TRUTH, FREEDOM AND (DIS)ORDER IN THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

After World War II, the American university emerged as a world leader in higher education. Economic development became a dominant value and its subsequent material success has been unrivaled. Many developing countries adopted characteristics of the model with the expectation that national economic growth would follow. Yet it has also been described as a lawless and confused conglomerate of competing interests with no common or unifying principle to tie the pieces together. It is made up of many cultures and seeks to accommodate all, but knows little about its own or others. The study of history and cultures in higher education has been marginalized because it is viewed as divisive. This paper focuses on five pivotal ideas that provide some explanation of the status of the modern American university and its current disorders. Each of these ideas has to do with truth and freedom, fundamental characteristics of the university. Three came to America from Europe and two were forged uniquely in the American experience. They explain changes in the concepts of truth and freedom and how politics and economics emerged as dominant values in the university.