Do artigo de Drew Gilpin Faust (na imagem), Reitora da Universidade de Harvard, sobre o papel das universidades no mundo de hoje, com o título "The University’s Crisis of Purpose", publicado no "New York Times" de 1 de Setembro (ver aqui), respigamos o final:
"Universities are meant to be producers not just of knowledge but also of (often inconvenient) doubt. They are creative and unruly places, homes to a polyphony of voices. But at this moment in our history, universities might well ask if they have in fact done enough to raise the deep and unsettling questions necessary to any society.
As the world indulged in a bubble of false prosperity and excessive materialism, should universities — in their research, teaching and writing — have made greater efforts to expose the patterns of risk and denial? Should universities have presented a firmer counterweight to economic irresponsibility? Have universities become too captive to the immediate and worldly purposes they serve? Has the market model become the fundamental and defining identity of higher education?
(...) As a nation, we need to ask more than this from our universities. Higher learning can offer individuals and societies a depth and breadth of vision absent from the inevitably myopic present. Human beings need meaning, understanding and perspective as well as jobs. The question should not be whether we can afford to believe in such purposes in these times, but whether we can afford not to."
1 comentário:
É bom que estas preocupações sejam dadas a lume. Lê-se no texto um parágrafo que, para além das duas frases finais, resume o que não deveria ser o ensino superior:
Higher education is not about results in the next quarter but about discoveries that may take — and last — decades or even centuries. Neither the abiding questions of humanistic inquiry nor the winding path of scientific research that leads ultimately to innovation and discovery can be neatly fitted within a predictable budget and timetable.
O ensino superior não se trata de obter resultados para o próximo período mas de descobertas que poderão demorar décadas ou mesmo séculos.
Nem as questões imutáveis da pesquisa humanística nem os caminhos sinuosos da ciência que levam à inovação e à descoberta podem ser perfeitamente ajustados a um orçamento ou prazo.
Achei particularmente interessante e elucidativo o fecho:
Human beings need meaning, understanding and perspective as well as jobs. The question should not be whether we can afford to believe in such purposes in these times, but whether we can afford not to.
Os seres humanos têm a necessidade de significados, entendimento e perspectiva tal como de empregos (possivelmente após a revolução industrial). A questão não deve ser se nos podemos dar ao luxo crer nesses fins, mas se nos podemos dar ao luxo de os não crer.
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