of roles and should not be considered only in their economic sense, which, increasingly, they are.

"There is no one role, really. I think that universities are . . . institutions in which people live and develop in a particular context, in a particular society, and at a particular point in time. I do not think it is possible to talk about a single model. Institutions need to be responsible to their society both locally and globally, and need to find their niche and their way of responding to those needs that are unique to it, and not to try and emulate. Context, both spatial and temporal, has a lot to do with the way in which they evolve.”

—Eva Egron-Polak, secretary-general, International Association of Universities