Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

Agent of Democracy
and the academy’s place in a society in which, some believe, the
nation’s democratic tenets are under siege. These faculty and students
are asking political questions; questions, that is, about the nature
of the ways in which we as a
“We saw little likelihood
of strong faculty
involvement until the
emphasis changed from
service as a stand-alone,
to scholarship and curriculum
as a foundation
for democratic practice.”
(“Public Scholarship at
Penn State: An interview
with Jeremy Cohen,”
HEX, 2005.)
people live, the rules by which we
organize ourselves in communities,
the things we stand for, and our
place as scholars in a university
community and in communities
with invisible borders that stretch
beyond city or county or even
nation-state. Their concern is
with their agency as professional
scholars, with their obligation to
induct students into a community
with obligations that reach beyond
individual service, and with the
public nature of the arts and sciences
that underlie democratic
understanding and commitment. The patois of public scholarship,
still a relatively new term that lacks a commonly accepted definition,
nonetheless provides common ground—an invitation to others
in its apparent recognition of shared concerns. Public scholarship,
if it is not strictly speaking a philosophy or a set of tenets with
an identifiable canon, is nonetheless an organizing principle that
has helped some Penn State faculty to identify inherently political
questions about their work and to build a collegial and supportive
community to consider them.
Our university is a community in which, like Joyce’s young
artist, students and faculty are making decisions about whom or
what to serve. Some, particularly undergraduates, are grappling
with personal issues, such as religious faith, sexuality, artistic vision,
race, ethics, and family and national loyalty. Purposeful and
principled subscription to truly democratic modes of life are often
submerged by the tides of what, to many young people, may
seem like more pressing concerns. Motivations of professional
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