Editorials

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Of light, of liberty, of learning

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 09/21/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

These are tough times for the province's three universities, just as they are for everyone else. The difference is that they don't have to be as tough on the universities as they are: the difficulties of our institutions of higher learning -- as they were once proudly known -- are largely attributable to deliberate government policies that have nothing to do with education and everything to do with politics.

University of Manitoba president David Barnard did not directly address that issue in his annual state of the university address on Thursday, but some of his comments clearly reflected it.

Dr. Barnard identified six areas on which the University of Manitoba would concentrate in the next few years. They are: sustainable food and bioproducts; sustainable rural communities; human rights; improvements in public health; innovations in technology; and culture and creativity.

These are all commendable goals, the sort of things that make universities look useful to people and governments that don't understand what universities are all about.

Universities are not technical schools, although they may teach things like medicine, engineering and law -- in fact, they should be the places that one goes to learn those important trades.

Neither are they places where people lollygag about, occasionally reading romantic poets or discussing their adolescent theories of existentialism, although a little knowledge of both romantic poetry and existential philosophy are useful things for even doctors or lawyers to acquire.

But universities cannot be everything to everyone in our society, unless governments are willing to pay endlessly for that. Our government is not -- one of the main planks of Steve Ashton's NDP leadership platform is to bring back the failed policy of freezing tuition. What universities can be, should be, Dr. Barnard touched on in his speech when he emphasized that the university's role is to create, preserve and communicate knowledge. Or, as Disraeli put it, to be a place "of light, of liberty and of learning."

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 21, 2009 A12

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