IU’s strategic plan disappoints

0
945

Morton Marcus

Last month, the IU Board of Trustees approved a Strategic Plan. Unlike the evolving auto industry, it is not electric, but filled with gas.

Simply put, IU sold out to Indiana’s political leadership, failed to differentiate itself from Purdue University in the intense competition ahead, and abandoned its traditional strengths.

IU has hitched itself to the goals of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), a public-private organization seeking increased private investment in our state. Leaving aside the IEDC’s virtues, should IU or any institution of higher education have the material goals of the state as the guiding force of its mission?

This is not to say the economic well-being of students, faculty and staff of these schools is not of consequence. The question Is: Should economic development, as defined by the IEDC, be goals for IU?

Our educational institutions might seek other means of improving life for Hoosiers .

IEDC supports keeping Hoosiers in Indiana. Perhaps educational institutions are indifferent as to where students live as adults. Quality of adult life, wherever students choose to live, might be the first priority of education. Hence, the value of human capital developed by education may exceed that of the material capital sought by the IEDC.

IU has been the bulwark of comprehensive education for Indiana. Purdue has excelled in technical education for agriculture and industry. Both provide occupational instruction, but with a difference.

IU offers degrees in health care, law, education, music and business. These fields demand broad perspectives of society, of human behavior.

Hence, IU has studies, here and abroad, that open the world for students. These range from a-to-z, in art, history, languages, literature, philosophy, psychology, right on to zoology.

Where are these vital studies in the IU strategic plan? They have been driven out by the obsessive campaigns for STEM – – education without perspective.

The IU plan gives some incidental emphasis to the teaching of teachers. Now is the time to make IU-Indianapolis the state’s premier center of a consortium for the education of classroom teachers. This requires the training of teachers entirely financed by the State, or by far-sighted philanthropic efforts, with tuition-free instruction at all levels for classroom teachers.

IU should re-establish itself as a leader in the provision of information. Both journalism and library management have been swallowed by trendy programs in media and information technology.

IU should expand into the state-at-large All citizens need to know how to use the abundant information they require to make critical decisions for themselves. To do this, IU must restructure the reward system for its faculty and departments. Fruitful engagement with Hoosiers needs recognition commensurate with that for abstruse journal articles.

While Purdue expands, dissolves IUPUI, and is complicit in the Boone County land grab, IU imagines itself being bold with a plan for subservience.

Mr. Marcus is an economist. Reach him at [email protected]. Follow him and John Guy on Who Gets What? wherever podcasts are available or at mortonjohn.libsyn.com.