At Risk U Speaker Series: The End of The Research University?

Johann N. Neem is a scholar of the era of the American Revolution and the early American republic and the history of education. He is a regular public contributor on issues relating to history, culture, and education. His most recent book What’s the Point of College? Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform (Johns Hopkins, 2019) seeks to answer that very question for our reform-minded era. In Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America (Johns Hopkins, 2017) he examines the origins and purposes of public education between the American Revolution and the Civil War. His first book Creating a Nation of Joiners (Harvard, 2008) examines the development of civil society after American independence. He has served as editor of the Journal of the Early Republic and on the editorial boards for the American Historical Review and the History of Education Quarterly. Neem received his BA in history from Brown University, where he wrote his senior thesis on civic education under the guidance of Ted Sizer. He went on to complete his PhD at the University of Virginia under Peter Onuf. Neem is Professor of History at Western Washington University.

Abstract:
Since the late 1800s, science—and research—have defined not just the work of the modern university but its self-understanding. Today, the centrality of scientific knowledge is being challenged by both progressives and conservatives who, in different ways, seek to reassert the centrality of character education and morality. Beyond partisan debates are deeper questions about the purpose of the university and the kind of knowledge it should produce. In his talk, Prof. Neem will examine the ideological challenges to scientific knowledge from both the left and rights and their implications for the future of the American university.