Civic Engagement

Civic Engagement Has Never Been More Important

January 7, 2021 by Michael S. Roth '78

Like so many, yesterday I watched with horror as a mob invaded the Capitol Building, hoping to stop the certification of November’s election results. Inside Higher Ed asked if I would write a quick response to what I was seeing, and I immediately thought of the Bob Dylan song, “Idiot Wind.”

“Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull, from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.” The words of the Bob Dylan song echo in my mind as I watch rioters marauding in Washington, D.C., playing make-believe politics in their cloud cuckoo world of conspiracies and fantasies.

Though despite yesterday’s stunning turn of events, I wrote, I do see glimmers of hope:

That said, I was surprised, if not quite stunned, when I got up in the middle of last night and saw the results from Georgia. I know how hard people worked to turn out the vote in this runoff election, and how Black women and their allies overcame obstacles to ensure that the right to vote would be respected — and their votes counted. I have also been heartened and surprised how young people across the country have found so many ways to engage in the political system over these many months, despite the pandemic.

You can read the rest of the article here.

As I was finishing, a reporter from The Chronicle of Higher Education called to talk about what was happening in Washington. I focused my comments on what had been accomplished over the last several months in energizing students to participate in the electoral system. I was thinking of—for example—Anna Horowitz ’23, who was on leave fall semester working on organizing voters in the Senate races in Georgia. Led by a courageous group of Black women, she and so many others were building the future of civic participation, even in a pandemic. “As we begin to restore order, let’s use education for the civic preparedness we desperately need,” I’d said on Twitter earlier in the day. Once again, we in higher education must recommit to encouraging the kind of democratic practice that is fully in sync with the goals of liberal education: habits of discussion, compromise, collective aspiration and care for the vulnerable.

It has never been more important.

Let’s Begin the Next Phase of Civic Engagement

November 9, 2020 by Michael S. Roth '78

It’s hard to digest all the news, but the elections are mostly behind us. The important question as to who will be president has been settled, but as the fog of that uncertainty has lifted, we must contend with all the other questions that remain. How will we find ways to come together to face the challenges ahead — epidemiological, environmental, social, political, economic? The list goes on and on, and if there is often strong disagreement as to how best to define these challenges, there is no disputing that we have our work to do. And that includes reckoning with our histories of injustice if we are to reinvigorate our aspirations for freedom, equality and justice.

Cynicism is easy, and sophisticated despair (often disguised with irony) is merely an admission of a lack of imagination and will. We need both imagination and will to work together to build a better future — for our campus, for our city, and for the country. There are already groups of students working with faculty and administrators on making Wesleyan a more equitable and inclusive place, and I am hopeful that we can build on that cooperation to continue to make meaningful civic contributions well beyond the borders of the university.

Listening with an open heart and an open mind will lead us to better ways of thinking and acting. Now, the next phase of the work begins.

Promoting the ‘Virtuous Contagion’ of Civic Engagement

April 9, 2020April 9, 2020 by Michael S. Roth '78

Although the conditions for stimulating civic engagement have changed, the importance of making informed choices in determining the country’s political leadership has rarely been clearer. We won’t be knocking on doors in the immediate future, but there are many other ways to get involved. Wesleyan continues to support #E2020, and we need the energy of students, faculty and staff to make this work! I recently wrote about this subject for Inside Higher Education.

In recent days, I was looking for a break from reading about COVID-19, and what did I stumble upon? Articles about the disappointing turnout of young voters in the Democratic primaries thus far. In the United States, ever since 18-year-olds got the vote in 1972, people between 18 and 29 have voted in smaller numbers than other age groups.

Part of the reason for this, apparently, is that it takes time to adjust to any public activity. Voting is a habit that develops from being part of a community, and it takes a while to get it going, especially when you are just entering adulthood and pulling together an independent life.

Reading about voting, like reading about anything these days, brought me back to ideas of contagion, isolation and interaction. Maybe the failure to vote is like the widely reported failure of younger people to self-isolate; they don’t feel they belong to the community that’s at risk. We are now asking for immediate feelings of communal connection when we ask people to stay away from one another. These preventive measures are encouraged to protect some of the most vulnerable: the aging, people with underlying and chronic health issues, the economically disadvantaged. But have we encouraged connectivity of young people with these groups?

