Yale President Maurie McInnis has convened a Committee on Trust in Higher Education that will seek to better understand public perception of colleges and universities and explore ways of strengthening confidence in them “as we all work together to shape Yale’s future,” she announced Friday.
“Since assuming this office last summer, I have attended over 100 meetings on campus and had countless conversations with Yale students, faculty, alumni, and staff about the most pressing issues facing our university,” she said in a message to members of the Yale community. “Over and over, I heard one of my deepest concerns echoed back to me: namely, that the precipitous drop in esteem for higher education imperils life-saving research, scholarship that expands human potential and understanding, and economic strength generated by colleges and universities across the country.”
Confidence in higher education is at an all-time low across the political spectrum, the president noted, citing Gallup findings that a third of U.S. adults have little to no confidence in higher education, and that more than two-thirds believe it is heading in the wrong direction.
“These sentiments cross partisan divides,” she wrote. “They encompass many critiques.”
To address them, she said, “those of us who care about the future of American colleges and universities must engage in the sort of open discourse and self-reflection that is — and should be — a hallmark of the best forms of higher education. The free exchange of ideas is foundational to the mission of any university. However, self-censorship has become an increasing concern on many campuses, including Yale’s.”
The new committee, which will be co-chaired by Julia Adams, the Margaret H. Marshall Professor of Sociology, and Beverly Gage, the John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History, will “undertake a process of reckoning and reflection.”
In its work, McInnis wrote, the group will seek out the “knowledge and experience of experts, citizens, and scholars,” including that of Yale faculty members, and will “engage the Yale community as well as its outside critics.”
The group “will invite external experts with varied viewpoints and backgrounds to provide perspective and to weigh how best to address the erosion of trust in higher education,” she said, and it will “explore possibilities for enhancing the open exchange of ideas on campus, in the classroom, and beyond.”
The president underscored the vital contributions the nation’s universities make to American society.
Universities’ “faculty, students, and staff conduct pioneering research and contribute to transformative educational experiences across all fields of knowledge,” she said. “They think together about sources of past wisdom and push the boundaries of today’s received thought. More than two million students complete college and graduate school across the U.S. each year, going on to significant careers in both public and private sectors.”
But “at this defining moment in higher education,” she wrote, “it is imperative to understand the erosion of trust in colleges and universities nationwide.
“As they come under attack in the public square, universities must redouble commitments to academic freedom and free speech. At the same time, they cannot operate sealed off from the society in which they are embedded, and which they were established to serve. The future of American higher education depends on a restoration of public trust and legitimacy.”
A list of all committee members and a form for sharing input with the group is available on the committee’s website.
