by Diana G. Oblinger, EDUCAUSE Review
There are many attributes of higher education. Some are physical―the campus and its classrooms, laboratories, and library. Those spaces are populated by people―students, faculty, and staff. Some are nonphysical. The activities of higher education are learning, research, dialogue, and reflection. Yet none of these attributes, alone, is especially distinctive. The most distinctive attributes of higher education today are its values. Jonathan R. Cole, in his 2009 book The Great American University, contends that twelve core values distinguish “great” colleges and universities: universalism, organized skepticism, creation of new knowledge, free and open communication of ideas, disinterestedness, free inquiry and academic freedom, international communities, peer review system, working for the “common” good, governance by authority, intellectual progeny, and the vitality of the community. Putting those values into action has catalyzed huge advances in science, technology, culture, and society.
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