The term being used for these measures is “social isolation.” A grim term indeed, but, as Nicholas Christakis has said, we should really be speaking of “physical isolation.” After all, we can remain safely isolated from one another physically while staying socially connected. Via our ubiquitous technological networks, we can have a virtuous social and political contagion even as we avoid malignant physical contagion by keeping six feet apart.

And maybe it’s virtuous contagion that we need to stimulate participation in the vital 2020 elections. Given the current administration’s penchant for voter suppression and the very real problem we would face if people had to come out to vote during an epidemic, one can easily imagine attempts to use the fear of contamination to make it more difficult to cast ballots. This would especially be the case in urban areas where voting happens in crowded places.

The best way to attack cynicism, apathy or voter suppression is through authentic civic engagement between elections. One of the great things about this kind of engagement is that it is contagious. As we replicate efforts to bring people into the political process, we create habits of engagement and participation. Concern for the public sphere — like a virus — can spread. Usually this happens through face-to-face interaction, but now we must turn to virtual tools — notorious in recent years for being deployed to misinform or stir hatred — to strengthen networks for democracy.

At Wesleyan University, we’ve begun a project called Engage 2020 that aims to bring more students into the public sphere to increase their civic preparedness and broaden their liberal learning. The next eight months offer a crucial opportunity for civic participation and liberal education through engagement with the public sphere. With the launch of the E2020 initiative, we provided a number of pathways for student skill and leadership development via direct participation in civic life. On a nonpartisan basis, we offered mini-internships linked with classes, funded student work to increase voter participation and awarded small grants to students to travel to areas where political races were of particular concern.

Of course, circumstances have now changed. We no longer want to encourage travel or to contribute — directly or indirectly — to the kinds of rallies characteristic of political campaigns. Still, there are other ways for colleges and universities to encourage meaningful civic engagement — and to make that engagement contagious.

We can support our students (through internships or virtual fieldwork classes for credit) in helping other people find out how they can register to vote or in working on campaigns, all from home — plugging into virtual networks that allow “knocking on doors” from computer to computer, from phone to phone. Working with organizations like Campus Compact or Civic Nation, MyFaithVotes or Let America Vote, the Chamber of Commerce or the League of Women Voters, students can connect with large numbers of people through networks that don’t require travel, or even hand shaking!

Although some of the commentary on the difficulty of Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign focuses on the failure to increase turnout among 20-somethings, it’s important to note that many thousands of college students across the country are already stepping up to their political responsibility. In our E2020 initiative, we’ve invited several other colleges and universities with strong civic engagement programs to join us in embracing the educational value of political participation. More than 75 quickly signed up — from large community colleges to small liberal arts colleges, from HBCUs and Christian colleges to large, secular research universities. They recognize that civic engagement is good for students, for their institutions and for the country.

This is an anxious time, a time when we have to stay away from our neighbors, our fellow citizens, in order to protect ourselves and the greater good. In circumstances like these, some social networks break down, and we see their disintegration in examples of hoarding, price gouging and general selfishness masquerading as independence. But we also see other social networks coming alive as neighbors look out for one another — providing food, medicine, even communal serenading.

This is also a crucial time for American democracy, an inflection point that will determine the direction of the country and of the world’s environment for many years to come. Colleges and universities have a duty to pay attention to the physical health of their constituents while also attending to the civic health of the nation. By promoting a virtuous contagion of thoughtful, networked civic engagement, our institutions can prove once again that we can respond to dire challenges and make a potent contribution to the public good.

Voting is Good but Colleges Must Do More

November 5, 2018 by Michael S. Roth '78

Tomorrow is Election Day, and there is a polling place right on the Wesleyan campus. You can find out more about voting in Middletown through our Jewett Center for Community Partnerships here.

As vital as voting is, I argue in an essay in Inside Higher Education that colleges and universities should do more in this time of peril for freedom of inquiry and expression. I reproduce the piece here.

