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北京大学英语新闻网/Peking University News
Hollinger: ―Higher Education as a
Public Good‖
PKU NEWS 2009--11—09
By Qin Yixiao
http://ennews.pku.edu.cn/news.php?s=257760196
Peking University, Nov. 9, 2009: The Berkeley panel began with a brief introduction
by the chair, F. Scott Biddy, on the history of universities through time. ―Universities
persist we adapt to changing times and survive through crisis, continuing to fulfill our
missions as universities,‖ said Biddy, as he went on sharing how Berkeley came to
be at the state which it is at today. ―This is a critical time for Chinese higher
education,‖ commented Biddy, ―we would like to share our experience about the
character of the higher education in California.‖
After the brief introduction, the floor was opened to Professor David A. Hollinger, who
shared his view on ―Higher Education as a Public Good.‖ Hollinger‘s speech was
organized and straightforward, he explained ―The California Idea‖ which is the
combination of wide public access and elite quality. The state of California has
always been the most supportive of higher education compared to the other states in
the USA. This is because they believed that the point of higher education as a ―public
good‘ was to ensure that as many citizens as possible would be educated and ready
and able to play productive roles in society. Hollinger shared some numbers which
were quite impressive. In 1942, when only 12% of the nation had entered the gates
of a college or university, 24% of California‘s residents had attended college for
some amount of time. This proved even more how much the state of California was
encouraging higher education for the public and the amount of finical support the
higher education institutions from the state of California were receiving.
During his presentation, Hollinger also touched the topic of the compatibility between
private and public schools. Contrary to public beliefs, the UC‘s although being public
institutions are actually highly competitive to private institutes such as Harvard or
Stanford. The National Research Council‘s evaluation in 1995, ranked 36 doctorial
programs of the nation. Of those, UC Berkeley had 24 programs ranked in the
nation‘s top five, followed by Harvard with 19 and Stanford and MIT tied with 15
programs in the top five. The number of Berkeley‘s top rated programs was not the
only impressive statistic, the range of the top ranked programs were also very
remarkable. Berkeley has strong engineering as well as humanities and social
science programs, providing the public with well rounded and competitive programs
in all fields of learning.
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