The National Forum on Higher Education for the Public
Good: Profile
A clinical professor at the School of Education, Dr.
Burkhardt
envisions
The National Forum as a
social movement that will reclaim the transforming potential of
higher education. To that end, he is engaging graduate students,
faculty colleagues, legislators, foundation officers, and educators
across the nation in a passionate conversation, asking them to
imagine colleges and universities as institutions usefully participating
in civic life, actively addressing the needs of citizens and communities.
Dr. Burkhardt acknowledges that this vision is expressed best in language seldom used in academic settings. “At the heart of any social movement is a moral struggle. Social movements use language that draws more people into conversation. So we’ve chosen the word “covenant” to speak of the agreement or promise higher education has and should make with the larger community. This word could be troubling to some, because it sounds preachy and moralistic. But unlike “compact” or “contract,” words that are legal-sounding and transactional, “covenant” implies a long-term, value-driven relationship that has the potential to be mutually transforming.”
He continues,
Twenty years ago, when I was in the same position as many of my students are now, considering where I should take my idealism, my professional commitment, and my life, I envisioned higher education as a leverage point for change in society. If somebody would have told me that, twenty years later, 75% of the US population would want to attend college, that over 30% of American citizens would have college degrees, I would have been amazed at the accomplishment.
But I never would have imagined that we would have the same levels of poverty, of violence, the same dismissive attitude towards the arts and humanities. How is it possible that we could have so many college-educated citizens but so little social change? We have more lawyers, but more injustice. More accountants, but a crisis in accountability. I think higher education has relinquished much of its transformative power. There is the potential for the transformation of students and society. My recognition of that fact motivates this work.
Dr.
Burkhardt says students now enrolling in CSHPE
enter with the same idealism, the same hope he brought. They are
looking for the tools to lead lives of transformative leadership.
The National Forum provides
CSHPE students opportunities to study various aspects of higher
education, while also challenging its role in society. Dr. Burkhardt
says, “Many of the students
associated with The National Forum on Higher Education for
the Public Good have come back to seek doctorates
because they want to change the world. I consider this an entirely
reasonable ambition.”
Talented, idealistic graduate students, many of whom have already established careers, have been drawn to the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good. Lucretia Murphy, an attorney, now working on her Ph. D., is conducting research on academic opportunities for urban students in conjunction with the Forum. Lori Hendricks, formerly an education outreach program coordinator for NCAA, and Penny Pasque, formerly program director of the Michigan Community Scholars Program, a living-learning community for undergraduates, bring their program management, coordinating skills and deep commitments to a host of Forum projects, writing grants, helping set up national and regional dialogues and organize focus groups. Penny Pasque says that she is pained by the pervasiveness of systems of oppression, but “for me, higher education is one of the systems that has the potential to make change. Lori Hendricks adds that “Changing the world actually requires changing ourselves.”
Dr. Burkhardt outlines his sense of what engaged institutions would do: “If higher education institutions realized their potential, they would provide leadership, rather than promoting themselves as pathways to better jobs, or as extensions of the entertainment industry. People would enter institutions of higher education expecting to be changed. The curriculum would be far more challenging and liberating in its intent, and more global in its perspective. Research in institutions of higher education would not just study and report about human problems, documenting deficits and injustice. They would join with communities to transform injustice.”
He’s learned through years of experience wonderful projects and programs aren’t enough. They simply can’t change institutional norms and cultures by themselves:
When I was at the Kellogg Foundation, I was in a position where we were attempting to translate an overarching vision of transformation into funded projects. For eight years, we sought to find innovative programs, projects, and seed ideas, and to support them. The theory of action was that if we spotlighted innovations at the margins, the center would take notice and begin to feel the influence of those wonderful ideas. After years of funding exceptions, I came to the belief that there is a need to be far more systemic in our orientation. We needed to challenge the values within the system, and so we began to conceive of it as a movement.
The students of CSHPE, and in other universities nationwide keep Burkhardt’s hope alive:
A movement can’t be sustained by old guys like me. Just before I came to UM, I read Eric Erikson’s Life Cycle Completed. It occurred to me that this is probably one of my last jobs—what is the legacy going to be? Many faculty members, including me, derive our greatest joys out of the bond we have with young people. We are inspired by their generativity. A social movement, to have any sort of impact, must be intergenerational.
At a National Forum-sponsored dialogue held in Oxnard, California, Jon Dalton, professor of educational leadership at Florida State University noted, “Students want to have a stronger voice. Too often they are invited in like china—we want to show them off, but we don’t want to listen too much. We need to find ways to really get the voices and the energy and the idealism that students bring.”
The work of the National Forum is both local and national. The Forum has convened a series of national dialogues, and has jointly sponsored a conference on The Engaged University, that was held on the UM Campus. Forum staff also work with legislators and trustees of universities and foundations. Burkhardt explains, “ It turns out that people in these roles haven’t had much opportunity to engage in a discussion about the purposes of their institutions. But most legislators resonate with the concept of public good—there is a lot of idealism operating in those roles.”
The Forum also conducts public opinion research exploring citizens’ perceptions of higher education and its purposes. Forum staff are especially interested in the ways these perceptions have formed over time.
And finally, The National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good supports young scholars who will join and lead the “movement.”
Learn about the The National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good's Mission