In a year when inducements to political violence have become normalized at the highest level, colleges and universities must do more than just encourage our students to vote. Free expression, free inquiry and fact-based discussion are essential to higher education, and we must protect them. Diversity and inclusion are core commitments, and so we must oppose those people who cultivate hatred against immigrants or trade in racist stereotypes. And when government officials go beyond obfuscation to outright lying, we must stand up and object. If we don’t, we become complicit in the calamitous corruption infecting our society, and it may not be long before the higher education we offer is no longer worthy of the name.

There may be no more obvious attack on freedom of expression and inquiry than the Trump administration’s regular demonization of the press. Can it be that we have gotten used to campaign rallies at which reporters are described as “disgusting” and the news media is labeled an enemy of the people? Can we abide a president who tells the media to “clean up its act” when it is the target of terrorism? If one objects to this crude stoking of animosity, defenders of the regime will accuse one of “pearl clutching,” as if defending the dignity of journalists were akin to protecting snobbish privileges. When authorities in Saudi Arabia devised their heinous plot to torture and murder a critic of the regime, did they assume their friends in the White House would understand their desire to punish a writer for The Washington Post? Is objecting to Jamal Khashoggi’s murder pearl clutching?

Education is degraded when freedom of inquiry and expression are undermined. We must not be lured, however, into confronting the poisonous partisan dogmatism coming from Washington with similar dogmatism of our own. If we do so, we will merely be preaching to our own choirs. We must instead promote the importance of intellectual diversity in higher education, and we must beware of confusing the critical thinking we value with the ready-made ideological positions held by the majority of professors and students. Colleges and universities must remain open to a variety of intellectual and cultural traditions if they are to speak meaningfully about freedom of inquiry.

We must also not let the administration and its supporters make a mockery of American aspirations toward diversity, equity and inclusion in our institutions and in the larger society. We at colleges and universities have an obligation to preserve those aspirations, for they are essential to the learning environments that we aim to create. The current demonization of immigrants, for example, is meant to instill a sense of fear and insecurity among folks who have lived in this country for many years as productive members of society. Many of our higher education institutions offer support to our undocumented colleagues and friends, and we have pledged not to voluntarily cooperate with federal authorities seeking to intimidate or deport them.

It is true enough that politicians from various points on the political spectrum have long pontificated, stretched the truth, pumped themselves up and distorted inconvenient facts. But over the last two years, we have seen a callous disregard for truth become an ordinary part of public life. Educators must push back on this trend, but not just by digging into our own ideological commitments. People of goodwill, of course, can disagree about issues concerning freedom, the role of the military, the importance of markets and the responsibilities of the state to protect law and order and to help the most vulnerable members of society. No political tradition has a monopoly on the truth. In fact, that’s why intellectual diversity and freedom of inquiry are so vital: we need that diversity and freedom to see the errors of our own ways and to discover more equitable and effective ways of facing the issues before us.

But we must also recognize that our public discourse has entered a new arena of willful misrepresentation. The dismissal of the dangers of human-induced climate change is the most egregious example of the repudiation of science for the sake of political expediency. President Trump routinely denies having said things that he has been recorded saying, and his mantra of complete denial when confronted with the facts is spreading to other politicians. From issues of sexual misconduct to votes against requiring insurance companies to protect those with pre-existing conditions, politicians have learned from this president that lying (loudly and repeatedly) works when the truth is inconvenient. Surely, educational institutions have as a core part of their mandate to expose falsehoods, to gain agreement on the facts of a matter and to leverage those facts for better public policy.

In the summer of 2016, I wrote in these pages to urge those involved in higher education to join forces “to stop the Trumpian calamity.” I spoke out on electoral politics at that time with great reluctance because I do not think it appropriate for university presidents publicly to back one candidate or another. But over the last few years, from Hungary to Brazil, from Italy to the United States, we have seen the intensification of authoritarian, populist political forces around the world. They all demonize a group of outsiders, and they all substitute appeals to myth and violence for inquiry and discussion.

