College for the Commonwealth by Michael T. Benson

Author:Michael T. Benson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2018-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Higher Education at Work for the Commonwealth

In his inaugural address at Johns Hopkins University in 1876, Daniel Coit Gilman spoke about his vision for higher education generally and for his own institution specifically:1

It is a reaching out for a better state of society than now exists; it is a dim but an indelible impression of the value of learning; it is a craving for intellectual and moral growth; it is a longing to interpret the laws of creation; it means a wish for less misery among the poor, less ignorance in schools, less bigotry in the temple, less suffering in the hospital, less fraud in business, less folly in politics; it means more study of nature, more love of art, more lessons from history, more security in property, more health in cities, more virtue in the country, more wisdom in legislation, more intelligence, more happiness, more religion.

The jury may still be out as to how institutions of higher education have done in each of these areas, but the 140-year-old charge is as relevant as when it was issued.2

Consider the word “university”: the prefix, uni, Latin for “unity, to be one”; and the stem, vers, “to turn.” Although disciplines on campus may be as diverse as professorial opinions, and backgrounds as divergent as areas of study, those in the academy should be committed to one united goal: the discovery, pursuit, transmission, and dissemination of knowledge. A literal brother- and sisterhood committed to truth binds scholars and students together across cultural, political, economic, and social boundaries. Among the sea of European languages, one word has emerged as a symbol of this scholarly unity: “university.” At least in Latin, Dutch, Danish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish, the prefix and the stem of the word “university” are largely the same. Only the grammatical endings differ among these eleven languages.3

We began this book with the image of Daniel Boone as he surveyed what was then part of the English colony of Virginia (later to become Kentucky in 1792); he marveled at its natural beauty and chronicled its abundant resources as he contemplated its boundless opportunity for himself, his family, and for future generations. What then, have subsequent populations done with the resources afforded them in Kentucky?

In this chapter we focus on several specific areas in which four of Kentucky’s distinctive institutions—two private and two public—have demonstrated dogged determination and vision to provide opportunities for students and solutions to seemingly intractable problems. In terms of service to students, the public–private institutional divide is less important than a shared commitment to responsibly equip them to engage with the world. The first is Berea College and its unique work-study program, which enables students, 23 percent of whom come from “at-risk” or “distressed” Appalachian counties, to gain a liberal arts education without paying tuition through working part-time at the college during the length of their collegiate careers. The second is Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, which hosts the nation’s most extensive study abroad program with

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