Three’s a Crowd: The Value Commitments of Contemporary Higher Education

This is a consideration of some of the complexities of the contemporary university’s relation to academic, political, and economic values and pressures. The argument is that the contemporary university, in any country, embodies these three sets of values, and the health of a university requires an ongoing balance among them. Occasional these values come into conflict, due sometimes to large scale social or economic trends, and sometimes to specific events. In such cases, university administrators face their most difficult challenges. Ideally, university administrators will make an effort at all times to help their constituencies to understand that a strong university requires a balance among these values.