What is the Purpose of Universities?

Tim Platnich

Orignally published: May 24, 2025

Revised: May 28, 2025

The fight between President Trump's administration and Harvard University raises the question: What is the purpose of universities?

This is not a post about Trump's policies, so keep your shirt on.

The simple answer to the question is 'education'. What is meant by education? I submit that universities should teach their students, regardless of the program, both education process and education subject matter. By education process, I mean teaching students how to learn. This process has at least two components. The main component is critical thinking. The secondary, but related component is the handling of vast amounts of information. Students need to learn how to process and assess information.

Dealing with this last component first, university students are presented with vast amounts of new materials which form the subject matter of their program of studies. This information must be organized in a fashion that allows the student to use the information going forward. Few students can remember all of the details of the information presented. They must learn to sort out the core information. The details can be looked up later, but the underlying framework must be remembered. Students must come away from university knowing something about the program they studied! 'Let me google that' is not an answer for every question. Some residual knowledge needs to be retained. The skill that comes out of this process is the ability to learn; the ability to take on large amounts of information, organize it and remember the core components of it. A university educated student, after graduation, should have the ability to learn any new subject matter presented. This is what makes a university education valuable.

Let's return to the more fundamental component of the education process: critical thinking. Aspects of critical thinking include: understanding that nothing is certain, there are always issues; seeing the two sides of any issue; and the ability to assess the relative merits of different sides of an issue having regard to the factors involved including the relevant data.

The opposite of critical thinking is dogmatic thinking. Dogmatic thinking is destructive to the education process. Indeed, the history of university education has always been a struggle against dogmatism. Socrates was an early victim of dogmatism. It cost him his life.

Universites had their start in ancient Greece with the 'Academy'. This was Plato's school where philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric and astronomy were taught. In many ways, philosophy encompassed all. Philosophy was focused on logical debate as the process for learning. Issues were identified and debated. The skills for debate were taught as 'rhetoric'. This term did not have the negative connotation it has come to have today. It referred to the skill of persuasion in both writing and speaking. This skill was thought necessary as part of the debate process. The debate process was thought to be necessary to learning. The 'socratic method' was a method for teaching where the teacher raised an issue that encouraged debate among the students. It was believed that through debate, knowledge would be obtained. Plato, in his teaching style, never told students there was a 'correct' answer to any issue though he may have subtly steared students in certain directions.

Aristotle followed upon Plato's methods with his school: the Lyceum.

In medieval Europe, the ancient Greek tradition of 'academies' was continued. In England, colleges at Oxford and Cambridge were established in the 11th and 13th centuries, respectively. Like in Greece, the subjects taught were steeped in philosophy including logic and rhetoric and in mathematics and astronomy. More specifically, the liberal arts included seven disciplines: grammar (Latin of course!); logic; rhetoric; mathematics; geometry; music and astronomy. Additionally, over time, studies in law, medicine and theology were added. Even theology in those days, was a subject matter where debate was encouraged (to a point).

Universities in England and in Europe in those times were islands of learning and relative tranquility set in a sea of superstition, ignorance and violence. To protect their role in society, universities were given a great deal of autonomy. Effectively, they were self-governing.

Where am I going with this? For over 2000 years, debate has been the essence of a university education. I might add, peaceful debate. Where a university fails to be a forum for peaceful debate, the university fails in its core mandate. Fundamentally, a student attending a university should be physically safe. A universily fails its students if it allows demonstrations that are violent or that threaten violence. A university fails its students if demonstrations prevent them from freely attending classes. By freely, I mean without intimidation. A university fails its students if it discourages free debate by students, professional staff and guest lecturers on subjects of public interest. The job of a university is to encourage debate, not put up obstacles. This is particularly so in the classroom. Professors should be discouraged from proselytizing. Universities are not for indoctrination. Indoctrination is the opposite of a university education.

On this last point, reference may be made to the 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure. This Declaration was the result of a study by a committee formed by the American Association of University Professors. The thrust of the Declaration was to underline the importance of academic freedom of professors. However, the Declaration also notes that with this right comes duties.

"Since there are no rights without corresponding duties, the considerations heretofore set

down with respect to the freedom of the academic teacher entail certain correlative obligations. The claim to freedom of teaching is made in the interest of the integrity and of the progress of scientific inquiry; it is, therefore, only those who carry on their work in the temper of the scientific inquirer who may justly assert this claim. The liberty of the scholar within the university to set forth his conclusions, be they what they may, is conditioned by their being conclusions gained by a scholar’s method and held in a scholar’s spirit; that is to say, they must be the fruits of competent and patient and sincere inquiry, and they should be set forth with dignity, courtesy, and temperateness of language. The university teacher, in giving instruction upon controversial matters, while he is under no obligation to hide his own opinion under a mountain of equivocal verbiage, should, if he is fit for his position, be a person of a fair and judicial mind; he should, in dealing with such subjects, set forth justly, without suppression or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators; he should cause his students to become familiar with the best published expressions of the great historic types of doctrine upon the questions at issue; and he should, above all, remember that his business is not to provide his students with ready-made conclusions, but to train them to think for themselves, and to provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently."

Does the Trump administration have any legitimate policy concerns with Harvard and other universities? Perhaps. The facts as reported in the media suggest that universities, largely through inaction, have allowed demonstrations and encampments that could be construed as anti-semetic and threatening to non-supporters of Hamas. Indeed Harvard commissioned two reports that concluded, in part, that anti-semetism (among other matters) was a problem at the university. See here. And here. Requiring Harvard to provide a safe learning environment for its students, including Jews, is a valid policy initiative. This is not to suggest that the Trump administation's methods in respect of Harvard are appropriate. I am only suggesting that the policy concern is legitimate.

Similarly, the concern that university professors have strayed from being teachers to being preachers may be valid. Students who are inclined to views deemed not progressive, or deemed conservative, should feel safe to express and debate their views. The exchange of ideas, and the challenging of ideas through debate, is the lifeblood of the university experience. Attending lecture after lecture where a particular narrative is proffered incessantly has no educational merit. It discourages critical thinking. Rather than educate, it produces students incapable of rational thought. They learn only to follow the thinking of others without question. Students become more like medieval monks than like members of the Royal Society.

Universities hold a near-sacred trust. This trust should not be abused. Universities must remember why they exist and what role they play. Theirs is not the role of producing automatons mimicking the views of proselytizing professors.

To the extent that Harvard has lost its way, and is the recipient of taxpayer money and government support, a wake-up call is not a bad thing.

Unfortunately, as with all things Trump, a sledge hammer is being used where less forceful means may have achieved the same result.