This Week @ AU

Should a university foster diversity and democracy and produce responsible citizens? Is this part of its public mission? Stanley Fish thinks not. A panel discussion addressing these questions and Fish's recently published "Save the World on Your Own Time" will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 21, at 3 p.m. in 239 Broun Hall. The event will also be available via the Web at http://connect.auburn.edu/savetheworld. Fish, a literary theorist, legal scholar, New York Times columnist, and academic provocateur, believes that there's a crisis in the universities. College professors too often offer themselves as moralists, political activists, or agents of social change, he argues, rather than as credentialed experts in a particular subject. He maintains that the only goal appropriate to the academy is the transmission and advancement of knowledge. The panelists will include Royrickers Cook, assistant vice president for university outreach; Christa Slaton, College of Liberal Arts associate dean for educational affairs, professor of political science, and winner of the 2007 Award for Excellence in Faculty Outreach; and Al Head, executive director of the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The event is sponsored by the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts. Call 844-4946 for more information.

Tags: discussion, education

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