Jeffrey S. Lehman
Dhaka, Bangladesh
April 10, 2006
Good evening.
It is an honor for me to have the opportunity to speak with you this evening about the special role that comprehensive research universities, can play and should play in shaping the impact that global integration is having on the economies and cultures of the world. BRAC has, for many years, been a world leader in thinking about the relationship between higher education and development. And I hope that what I have to say will be a constructive addition to your own analysis of these fundamentally important issues.
This evening I would like to approach the topic of globalization and higher education as an institutional matter, arguing that there are important structural reasons why we might expect other institutions to have an incomplete perspective on what healthy globalization should entail. I want then to talk about special features of universities as institutions that might equip them to fill an important gap. And I will conclude with some cautions about how an insufficiently ambitious vision of what a university is might leave the gap intact, and might leave us still searching to find the right institutional forces that are essential if we are to channel globalization’s energy into relatively safer and more productive directions.
So let us begin with the benefits and risks of globalization. I want to segment them into three domains: economic, cultural, and humanist.
The economic benefits of globalization are familiar and well understood. Early in the nineteenth century, the economist David Ricardo wrote about how, when countries allow their citizens to trade with one another, the principle of comparative advantage means that the overall well-being of individuals in both countries will increase. Not the well-being of each individual in each country. But within each country, the aggregate well-being of all individuals in that country should increase.
This is a powerful, powerful justification for trade. Yet it also carries at least three important risks that follow from specialization. To capture the economic benefits of free trade, countries must specialize along the lines of comparative advantage. But specialization makes countries dependent on imports of some goods that might seem essential to their sovereignty, like food or oil. So one risk of free trade is that, by promoting economic interdependence, it also heightens national vulnerability to the willingness of other countries to continue along the free trade path.
A second risk associated with specialization in a free trade regime is the risk of technological obsolescence. In a globally integrated knowledge economy, demand for a particular good or service – especially if that good or service is intermediate, rather than primary or finished – can shift overnight. One day the world might seem to have an infinitely accelerating need for cathode ray tubes, in order to produce everything from television screens to computer displays. But the next day a new technology – perhaps plasma, perhaps liquid crystal – might cause the need for cathode ray tubes to plummet. If it is difficult and expensive to shift from one good to another, an entire country might find its prosperity oscillating wildly as it tries to adjust to the swiftly changing requirements of the global marketplace. To avoid such volatility, a country’s production technologies must be capable of rapid evolution and adaptation.
A third risk associated with specialization in a free-trade regime is the risk of a sudden massive drop in demand for a country’s labor. The continuous entry of new countries into the world trade system means that the aggregate pool of labor that is effectively available to the global economy is expanding at an unprecedented rate. As a result, we see business ventures being tempted to shift production from country to country, constantly trying to ensure that they are operating at the place where they can obtain maximum productivity at minimum cost. As one businessman put it to me last week, “We are all constantly chasing down the price curve.” The risk is greatest when the labor in question is unskilled or relatively low-skilled. One year the country of choice may be China. Two years later it may be Vietnam and Bangladesh. But two years later it may be somewhere else. A country that wants to avoid cycles of boom and bust must be committed to ensuring that its workers have the technology and training that are necessary to keep the ratio of productivity to labor cost at globally competitive levels. And just as national technology must be nimble, individual workers must be nimble as well, able to acquire new skills quickly and continuously throughout their working lives.
These economic consequences globalization are hugely important. But they are also not the only important consequences of globalization. And so I want to take a few moments to remind us of the cultural and humanist consequences of globalization, of the potential benefits and the potential dangers in each of those domains.
The cultural benefits of globalization are familiar. When two cultures come into contact with one another, they influence one another and each is changed. The benefits can be a simple addition. Whereas one day people see beauty in only one way, through the prism of their own culture, the next day they see it in two ways: both the traditional way and also through a new lens. Even more excitingly, the benefits can reflect a fusion of cultures. Features from several different art forms can be blended into something entirely new, with a distinctive beauty that was never known before.
But these cultural benefits carry risks as well. If some cultural practices require intense practice to be maintained, they can be lost in the process of mutual contact. The danger is a kind of homogenization of world cultures, and a loss of global cultural diversity.
