Undoing the “Campus as Cruise Ship” mentality — towards a care-centered plan for higher education
Excerpts from “A Simple Plan to Change the Way We Do Higher Education”
by Dr. John Paulas
The CARE SYLLABUS co-directors are thrilled to share an excerpt from a recently published essay (March ‘21) by Dr. John Paulas, about transforming “a huge debt, a deficit of care” in higher education culture. Paulas is a Research Scholar at The Ronin Institute, an organization creating a new model for scholarly research that recognizes that the world outside of traditional academia is filled with smart, educated, passionate people who have a lot to offer to the world of scholarship. Read the full essay on The Ronin Institute’s Website.
Campus as cruise ship
The very business model of the university and liberal arts college must be repaired to erase this debt of care. No more campuses operated like year-long summer camps or retirement communities, where lodging, entertainment, and educational programming are all included in the hefty price tag. If there is one thing that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the fore in this regard, it is that the “campus as cruise ship” mentality and model need to change.
The fact that we can talk about “town–gown” relations, language presupposing a natural tension, shows the non-organic relationship between communities and the campuses within them. For the knowledge production community to flourish in the future, all boundaries between campus and community must be erased.
A core inequitable and problematic structure within the campus today is the administration and governance system that hierarchically excludes the majority of the campus community and disregards the community beyond the gates of campus. Current forms of governance and administration must be replaced with forms of broad and inclusive community governance. Leadership and decision-making power must be based on the desire and ability to listen to and incorporate the voices of others and to facilitate, not impede, positive change.
Read the full essay on The Ronin Institute’s Website.
John Paulas develops new humanistic techniques and technologies for individuals to understand and improve their professional and intellectual lives. He is founder and president of PhD Matters, Ltd, a Philadelphia-based career consulting firm. Before PhD Matters, he directed fellowships and grants programs and created professional development programming at the University of California, Berkeley.