To the Editor:
In his opinion essay, “Institutional Neutrality Is a Copout” (January 7, The Chronicle Review), the Rev. John I. Jenkins offers important insights based in a lifetime as an educator, and in nearly 20 years at the helm of Notre Dame, one of the outstanding and storied universities in the country. He offers guidance in debates about when or whether colleges, including their presidents, can or should speak out on critical public and national controversies. Distilled, his argument is that colleges must make any of their claims within the parameters of maintaining integrity to their central mission: teaching, research, scholarship, and the duty of academic disciplines and inquiry.
A crisis moment that confronted college presidents in an earlier era was was the horrific killings of four students at Kent State University in early May 1970. Consider how John G. Kemeny, then-president of Dartmouth College, responded. In office for just two months at the time of this tragedy, and at the age of 44, Kemeny exhibited a wealth of leadership wisdom and passion. Kemeny made a campus radio address on the evening of the events of that May 4. He had held day-long meetings scheduled before what happened that afternoon with members of the college community on all sides of debate and division about the war.
In an extemporaneous and elegant address, Kemeny made a simple argument that Jenkins echoes in part. That is, colleges as institutions cannot make public stands, but presidents can. However, in the case of presidents, they can do so on only the rarest of occasions, as he put it, a president has only so many chips to play. Kemeny noted the moment of national crisis and because of it instituted a one-week moratorium on regular classes. The week would be used for education but not as dictated by the normal curriculum. Rather, students and faculty would engage in discussion and dialogue about the events at hand in the country, what might be learned about the situation, and what actions if any members of the community could undertake.
At the end of that week, during which discussion and debate were conducted with intelligence and civility at Dartmouth, classes resumed. Kemeny argued that both the moratorium and the regular curriculum were central to Dartmouth’s mission, purpose, and the education that was at that core. Kemeny’s thoughtfulness and the lines he drew were critical then and remain profound to this day.
Stephen J. Nelson
Professor, Secondary Education and Educational Leadership
Bridgewater State University