Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

Agent of Democracy
Here, I want to stress the meaning and purpose of reconstruction
that William Sullivan speaks of in his ongoing study of the civic
identity and practices of the professions. The aim of reconstruction,
Sullivan writes, is “both to better understand the intrinsic purposes
of the professional enterprise and to suggest the lines along which the
enterprise needs to move if it is to reclaim those purposes more vigorously
and coherently.” According to him, the central intrinsic purposes
of the professional enterprise are expressed through a pledge
professionals have historically made to “deploy their technical expertise
and judgment not only skillfully but for public-regarding
ends and in a public-regarding way.” The problem, as Sullivan and
others see it, is that a conception of professionalism that stresses public
ends and practices—a conception that Sullivan refers to as “civic
professionalism”—has been eclipsed by a conception that stresses
private economic and instrumental ends and practices. Given this
problem, Sullivan writes, it is “far from clear” whether professionals
in a variety of fields “will be able to sustain their social importance
without re-engaging the public over the value of their work to the
society at large.” If the professions are to have a future, he goes on
to say, “they may need to rest their case on the basis of a civic rather
than a wholly technical understanding of what it is that professionals
are about.” 19
Sullivan’s view of what the professions in general may need to
do to sustain their social importance into the future holds a great
deal of relevance for the specific case of the academic profession. It
is especially relevant for scholars who work in land-grant colleges. In
my research, I have found that a civic conception of academic professionalism
that stresses public ends and practices is still embraced
19 W. M. Sullivan, Work and Integrity: The Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in
America (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005), 180. W. M. Sullivan, “Engaging
the Civic Option: A New Academic Professionalism?” Campus Compact Reader
(Summer 2003), 10. W. M. Sullivan, “What Is Left of Professionalism After Managed
Care?” Hastings Center Report, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1999): 6. Recent studies of the
history of the professions in American society tell a similar story. For example,
see the account of the erosion of “social trustee professionalism” and the rise of
“expert professionalism” in S. Brint, In an Age of Experts: The Changing Role of Professionals
in Politics and Public Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).
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