We in higher education must not treat this intensification as a normal dimension of our public life. This political movement is antithetical to learning; it is anathema to research and teaching and to any possibilities for democracy. Our mission in higher education requires us to oppose it. This is not a call for partisan, political indoctrination. It is a call to preserve intellectual diversity and freedom of inquiry by standing up to the poisonous pollution of our public life.

Semester Underway

January 28, 2018January 28, 2018 by Michael S. Roth '78

I sent this message to the campus a few days ago. My class, The Modern and the PostModern, begins tomorrow….so for me it seems we are just getting underway. I’ve been teaching versions of this course since the 1980s, and around 2000 I thought I’d retire it. But postmodernism, often a bogeyman for one group or another, is back in the news — mostly in relation to President Trump. I’ll share these articles from the New York Times and this video from the Wall Street Journal (start at 5 minutes), as recent examples, but we start with Rousseau and Kant.

Here’s the message that went out to campus:

After a long winter break, I am looking forward to the new semester. Like many faculty, I’ve spent many hours preparing for my upcoming classes, and I’ve tried to dig into some research, too. The teacher-scholar model is at the heart of our enterprise, and Wesleyan is making new tenure-track faculty hires to further strengthen the distinctive education we offer. We have already signed up additional faculty in departments and programs such as Government, Psychology, Music, Science in Society, and Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies.

Promoting civic engagement is part of our educational mission, and shortly we will be sharing a new civic action plan and asking for your views. Ours is an “Engaged University,” and here the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships plays a key role. On February 5, we welcome to campus the Center’s new director, Clifton Watson. On February 15, students, faculty, and staff have another opportunity to be engaged as we host Dr. Joi Lewis, the CEO and founder of Joi Unlimited Coaching and Consulting and the Orange Method, as the speaker at our annual event honoring the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. More information on the program will be forthcoming.

Wesleyan has set yet another record in admission applications: a total of 12,673! That more talented high school grads than ever want a Wesleyan experience is something about which we can all be proud, because it is our combined efforts that create that experience. Faculty do it through powerful teaching and research, staff do it through effective work on behalf of the university, and students do it through avid appetite for learning coupled with an exuberant, joyful building of community.

Expressing support for the university also contributes – be it by talking to others about Wesleyan or by making a financial contribution. In this last regard, the news is also good. As 2018 begins, we have already raised $27 million towards our annual goal of $35.6 million! We use much of these funds to invest in the long-term future of the institution through endowments that support financial aid, academic programs, and campus learning.

The economic basis on which the Wesleyan experience depends is stronger than ever, though still not strong enough given our ambitions and needs. Of these, improving our facilities is especially important, and how best to do that is something we look forward to discussing with you. We have scheduled forums dedicated to facilities planning on February 6 during common time and on February 13 at 4:30 p.m., both in the Kerr Lecture Hall (Shanklin 107). These forums are open to all faculty, staff, and students, and we want your input.

All of this work, from faculty hires to civic engagement, from admissions and financial aid to facilities enhancement, is in keeping with the planning framework developed in Beyond 2020.

Someone said to me recently that young people have to be brave to pursue a liberal education these days – courageous in the context of environmental and political challenges, in the face of political polarization and economic competition. Yes, I thought, the students I know at Wesleyan are brave, and with the support of faculty, staff, and alumni, defy contemporary pessimism with boldness, rigor, and practical idealism. Let the new semester begin!

October 4, 2016 by Michael S. Roth '78

I had lunch today with Cathy Lechowicz and a small group of students who are all working at various aspects of civic engagement, often through the Allbritton Center. Whether it’s through WESU (our community radio station), the Interfaith Council, the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships, the Wesleyan Media Project or the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, all these students are finding ways to connect their education on campus to meaningful work beyond its borders.

There are dozens of student-led organizations that make a difference in the lives of people right here in Middletown or across the globe. It was inspiring to hear about efforts to provide food for homeless people in our city, to improve college access in West Virginia, and to teach computer coding in Zimbabwe. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of meaningful work for social change that inspires a major cross-section of our student body — and also our faculty and staff.

Do you want to find out more about our civic engagement work? The Allbritton website has lots of information.

On a related subject…this may be the most crucial election of at least the last 50 years. Are you registered to vote? If not, you can find more information here. Don’t wait…deadlines are fast approaching!!

