5 Takeaways from "Does Higher Education Promote the Common Good?" at AAC&U 2018
Saima Siddiqui
Education | Career Development | Alumni Engagement | University & Career Advising | Strategic Partnerships | Education Technology | 20+ years global experience strengthening the bridge from education to career
Erin Seavoy, a manager in The Washington Center's Office of College and University Relations, attended this roundtable discussion at the American Association of Colleges and Universities conference this afternoon.
Discussion on Does Higher Education Promote the Common Good?
Speaker: Charles Dorn (Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Education, Bowdoin College)
#1: For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America, by Charles Dorn, discusses how higher education institutions have always claimed to promote the common good. But the real question is if (and how) they actually do.
#2: Common Good has historically been the driving force for institutions, but personal advancement (such as careers and incomes) of students has always been a dominating concern as well.
#3: Fact: the United States invented the concept of community colleges.
#4: Higher education today is more accessible than ever before. However, one has to look at how higher education is defined. Why? Because today, more than ever before, education is within reach to more students due to the prevalence of community colleges.
#5: There are three central concerns that higher education institutions have always grappled with: (1) access, (2) affordability, and (3) relevance.