Lecture Rescheduled Academy is key resource, speaker says Carol Geary Schneider expects more from the academy. The widespread tendency to describe the university as a vehicle for economic advancement isn't necessarily wrong, according to Schneider. But alone, it's inadequate.
Economic values are important.
But they're not all that matter. It is equally essential to reassert the academy's role and responsibility in developing what we might think of as civic or democratic capital in our society. It's a central part of our university, and one we do not emphasize enough, to educate students who are both prepared and inspired to take personal and collective responsibility for the health, the integrity and, finally, the long-term viability of a democratic society. Her top priority is to reverse patterns of racial segregation and separation. She compared the United States to the fledgling democracy in South Africa and found disturbing similarities.