Classes Begin, Community Service Continues

June 17, 2015January 22, 2015 by Michael S. Roth '78

I received an email today from my friend David Knapp ’49 who tells me he is participating in Wesleyan’s Week of Service by reading to a group of first grade students in New Haven tomorrow. This reminded me of all the great things students, faculty, staff and alumni are doing in support of their communities.

Of course, the Wesleyan engagement isn’t confined to one week. The Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, to take just one example, has seed grants that are offered on a competitive basis. Applications are due this week and you can find out more here. Information on Davis Projects for Peace Grants (all students are eligible; applications due 1/25) can be found at that same link.

And here’s a link to photographs of Wes folks joyfully participating in community service activities.

Congratulations to those who successfully completed the intensive January classes. The semester is now underway, and I know many students are eager to be back in the classroom after the long break. Some folks are still checking out course possibilities, and I thought I’d mention the listing of classes that develop Digital and Computational Knowledge across a variety of subject areas. We also recently added a class, Constructions and Re-Constructions of Buddhism (RELI 483/CEAS245). Mary-Jane Rubenstein reports that it “was wildly successful last time it was taught, and would be a great course for students looking either to gain a fast-paced and carefully theorized introduction to Buddhist traditions, or to dive more deeply into them.”

UPDATE:

Colleagues have pointed out that our recent designation by the Carnegie Foundation as an “engaged campus” is very much related to the service activities mentioned above. Just check out these recent and forthcoming community engagement efforts by Wesleyan faculty, staff and students:

The United Way campaign, which raised $111,000 for the community.
The Center for Community Partnership’s upcoming High School Humanities program, which brings 80 local students to campus to hear faculty lectures.
Green Street’s Discovery AfterSchool program for local children, and Intel Math Institute, which provides intensive professional development for public school teachers from Meriden and Middletown.
And the Office of Community Service’s support of over 600 students each semester doing volunteer work locally.

I took the above from Wesleyan news article on engagement.

To stay informed about all civic engagement opportunities at Wesleyan, email scapron@wesleyan.edu to sign up for the weekly ENGAGE newsletter.

WesTech Makes Stuff: Engineering and Film Production

June 24, 2015September 22, 2011 by Michael S. Roth '78

Wesleyan is known for many things in higher education circles. Our graduates go on to get advanced degrees in droves, and they often wind up leading research fields and winning teaching awards. Our students are recognized for their extraordinary public service, which often continues long after they leave campus. Their civic engagement and strong political voices are part of our institutional DNA. The Wesleyan campus is also celebrated as a great place to develop one’s creative capacities. Whether they are working in biology or ethnomusicology, our faculty and students are regularly developing new ideas, practices, platforms and products.

One area where we have a great but not very visible track record is engineering. Many of our students build skills within a liberal arts context to do work in fields such as systems engineering, biotechnology, computer and information design, and environmental engineering. Others go on to graduate schools to develop expertise in architecture, materials science and multimedia interface production. Wesleyan does offer the possibility for students to get dual degrees with either Columbia or CalTech by spending three years here and two years doing focused engineering study. After getting TWO degrees, grads will really be making stuff. You can find out more about all these options here.

Another area in which our students are learning how to make stuff is film production. Our film major, of course, emphasizes contextual and formal film analysis, and many of our graduates have gone on to illustrious careers in the media world. In addition to studying the history of films, plenty of our students make new movies, guided by a practitioners, critics and historians. Recently, two of our film production profs received important recognition for their work. Katja Straub received a prestigious NEA fellowship grant called the New Artist Initiative, awarded through the Hambidge residency. And Steve Collins’ new film, You Hurt My Feelings, has been accepted to three high profile festivals: the Austin Film Festival, the Viennale in Austria, and the Cucalorus Festival in North Carolina. You can learn more about his film here: http://youhurtmyfeelingsmovie.com/

Wes students and faculty are making stuff, and not just in the film studios and physics labs. And in making “stuff,” they are making their education – and their capacity to make a difference in the world — stronger.

