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Marketing and University Communication UW-Green Bay, CL 815 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 (920) 465-2626 E-mail: hildebrs@uwgb.edu Last update: 10/4/06 |
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In
the News Archive - Year:
August 13, 2006 Guest commentary: By Bruce Shepard, Chancellor
For most of my career, I earned an honest living as a professor. A professor of political science no less, meaning I was helping students learn about highly charged subjects.
One common technique was to have students attack or defend a proposition that I was articulating. There was no "right" stance. What I graded was the students' ability to apply reason, logic and evidence to effectively support their positions.
These were hard assignments. It's easy to imagine why in a world of sound bites, talk shows aggressively share ignorance and a too-pervasive orientation that judges all opinions as equally valid no matter how uninformed. It was like pulling teeth to get some students to see the difference between real reason and what I came to call "analysis at the level of the cliché."
But, in an ever more dangerous world, how important it remains for universities to help develop critical and informed thinking so crucial to effective citizenship.
Hypothetically, then, presenting a preposterous theory for students to tear apart is a defensible approach. I would not have chosen a theory such as the one that's been in the newspapers just because it is too easy to tear apart. I would be setting the "critical thinking bar" too low to really exercise my students' brains.
What would never be right would be to teach the theory as actual political science, as something for my students to understand and accept. My university, guided by the political science faculty whose job it is to judge accepted political science, would have the right and, indeed, the responsibility to send me in pursuit of new career possibilities.
At the risk of wading into an even more controversial thicket, let me reason by analogy. Science is a very powerful tool for exploring an important but limited range of questions. Faith is similarly valuable as a way to explore other important questions. Now, think about teaching creationism or "intelligent design" at a university.
Addressed in a sociology department, a political science department, a religious studies department, no problem. Belief in creationism is a fact of our society, our politics and a number of our religions.
Teaching creationism in a biology department as science would not happen. Creationism is not science. Science requires that theories be structured so that there is the possibility of disproving them through observation.
And here's the point: A biologist may believe whatever she wishes but attempting to teach creationism as biology is not any "academic right."
So, to my way of thinking, it comes down to how the theory about 9/11 is being taught: as a challenge to critical thinking or as an attempt to teach "actual truth." This line is neither narrow nor insignificant.
Here's another cause for alarm: I have read reports that the lecturer at Madison was the only person to apply for the job.
Where have the universities been in preparing people who can effectively serve our society - in universities, globally competitive businesses, government - through their knowledge of an increasingly important part of the world?
Here are several examples of what Green Bay's university has been up to:
• Our "Journey to Jordan" institute took local high school students to Amman this summer for cross-cultural learning and language study.
• We are teaching Arabic at UWGB for the first time.
• We had a visiting scholar from Jordan, a Palestinian who taught great courses on campus and, by her mere presence as a professional Islamic woman, also shattered stereotypes.
• We hosted a group of educators from rural Pakistan who wanted to learn about American K-12 education, part of a federal government effort to use the American model of education to counter the thinking that breeds terrorism.
These are a start. We must not let the current controversy deter us from our role in assuring our region and our country are well prepared for changing futures.
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