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Peter Singer is professor of bioethics in the University Centre for Human
Values at Princeton University and laureate professor in the Centre for
Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. His
most recent book is <i>The Life You Can Save</i>.<br><br>
<b>We must nurture the humanities
<ul>
<li>Peter Singer </b>
<li>July 27, 2009
</ul>
<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/we-must-nurture-the-humanities-20090726-dxg1.html?page=-1">
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/we-must-nurture-the-humanities-20090726-dxg1.html?page=-1<br>
<br>
</a>Illustration: Cowcher <br><br>
<b>Australian universities need to do much more to fulfil their most
important role: teaching students to think for themselves.<br><br>
</b>WHAT is excellence in a university? For the past five years, dividing
my time between Princeton University and the University of Melbourne,
I've been confronted by differences in the educational cultures of the
United States and Australia. The comparison isn't to Australia's
advantage. The leading American universities cherish the ideal of a
liberal arts education that in Australia seems to have been overwhelmed
by vocational and professional training.<br><br>
When I came to Princeton, I was told that the university sees
undergraduate teaching as its core mission. No matter how distinguished
professors may be, or how many books they have published, they are
expected to teach undergraduate courses, to participate in events open to
undergraduates, and to be available for students to talk to on an
individual basis. That message has been consistent with my experience
there. Each term offers a feast of activities that involve the
university's best minds, attended by undergraduates eager to learn more
and to be stimulated to think more deeply. Each term I talk to bright
students keen to use their time at Princeton to better understand the
world they live in.<br><br>
Yes, you may say, but Princeton is one of a handful of elite
universities. Australian education is more egalitarian. Perhaps, but I've
travelled to the South and the Midwest to speak at small colleges that
I'd never heard of before the invitation arrived. There I have found the
same commitment to education that prevails at Princeton. The academics at
these smaller colleges may not publish much, but they believe in what
they are doing and the students respond to it.<br><br>
When I was an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne in the 1960s,
my teachers still had time to talk to their students, either in their
offices or in the cafeteria or at the pub. Tutorials were limited to 12
students. Today they are often twice that size, making it almost
impossible for every student to contribute. Without those conversations,
in class and out, I doubt that I would have gone into philosophy. Today's
Australian university teachers are under far more pressure, not only to
teach more students, but also to publish more papers, and to write more
time-consuming applications for research grants that they don't really
want, but which, if successful, will somehow demonstrate the value of
their research. (When I tell my colleagues at the University of Melbourne
that no one at Princeton tells me I should be applying for research
grants, I see the envy in their eyes.)<br><br>
When the University of Melbourne announced that it was switching to a new
educational model, and making professional courses such as law and
medicine postgraduate, I welcomed this attempt to give a broad education
to young Australians before they embark on their career training. But if
this model is to work, it needs the key departments in the humanities and
sciences to be strong, confident of the value of their work, and
enthusiastic about teaching. Instead, because the arts faculty struggles
with its budget, we have seen one round of cuts after another, sapping
the strength of areas such as philosophy and history.<br><br>
Some of the blame rests with the government funding formula that
emphasises publications and research grants rather than teaching
excellence. But Australian academics in the humanities need to accept a
share of the responsibility for the state of their field. In some fields,
it has become fashionable to write and talk in a way that few can
understand. Jargon lends an aura of expertise, but obscures the important
issues that are at stake. We do not always put sufficient stress on
starting our teaching from where students are, and leading them from
there to the issues that it is important for them to think about.
Teaching ability should play a more central role in academic
appointments, and clarity of thought and expression is to be prized in
all fields.<br><br>
Philosophically, I am a utilitarian, which means that I look at the
consequences before I decide what is good. But that means all the
consequences, not only the impact that a university has on the gross
national product. I regret that so many young Australians do vocationally
oriented undergraduate degrees because they believe it will help them to
get a job. Perhaps it will; if so, the problem is not with their choices,
but with those of the employers. Teaching people to think for themselves
equips them for a wide range of future possibilities. The British civil
service recruits good philosophy students because they will be able to
think and to grasp the essential elements in a new field, even if they
have no background in it. New York's investment banks do the same,
seeking the best Princeton undergraduates, irrespective of whether their
major was philosophy, or history, or economics.<br><br>
The idea of a liberal arts education goes back more than 2000 years to
Plato's Academy. It holds that an educated citizen in a free society
should have a grounding in philosophy, history, literature, the sciences,
maths, foreign languages, politics and fine arts. We might say that it
attempts to answer the broad questions that Gauguin put into the title of
one of his paintings (a title that he in turn took from a Catholic
catechism): Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? This
kind of education does not train you in a profession, but it gives you an
intellectual foundation to use throughout your life, whether you decide
to go into medicine, law, business, engineering, or any other
occupation.<br><br>
If our best-educated citizens have no idea how to answer these basic
questions, we will struggle to build a democracy that can solve the
problems we face, whether they are what to do about climate change, the
world's poor, the problems of Australia's indigenous people, or the
prospect of a future in which we can genetically modify our offspring. An
education in the humanities is as valuable today as it was in Plato's
time.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/we-must-nurture-the-humanities-20090726-dxg1.html?page=-1">
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/we-must-nurture-the-humanities-20090726-dxg1.html?page=-1</a>
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