Anticipation and Planning with Cabinet Colleagues

June 24, 2015August 25, 2011 by Michael S. Roth '78

Yesterday I met with the Cabinet for a day-long retreat to discuss our goals for the year in the context of our strategic plan and the current state of the university within the wider culture and society. Our “retreat” wasn’t one of those junkets for bureaucrats at a fancy facility. We just met for the day in a different part of the campus than where we usually gather. And we didn’t deliver mini-lectures to one another on what we expected to achieve each semester. Instead, we held some group and individual exercises (“Imagine that your group has to tweet a billionaire to describe why he/she should support the university”) that spurred us to articulate our priorities and sense of mission.

I was interested to hear my colleagues discuss what they thought was distinctive about the Wesleyan experience, and how we could best support that. Words like “diversity,” “civic engagement,” and “creativity” came up often, and so did “boldness,” “scholar-teacher model,” and the idea that we must always make it possible for talented students to attend the university through a robust financial aid program. In the end, we were talking about how Wesleyan can become an even stronger supporter of a pragmatic liberal arts education that fosters creative and critical thinking and builds on the talent, independence of mind and generosity of spirit of our community.

This morning I spoke with the staff at our kick-off the semester event. Employees from all departments greeted old friends and met new ones. I met Ralph Connolly, who has been working in physical plant at Wes since 1979 (I just missed him when I was here as a student), and he told me about the variety of jobs and training he’s had on campus. In my remarks to the group, I emphasized the difficulties of navigating through this very challenging economic environment. But I also stressed that we are finding ways to invest in our people — not just in the endowment.

I frequently use trustee Geoff Duyk’s memorable phrase “intellectual cross-training” to describe the educational experience at Wesleyan. Whatever we call it, I can hardly wait for it to begin anew when the semester gets underway!

Here’s an alphabetical update on who is in the Cabinet:

Secretary of the University and Special Assistant to the President for Board and Campus Relations: Marianne Calnen

Marianne has worked at Wesleyan since 1998 and has long been deeply involved with projects concerning the Board of Trustees. She also helps with internal communications and a range of campus issues that build community.

Vice President for Institutional Partnerships and Chief-Diversity-Officer: Sonia Manjon

Sonia is beginning her fourth year at Wesleyan. We worked together at the California College of the Arts in Oakland/San Francisco on programs that linked the school and the city. Sonia leads our efforts in affirmative action, and she partners with faculty, staff and off-campus organizations to promote civic engagement.

Vice President for Finance and Administration: John Meerts

John has been at Wesleyan for 15 years, and before becoming the Treasurer he was in charge of our technology needs (which he once again is doing on a temporary basis). Most of the administrative departments report to John, including Public Safety and Physical Plant.

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid: Nancy Meislahn

Nancy has been head of our Admissions and Financial Aid offices since 2000. Our selectivity and the application pool’s diversity have improved markedly in the last few years.

Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost: Rob Rosenthal

Rob has been at Wesleyan since 1987. He is John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology and has been at the forefront of our service learning and community partnership work. Rob is the leader of our academic programs.

Director of Strategic Initiatives: Charles Salas

Charles came to Wesleyan three years ago from the Getty Research Institute, where he was Head of Research and Education. An intellectual historian of Modern Europe, Charles has helped plan programs like the College of the Environment and the Summer Session, and also is responsible for University Communications.

Chief-of-Staff: Andy Tanaka

Andy is a Wesleyan grad and former Freeman scholar. He works on almost everything that comes through the president’s office, from communications to physical plant, from student issues to alumni relations. When we need to get something done, Andy makes it happen.

Vice President for Student Affairs: Mike Whaley

Mike has spent 14 years at Wesleyan, always focused on the student experience. Mike is responsible for our co-curricular efforts and our residential life programs. From orientation to senior week, Dean Mike works on behalf of Wes students.

Vice President for University Relations: Barbara-Jan Wilson

Barbara-Jan may not have been born at Wesleyan, but she has certainly spent the bulk of her career here leading efforts in Career Planning, Admissions and now University Relations. Having spearheaded the most successful fundraising campaign in Wesleyan history, today she continues to work closely with alumni and staff to support all that we do at the university.

