AFS Cinema & Austin PBS – Austin Media Center
Institutional Impropriety
RECEIVED Tue., May 9, 2023
Dear Editor,
On Thursday, May 4th, the Board of Regents voted to establish a new College at the University of Texas at Austin to house the Civitas Institute. This Institute (Center), it will be recalled, was opposed vehemently by faculty who viewed its creation as politically motivated – something prompted and demanded by conservative donors and some state lawmakers.
Ironically, I believe this action is reprehensible. Why ironic?
For over two decades I have been an ardent advocate for academic-civic engagement, the alleged purpose for the Civitas Institute: Witness my Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium (IE) started in 1996, the goal of which was to educate citizen-scholars; witness as well my dozens and dozens of op-eds documenting the practical as well as academic value of scholarship.
Not surprisingly, I have argued that faculty in academic departments have an ethical and professional obligation to leverage their disciplinary knowledge for social good and to expand their classroom to include the public at large.
However, this new, unprecedented and politically motivated Institute (and College to house it) violates the core values of academe. After all, every other college at UT – and department – represents an identifiable academic discipline and corresponding body of refereed knowledge/research. But not this one! In addition, all academic units at UT (colleges, schools, departments and institutes) are created and given legitimacy only after a rigorous scholarly review by faculty and university administrators. But, again, not this one.
This move by the Regents is repugnant. It clearly caters exclusively to politicians who want UT to establish a conservative think tank rather than reflecting genuine academic and intellectual interests and needs. I fear the next dominoes that inevitably will fall. To see this happening at a place where I happily worked for 43 years saddens me.
My only hope is that faculty will stand up and vigorously protest this and other efforts that bring politics to the University’s primary mission of discovering and transmitting knowledge – like recent attempts to eliminate tenure, interfere with curriculum or forbidding/restricting initiatives promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
On Thursday, May 4th, the Board of Regents voted to establish a new College at the University of Texas at Austin to house the Civitas Institute. This Institute (Center), it will be recalled, was opposed vehemently by faculty who viewed its creation as politically motivated – something prompted and demanded by conservative donors and some state lawmakers.
Ironically, I believe this action is reprehensible. Why ironic?
For over two decades I have been an ardent advocate for academic-civic engagement, the alleged purpose for the Civitas Institute: Witness my Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium (IE) started in 1996, the goal of which was to educate citizen-scholars; witness as well my dozens and dozens of op-eds documenting the practical as well as academic value of scholarship.
Not surprisingly, I have argued that faculty in academic departments have an ethical and professional obligation to leverage their disciplinary knowledge for social good and to expand their classroom to include the public at large.
However, this new, unprecedented and politically motivated Institute (and College to house it) violates the core values of academe. After all, every other college at UT – and department – represents an identifiable academic discipline and corresponding body of refereed knowledge/research. But not this one! In addition, all academic units at UT (colleges, schools, departments and institutes) are created and given legitimacy only after a rigorous scholarly review by faculty and university administrators. But, again, not this one.
This move by the Regents is repugnant. It clearly caters exclusively to politicians who want UT to establish a conservative think tank rather than reflecting genuine academic and intellectual interests and needs. I fear the next dominoes that inevitably will fall. To see this happening at a place where I happily worked for 43 years saddens me.
My only hope is that faculty will stand up and vigorously protest this and other efforts that bring politics to the University’s primary mission of discovering and transmitting knowledge – like recent attempts to eliminate tenure, interfere with curriculum or forbidding/restricting initiatives promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
Richard Cherwitz
