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Challenging Our Greatness: Universities, Dirty Hands, and the Context for the Ethics and Servant Leadership program

Derrick Bok, president emeritus of Harvard University, is just one of many voices which have identified the university as one of the "most central institutions of society." Such a claim makes many of us working in higher education feel proud and yes, sometimes a bit brazen. As teachers, consultants, and researchers, we have the capacity to excite young minds, discover new knowledge, and influence public policy and professional practices. What a privilege and contribution.

"Good for us" - if Bok did not so skillfully couple the claim of centrality with a tough question: "If we are so good, why are so many things [in society] so troubling?"

The question prompts long pauses, often a bit of defensiveness, and recently a growing national movement of universities examining what it means to be an "engaged citizen" on both an individual and institutional level.

Scholars such as Ira Harkavy of the University of Pennsylvania have become mainstays of this movement, arguing, "The schooling system determines the character of society...and universities cannot afford to be islands of splendid affluence in seas of poverty and despair...we must begin to educate the morally developed, engaged citizens necessary for democracy." In other words, it is time again for universities to get their hands dirty. Elaborating this point at the Sam Nunn Policy Forum, Harkavy challenged universities to recognize the emerging revolution in higher education: the creation of cosmopolitan, civic universities. Following the tradition of John Dewey, these universities emphasize concrete learning and seeing "academics on the firing line of civilization."

Across the nation, universities are beginning to examine what it means to be a leading institution in society and what moral obligation such leadership entails. From big hitters like Stanford, Brown, Providence, and Michigan (to name just a few) to local community colleges, universities are redesigning curriculum and institutional commitments to emphasize the practical skills and practices of mind necessary for effective citizenship, empathic leadership, and the improvement of surrounding communities. Programs emphasizing community-based research, service-learning (where work in community settings is integrated into classroom reflection and theory development), advocacy, and ethical formation are growing in both number and funding.

As the Ethics and Servant Leadership program has worked this summer to craft our mission statement, the "University as Citizen" movement has become a significant conversation partner in our work. This growing effort to reignite the moral, civic, and intellectual leadership of universities reclaims the virtues of classically liberal education and dovetails nicely with the broad vision of our work grounded in the seminal texts of Robert Greenleaf. Thus as we state our own mission in the paragraphs that follow, we return to the mission of Emory University and attempt to be an advocate and an ally in its continued implementation:

Through teaching, to help men and women fully develop their intellectual, aesthetic, and moral capacities; and through the quest for new knowledge and public service, to improve human well-being. These purposes rest upon the premises that education is the most powerful social force of our time for enabling and ennobling the individual, and that the privilege of education entails an obligation to use knowledge for the common good.

In support of these aims, the mission of the D. Abbott Turner Ethics and Servant Leadership Program (E&SL) is to cultivate principled leadership for social transformation and the creation of a more humane and just world.

In the midst of declining civic involvement and growing cynicism toward public institutions, universities possess a unique and time-honored purpose: to cultivate leaders who exhibit intellectual rigor, ethical intuition, and attentiveness to the common good. The university is a place where students who have a passion for service and a creative vision for helping the world can be nurtured into such leaders. Building strong connections between teaching, research, and service must thus become a priority for higher education as it helps foster the skills necessary for effective democratic citizenship.

The paradox at the heart of servant leadership focuses attention on the fact that the most effective leaders are those attuned to working in partnership with the individuals and communities surrounding them. Igniting and supporting these skills of attentiveness and empathic public service lies at the heart of E&SL as we advocate for continued development of ethics and leadership studeis, service-learning, community-based research, and direct social services at Emory. Whether in nonprofits, businesses, politics, religion, law, or medicine, E&SL strives to envision and support a cadre of citizen-scholars committed to working for the common good.

To these ends, we see our work involving the following components:

• Student Formation: Assisting students in vocational and leadership development; connecting their gifts, passions, and capacities for service to the world around them.

• Institutional and Faculty Development: Supporting university programs and individual faculty in integrating teaching, research, and service for the common good.

• Theoretical Development and Dissemination: Participating in the growing national commitment toward "Universities as Citizens" through publication and research on service and leadership.

• Community Partnerships: Collaborating with civic, professional, and business organizations to provide students with growth opportunities and to offer university resources toward building healthier communities.

In the end, the greatness of universities will be measured in part by the types of leaders they cultivate for public service. At Emory, we hope to be part of the growing movement to engage students and faculty with work for the common good. Focusing on vocational formation for social transformation, E&SL seeks to ignite and support social entrepreneurs, public intellectuals, and engaged citizens-servant leaders who are attuned to working in partnerships with the people and communities around them. We look forward to getting our hands dirty in the complexity of change and leadership formation.

[ Posted by Melissa Snarr at September 1, 1999 09:39 AM | More Ethics and Servant Leadership articles ]

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