And what about the humanist benefits of globalization? I believe that in some ways the greatest possibility associated with a more deeply integrated world is the deepened awareness that people feel of their connection to the rest of the species. We are affirmed whenever we recognize ourselves in people from different cultures. We are ennobled when we appreciate that people everywhere share a joint responsibility to care for our planet.
But these human benefits are associated with certain countervailing risks that globalization poses for the human spirit. The world is vast, and difficult to navigate. Individuals’ identities are built from a sense of belonging to smaller communities that are distinct from one another. A culture, a nation, a region, a hometown. Our participation as citizens of the world must be compatible with our ongoing identities as citizens of particular nations.
So who are the actors that can contribute to healthy globalization, promoting its attendant economic, cultural, and humanistic benefits while paying careful attention to its countervailing risks?
The first actor is obviously government. Citizens everywhere depend on their governments to promote their interests worldwide, and to protect their interests against the competing interests of citizens from other countries. Since healthy globalization benefits the citizens of all countries, it is natural to expect that governments will work towards globalization.
But as crucially important as governments are, we know that they are sometimes imperfect in promoting the well-being of their citizens. In my country, and I suspect in every country, the people who lead governments owe their power and authority to complex, and often competing, webs of interest. Their continued authority may require them to demonstrate visibly to their publics that they are tough negotiators on behalf of their people, that they are doing everything possible to ensure that they are getting at least their fair share of any additional value created through cooperation. The result may be a prisoner’s dilemma, a stalemate in which healthy interdependence cannot be promoted because neither government can risk activities that could be portrayed as weakness internally.
A second actor is business. Globalization creates new profit opportunities, and so business ventures are natural agents for greater transnational integration.
But here again we must recognize the limited nature of the leadership that businesses can provide. Business leaders have fiduciary obligations to their shareholders and other beneficial owners. Those obligations require them to remain focused on risk and return, and their impact on the market value of their organization. There is only limited room in their role for attention to the non-economic cultural and humanistic benefits of globalization. Even more importantly, there is only limited room for attention to the cultural and humanistic risks of globalization, or to the political dangers of interdependence and vulnerability.
What about civil society, the nonprofit sector, the NGO’s that facilitate the emergence of healthy development and democratic institutions? They are critically important. But I want to make the claim that within the broad Third Sector, comprehensive research universities have an essential leadership role to play in the process of healthy globalization.
Comprehensive research universities are defined by their commitment to integrate three functions within a single institutional frame: learning, teaching, and public service. To carry out those functions they must maintain a particular kind of culture. And, I would submit, that culture is especially well suited to the promotion of healthy, thoughtful, careful globalization.
A comprehensive research university’s learning function – its research – entails the search for enduring knowledge and understanding. A great university promotes the view that knowledge and understanding are ends in themselves. It is always good to know things, even if that knowledge makes us unhappy or afraid. It is also good to have cultivated the impulse to be deeply self-critical, to know the limits of our knowledge, to be relentlessly open to new arguments, new challenges, and new perspectives.
In important ways, this aspect of a research university leads them to view themselves as transnational institutions. In every field of inquiry, the most promising new arguments often come from afar. The richness and complexity of our understanding depends on how well we seek out ideas from every part of the globe. That kind of transnational impulse can be useful in the promotion of healthy globalization.
A comprehensive research university’s teaching function entails the preparation of young people for lives of contribution and service to society. A great university constantly revisits the question of what each generation of students needs to prepare for the world that it will confront as adults. And inevitably the answer to that question is not, our students need today’s knowledge. It is, our students need tomorrow’s skills, the qualities of mind and heart that will allow them to keep evolving, growing, and adapting throughout the entire course of their lives.
I believe that this requirement to teach well also forces comprehensive research universities to see themselves as transnational institutions. Today’s students will live and work in partnership with people from other cultures and other nations. To be effective, they must have developed a transnational perspective on the human condition. They must be open to new ideas, new ways of thinking and feeling. They must be comfortable and excited by the world’s varied texture. They must know not to presume some variants superior and others inferior. They must embrace a vision of universalism that reinforces and is reinforced by pluralism. They must willingly engage with people who are different and participate in their efforts to improve the conditions of their lives. They must be prepared to advocate for certain humanist values, even while listening carefully and respectfully to those who might reject those values.
