The Forum > Article Comments > So much for liberal education > Comments
So much for liberal education : Comments
By Gregory Melleuish, published 7/1/2005Gregory Melleuish argues that our humanities faculties do not embrace political debate.
- Pages:
-
- Page 1
- 2
-
- All
Exactly the same (or reverse) can easily be said about the business community in Australia, ie: that it is almost devoid of the types of people you described as dominating universities. This probably has something to do with the interests of people – liberals are more likely than conservatives to be attracted by academia while conservatives are more likely to be attracted by business.
One of the causes of the domination of universities by social liberals is the limited number of attractive career options for those interested in academia. You very rightly point to a scarcity of think-tanks in Australia and I would add to that that most of those only employ a very small number of people and usually economists.
This situation is in turn caused by a lack of willingness to fund social research and academic debate. A recent Online Opinion article described the lack of funding Australian universities receive in comparison to those in the US. The author assumed funding is mostly necessary for scientific research equipment but I would add that the social sciences are possibly the most under funded discipline.
I don’t believe however that it is the sole responsibility of government to create the more favourable environment you mention. Rather, academics should spend more time promoting the work they do to people outside of academia. Society needs academics to take a much more active and public role than most currently do. After all, those in the social sciences are paid to think about the best functioning of society, presumably they can have the most considered contributions.
As Associate Professor you should be (and possibly are) leading your school (in cooperation with other schools and universities) to promote the work of social science academics to the public. It is vastly undervalued in our community.