The recent letter “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” and its rejection by MIT could be a welcome opportunity for the Educational Leaders and the leading Institutions?
https://lnkd.in/gYxdYv7J
The letter “Compact for ….” from the Education Secretary appears to be a Trojan Horse for power grab and an attempt to curb free thinking. The shallow intellectual depth of the administration makes one wonder, if there is even an interest to promote “Conservative” values in lieu of “Liberal” thoughts and expression in campuses! It might just be an old ploy of pitting one group against another and relishing in the chaos, as the outcome!
The challenge through the letter from the Education Secretary and this Administration goes beyond their thinking and adversarial approach to governing. In fact they stem from insidious developments over the past five decades or more that have been metastasizing our nation, its culture and our Democratic and moral fibre.
For example:
— Technology (=Science X Engineering X Managment) is now synonymously treated as reflecting only IT, Computer Science, Data Science or AI! In other words, the entire value of MIT is reduced to one Department or one sector of activity!
— Rewards of Capitalism have degenerated the society that was once heavily middle class (40/40/20 : Poor/Middle/Rich) into a nation of “haves” and “have nots” (90/10: Poor and Middle /Ultra rich). Traditional sharing of the wealth through Risk/Reward has not shifted to Risk/Effort/Reward sharing models.
— While it may be true that over 80% of MIT undergraduates are free of loan burden, that can not be said of most UGs across the nation. Being driven out of the middle class they are also driven into economic disadvantage Vs. their global college educated compatriots.
— Most of the Social Media products – with their inability to control and limit the polarizing effect on the society – are developed and implemented by graduates from top schools like MIT, aided by low wage high skilled H1B Visa workers.
In all of the above, schools like MIT are not solely responsible for the outcomes. But, systemic failure in leadership across the nation, over the decades, to challenge the above outcomes and their corrupting influence has to be acknowledged. It has been leading to despair and “throw the baby out with the bath water” attitude on our social and democratic norms. These are the undercurrent rhat fuel this administration and its political power. As I have learned at MIT, the “System and its solution” need a comprehensive approach addressing several issues at the same time! My plea to the leadership at MIT as well as at other leading institutions is to take bold action on the above (bulleted) and other similar issues. That would be a worthy antidote raising social awareness and public support against arbitrary and misplaced demands from the current administration?
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STIMS Institute 