Specialization, however, is in general less important to undergraduate education, where the primary emphasis is often to show the interconnections among specialized fields of knowledge. No wonder that, as people observe the hustle, they conclude that some faculty members are more interested in research than teaching. They see that some faculty, for instance, in the medical and engineering schools, self-finance portions of their own salaries. In the same newspapers they can read about conflicts of interest caused by these very links between academia and industry. Jacques Barzun reminded us as long as thirty years ago that time within the university is flowing at the same rate as outside.
Universities are no ivory towers.
While matters are thus often more difficult than outside critics realize, it is all the more welcome that the Stanford faculty has, with vigor and rigor, reassessed its own role in undergraduate education. To its great credit, CUE steered clear of many of the perennial debates about undergraduate education and focused on a few key themes and pragmatic recommendations. The first two years of the undergraduate program require special attention because, as I said, they are not fully the responsibility of any single department of the university. Stanford does not have an undergraduate college. Instead, undergraduate programs are the collective responsibility of the entire faculty.