Bookmarks 08-April-2010

A question (about universities, global challenges, and an organizational-ethical dilemma)
Nigel Thrift. GlobalHigherEd. 08-April-2010.

Just suppose we are in a period in which the future of human life on the planet is seriously threatened – by climate change and all the negative economic, social and cultural processes that attend it …

[N]ation states may not have been able to get their act together at Copenhagen but surely Universities – supposedly engines of reason – can.

Assuming you agree with the proposition, the question I raise is: are universities optimally organized to address the fundamental ‘global challenges’ that exist, and at the pace these challenges deserved to be addressed? If not, what should be done about this organizational-ethical dilemma?

gml: Thanks to GlobalHigherEd for inviting Thrift to write a guest post. Most impressive is the scale of the imperatives considered (ie, the very future of human life on earth) and the gentleness but power in the question Thrift asks about higher education on behalf of all of us. Very nice.