The Cabinet meets as a group each week, and Joan Adams, Executive Assistant to the President, always facilitates our efforts. I feel very fortunate to work with such dedicated and talented people.

Thoughts on Scholarship and Public Life

June 24, 2015February 21, 2011 by Michael S. Roth '78

I was a student here in the seventies, and this included more than a little protest and activism. Even then I knew I was participating in a Wesleyan tradition of engagement, and now, as President, I still take pride in that tradition. In the last few years, we’ve tried to integrate that concern for the good of the world with the curriculum – notably the College of the Environment, the Koeppel Fellow in Journalism, and the Civic Engagement Certificate Program.

A milestone in these efforts occurred in the fall of 2009 when Wesleyan celebrated the opening of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life. The plans for the Center grew out of the recognition that Wesleyan students and faculty had for generations been finding ways to connect what they study on campus to their lives as citizens and activists. As the Allbritton website puts it: University-based intellectuals have been rethinking their connection to the greater public and, consequently, are forging knowledge-seeking alliances with innovators and leaders in government and the corporate world. Social scientists are developing innovative and productive relationships with other sectors of the public, including artists, grass-roots activists, and independent scholars. And it’s not just social scientists who are developing these relationships. You can find faculty across the curriculum doing so.

Wesleyan demands a lot of its faculty. We want them to be scholar-teachers, deepening the positive feedback between their research and their efforts in the classroom. We also encourage them to connect their intellectual work with issues that matter to the world off campus — to Public Life with a capital P and a capital L. Recent success stories that come to mind include Erika Franklin Fowler’s Wesleyan Media Project, Elvin Lim‘s work on the presidency, Erica Chenoweth‘s studies of politics and terrorism and Peter Gottschalk‘s discussions of Islamophobia.

But does Wesleyan want ALL the research of the university to be responding to issues of Public Life? How about basic research in the sciences? Does our faculty have to justify this kind of specialization by looping the work back to some political or social issue? Does detailed research in literature and languages have to be public (read “popular”) in order to be considered “Wesleyanish?” In other words, has a connection to “Public Life” become a litmus test for research here?

I’ve been led to ask this question by some recent conversations concerning historians and the public stimulated by Anthony Grafton, a wonderfully gifted scholar (with whom I studied) who is now president of the American Historical Association. Grafton has rightly defended the importance of basic research in the humanities and social sciences, but he has also called on historians to fight back against those who manipulate the past without concern for fundamental notions of evidence, argument or honesty. In other words, he wants to ensure that scholars can continue to work on topics that might not appear to be immediately useful, but he also wants to see some scholars engage in questions in the public sphere on the basis of their academic work. Not all the scholarship has to be about civic engagement, but we need some scholars to engage in the public sphere to protect the right to do that basic research.

In addition to our tradition of engaged scholarship, at Wesleyan we are proud to have faculty and students working on topics generated simply from the intense desire to know more about something that has come to seem important. Grafton puts it this way: We’re modeling honest, first-hand inquiry. That austere, principled quest for knowledge matters: matters more than ever in the current media world, in which lies about the past, like lies about the present, move faster than ever before. The problem is that it’s a quest without a Grail. The best conclusions we can draw, scrutinizing our evidence and our inferences as fiercely and scrupulously as we can, will be provisional. We support a culture of inquiry on our campus, one that is willing to live with the provisional so long as we have the opportunity to work honestly, intensively and with the necessary tools (e.g., equipment, languages, documents).

A connection to the public, then, is not a litmus test for the scholarship we support, but there is such a test. It’s connection to the classroom, the “modeling” of inquiry. We expect all the research supported by the university to have a positive feedback loop with teaching. We are committed to sabbaticals, grants and other support because faculty research enlivens pedagogy and learning on campus. That’s what the scholar-teacher model is all about.

When asked about the most rewarding part of his distinguished, prolific career as a historian, Grafton recently responded “teaching.” I know that many of our colleagues at Wesleyan would echo that notion. The opportunity to connect our research with the education of our students is one of the joys of working on our campus. It’s the heart of the “public life” (small “p”, small “l”) of our university.