(Roughly) Daily

Revisiting a key topic that we’ve touched before…

The modern U.S. research universities arose in the late 19th century. Their work has laid the foundation for major advances in health and medicine, technology, communications, agriculture/food, economics, energy, and national security at the same time that they have educated students to be scientific, technical, commerical, and cultural leaders and innovators.

Today, as a product of what historians have called a “virtuous circle of incentives and resources,” American academic research institutions are top of the pops… and not at all coincidentally, so is the U.S economy:

… But that dominance is under attack, both by the Trump Administration and by state governments around the country actively undermining the work of their state universities.

It’s worth remembering that, into the early twentieth century, German Universities– the original models for the American approach— dominated the list.

As the U.S. increasingly models the behavior of German authorities in the 1930s, the vital contributions of research univerisities are at risk.

When Hitler rose to power in the 1930s, the leaders of America’s most august universities didn’t all comport themselves as one might have wished. We can only hope that this time– as the threat is aimed directly at them– they will respond more strongly and directly.

Meantime, we can all add our voices to the defense of academic freedom and support for vital research.

* Research Universities and the Future of America, a report from The National Research Council, 2012 (Page 68)

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As we cease self-sabotage, we might spare a thought for a professorial paragon of the virtues of the institutions in question (in his case, on the cultural as opposed to the scientific/technical front), George Lyman Kittredge, a professor at Harvard; he died on this date in 1941. Kittredge’s edition of Shakespeare’s work was the scholarly standard in the early 20th century; he promoted the study of folklore and folk songs (encouraging students like  John A. Lomax, and thus Lomax’s son, Alan); and he was instrumental in the formation and management of the Harvard University Press.

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