Finally, a comprehensive research university’s service function also leads it in the same direction. Almost every university has a special duty to serve one or more geographic communities. Those communities may be cities, states, provinces, or countries. But almost every university has a duty to ensure that its overall activities provide visible benefits to those communities.
Today there can be no question that service to our local communities requires attention to the impact of globalization. We need to help our stakeholders to see the ways in which greater worldwide economic and cultural integration will create new opportunities for their citizens to distribute the fruits of their productive labors. We need to show them how those same processes will also create new sources of market competition. We need to help them to prepare for the dynamism and for the volatility to come, so that they can prosper in the new environment.
That same impulse to serve requires us to support research, teaching, and other activities that identify shared global problems that could be worsened by globalization. Rapid worldwide industrialization strains the resource capacity of our planet and multiplies the dangers to our ecosystems. One way for markets to fail is when individual actors are able to externalize some of the costs of their activities. Universities are home to many of the people who understand such externalities best, and it is our responsibility to ensure that their insights support the quest for more sustainable modes of existence.
Thus, the core missions of learning, teaching, and serving impel comprehensive research universities towards leadership in the process of healthy globalization. And yet, too often, such universities do not provide the full extent of leadership that they might. Why is that?
One reason has to do with internal priority setting. Universities are sometimes overwhelmed by local, short-term, small-scale pressures. We need to balance budgets, find teachers for courses, hire staff, and show that we are operating efficiently and effectively. Those are all legitimate demands. But we must also make time and space to look up and ask, “Are we, as institutions, making the kinds of long-range contributions that we are capable of?”
Another reason is a wariness that comes from competition with other research universities. Our greatest contributions to a healthy globalization will often come through collaboration with other universities. But we don’t always trust other institutions, especially when they are trying to recruit our faculty and our students.
But my ultimate point this evening is this. I believe that the greatest risk – the greatest danger, the greatest obstacle to the ability of comprehensive research universities to promote a healthy globalization – comes from outside the universities themselves. It comes from a failure of the larger society to recognize the true potential that universities hold to make fundamental social contributions. That failure can lead to a systematic underinvestment in excellence, and a systematic overvaluation of daily activity at the expense of fundamental long-term contribution.
In every country of the world, universities are being encouraged to use the language of business to frame their priorities and organize their operations. Rather than being called upon to develop the knowledge that is needed to respond to the greatest challenges confronting humanity, research universities are being encouraged to view research through the lens of industrial R&D and technology transfer. Rather than being called upon to prepare their students for lives of meaningful contribution and satisfaction to a tightly integrated world, research universities are being encouraged to provide their students with knowledge and skill sets attractive to today’s employers. Rather than being called upon to build broad transnational networks of intellectual collaboration, research universities are being encouraged to build their so-called brands.
But a sophisticated appreciation for the challenges of globalization implies that every nation must find a way to resist such pressures. Every nation needs institutions that insist upon a long time horizon. Every nation needs institutions that produce basic research in science. Every nation needs institutions that consider fundamental long-term dilemmas about how human societies are organized. Every nation needs institutions that ask enduring questions about what it means to be human and to live a good life. Every nation needs institutions that will prepare its future leaders to be reflective, self-critical, and adaptable.
And every nation needs institutions that will help them to work in partnership across national boundaries.
A few years ago the World Bank and UNESCO convened a blue ribbon task force on higher education that produced an exceptionally thoughtful analysis of the role of higher education of all kinds in global development. And one of the most important parts of that report involved a discussion of so-called rate-of-return analysis – the way in which societies decide whether it is worthwhile to invest in different activities. When we think about the rate of return on our investment in comprehensive research universities, it is crucial that we think in the broadest possible way about their potential. The potential benefits for individuals. The potential benefits for societies.
My point this evening is that, as we undertake such an analysis, as we frame the missions of comprehensive research universities and make our investments in them, we should consider the distinctive potential benefits that these institutions hold for an entire planet that is striving to realize the benefits of globalization while successfully managing its associated risks.
Thank you for your attention.
