Compliance is such a strange concept. It’s sort of self-defining, an anti-politics machine. It opens the door to the kind of expertise that Accenture, etc., offer, in that there is extraordinary opportunities for profit, in the defining of the means of compliance. It may be animated by university leadership, but it stands in for, displaces, leadership. Am I too nostalgic for an age of nationally-heard university leaders--Wharton Jr., Bowen, Gray, Hesburgh, Bok--whose expressions of vision, the ways they sought to resolve issues, as university presidents were picked up by other leaders less prominent, less institutional fixtures, and they seemed to care about the qualities associated with study and research seated in universities and colleges...and they were also committed to contributing to the broader society? It’s hard for me to imagine the compliance economy successfully developing on their watch. But you make a good case, Tim, for how it has come to ruin the joy.
Compliance is such a strange concept. It’s sort of self-defining, an anti-politics machine. It opens the door to the kind of expertise that Accenture, etc., offer, in that there is extraordinary opportunities for profit, in the defining of the means of compliance. It may be animated by university leadership, but it stands in for, displaces, leadership. Am I too nostalgic for an age of nationally-heard university leaders--Wharton Jr., Bowen, Gray, Hesburgh, Bok--whose expressions of vision, the ways they sought to resolve issues, as university presidents were picked up by other leaders less prominent, less institutional fixtures, and they seemed to care about the qualities associated with study and research seated in universities and colleges...and they were also committed to contributing to the broader society? It’s hard for me to imagine the compliance economy successfully developing on their watch. But you make a good case, Tim, for how it has come to ruin the joy.