What an observant and right thinking man this was. These were the words of Peter Flawn [Former UT president, upon recently receiving the UT System’s highest honor, the Santa Rita Award.] From the Jan/Feb 2001 issue of the Texas Alcaide. I copied the quote from a friend on Facebook. I think they would not be honoring him today, he was not politically correct.
Flawn on Truth
[Former UT president Peter Flawn made the following comments upon recently receiving the UT System’s highest honor, the Santa Rita Award.]
On a hot summer day in July of 1949, Priscilla and I arrived in Austin, driving from New Haven, Conn., in a Jeep station wagon containing all our worldly possessions. I went to work for the University on July 1, 1949.
I was at that time consumed by the science of geology – as were all my new colleagues. No one worked a five-day week. Those were good years. We had won a great war, and the future was up to us.
I really did not begin to think about universities as social institutions until 1970, when I entered upon academic administration as vice president for academic affairs. It was then that I had to justify and defend what the University was doing and how it was doing it. And I have been thinking about universities and their role in enhancing the human condition ever since. …
I am of the opinion, formed over more than half a century of association with higher education, that the institution that is the university is perhaps the greatest social invention of humankind save perhaps the institution of democracy itself It is an institution created by society to develop its human resources. All advanced civil societies have created universities because of time-tested social wisdom holding that knowledge is better than ignorance, and inquiry, and the development and transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next, improves the human condition. Education and enlightenment of the individual uplifts society. It is because of this widely held belief –common sense, really — that
the people are willing to build and support, public and private money, colleges and universities. Through history, even in societies that were desperately poor, as in post-Civil War Tom, scarce resources were allocated to higher education.
But although both public and private universities are financially dependent on the larger society, they must be intellectually independent. And that’s no mean trick in this world of strong social tides and political passions. Universities are at the same time
durable and fragile. They are durable in the sense that they have endured as social institutions for hundreds of years with their basic purpose more or less intact. Of course, through the centuries, universities have changed and adapted, but the purpose and structure has been durable. There have been some societies in some times that, in the throes of ideological turmoil, closed or abolished their universities, but even the most fanatical of ideologues soon realized what a high social cost was attached to that foolishness.
Enriched with the power of Safed Musli, Musli Sya and Semal Musli. http://www.daveywavey.tv/levitra-1298.html ordering viagra online Tension and nerves in the upper neck can cause high blood pressure. cheap tadalafil tablets It is the main medicine for curing tadalafil cheap online the disease. The treatment which will bring relief should be made while using other people’s assets, meaning that of each citizen. 6) Healthcare: This country, through our emergency room setup and clinics provide a wonderful healthcare system to all of our citizens or not. 50 years ago, when Social Security was put in, the life expectancy was 55 years old, now its 78. generic cialis 20mg But while the institution is durable, its intellectual integrity is fragile. In the old Regents Room in the Main Building is a quotation attributed to H.Y. Benedict that says, “Public confidence is the only
real endowment of a state university.” Public confidence in what? The only answer can be public confidence in the intellectual integrity of the institution.
There is abroad in the land an extreme form of egalitarianism that holds that excellence is undemocratic. This is a particularly insidious doctrine that takes political form in attempts to divert resources from flagship universities. It holds that all public universities should be equal. After all, a university is a university, and they all award degrees. Having spent a half-century building universities, that is to me a most repugnant view. Excellence is not undemocratic! It is precisely through the recognition and reward of merit and achievement that democratic societies have triumphed. If we as a society come to believe that the quest for excellence is somehow undemocratic, then the quest for the intellectual integrity of the university is at risk.
Political correctness, with its doctrines of cultural and moral relativism and its passion for revisionism, is incompatible with the intellectual integrity of a university. The university must be free to pursue the truth unconstrained by politically correct dogma. So, of course, we must reject the politically correct imperative that there is no truth – that all is culturally relative.
‘When political correctness first raised its head among the philosophers of the 1960’s generation, I thought it would perish through its own absurdity. But it seems to be alive and well, particularly in centers of education and entertainment. If it still stifles free expression and inquiry in the university, then we shall indeed lose that most precious endowment – public confidence. We as educators must have the courage to deal with it! We must maintain a civil forum where our students and faculty may hear a free discussion of any issue.
During the years that I was responsible for the management of a public institution, I was comforted by a quotation from Edmund
Burke, who, writing in the 18th century, observed: Those who would carry on great public schemes must be proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most shocking insults, and what is worst of all, the presumptuous judgment of the ignorant upon their design.”
So, everything changes; nothing changes.
(copied from Richard Watson’s post on Facebook)
