The problem, in part, is that the notion of academic excellence, for example, has been identified only with the standards set by these institutions of higher learning-much in the same way that global capitalism has arbitrarily defined for us what is the true, the good, and the beautiful. The challenge, then, is to discover the meaning of a sustainable excellence for our own space, time, and place without surrendering the spirit of academic excellence which animates even these model institutions, namely, rigorous and practical research, honest and open intellectual inquiry, relevant and useful education. ICU must situate itself appropriately and strategically in this global and globalizing 21st century - which means, it needs to always have its eye not only on a changing, globalizing world, but especially on its effects in the local ecology, without surrendering its unique claim to defining for itself, not only what this globalization means and requires, but what academic excellence means within ICU's particular ecology. By excellence, I mean, to paraphrase Maxine Greene, the Columbia University philosopher of education, assisting individuals in the creation and nurture of an authentic public space in which individuals can appear before each other in the best way they know how to be. Second, there is the challenge of engaged pedagogies.
All education is about the discovery, creation, and nurture of creative and critical consciousness.
It is a rediscovery and a re-affirmation of the humanizing vocation of all human beings, which demonstrates the power of education to negate arbitrary limits while opening the way to a new future. Engaged pedagogies are about creating free subjects who participate in the transformation of their chosen spaces, times, places. The challenge for a university in the 21st century, then, is to be a place for the practice of embodied freedom. Let me illustrate. All of us know that ICU is part of a local, regional, national, and international ecological system.