Monday’s touching welcome of recently fired University of
Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan at her public meeting before the Board of
Visitors came amid one of the most raucous public university debacles in the
history of Virginia[1].
10 days ago, Sullivan was booted from her position as University of Virginia
president for reasons that remain largely unclear.[2]
According to Sullivan, however, the reasons are pretty clear
cut. Sullivan has publicly commented that the Board of Visitors wanted her to
make “deep, top-down cuts” that would have undermined the university’s mission
and the vision of Thomas Jefferson.[3]
Sullivan also states that “A university that does not teach the full range of
arts and sciences will no longer be a university.”
The seemingly unending search by universities and colleges
of all stripes and colors for extra profits has not only manifested itself in
program and personnel cuts or a refocusing on the “big money” disciplines, it
has undermined the enthusiasm so many young Americans used to have for entering
academic disciplines like acting, writing, journalism, political science, and
some of the other “useless” academic disciplines.[4]
It has become clearer
now perhaps than at any other time in the history of the U.S. that institutions
of higher education are little more than giant corporations whose primary, if
not only, goal is to turn a profit.[5]
The only difference between a university or college and a private company is
that the latter, on the whole, doesn’t try to hide its unbending search for
extra profits under the hood of a graduate cap and high-minded ideals.
President Sullivan may be among the last of her kind, a university
president willing to stand up for higher goals than turning an additional
profit at the expense of the educational curriculum. This is why thousands of
Sullivan supporters gathered at UVA to show their support for Sullivan.
It’s clear that if Teresa Sullivan “loses”, the entire
country’s system of higher education, and the students it educates, will lose
as well.
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