Cameron Smith: Can higher education be saved?

The anti-Israel protesters at our college campuses are the latest in a troubling trend line across our institutions of higher learning. My boys are only a few years away from college, and I cannot imagine sending what amounts to a nice annual salary to these institutions who have so effectively prepared the next generation for self-absorbed navel gazing.

I am the beneficiary of an excellent education, and I remember when it truly began.

In high school in Tennessee, I consumed the entire list of “approved” books for the semester, and I was looking for more. An intellectually creative teacher at my private Christian school gave me a copy of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” like it was contraband. Somewhere along the classical and romantic understanding of a motorcycle, intellectual imitation suddenly gave way to independent thought.

I was free.

At Washington and Lee University, my professors again challenged my views on faith, ethics, and truth. They forced me into a blender of ideas from Horace, Locke, Cicero, the Apostle Paul, Kant, and so many other great minds. My instructors were far more interested in my intellectual growth than graduating an indoctrinated clone of their making. From there, I passionately debated my professors at the University of Alabama School of Law in classes like “Race, Racism, and the Law,” “Gender and the Law,” and “Antitrust Law.” Once you’ve seen the unlawful tying arrangement in International Salt Co., you’re never quite the same again.

The educational investments in my life have paid unimaginable dividends, but, to borrow from Hamlet, something is rotten in the state of America. The institutions which developed me have given way to ordained ways of thinking.

Ironically, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” addresses this sickness. “[The instructor] had wanted his students to become creative by deciding for themselves what was good writing instead of asking him all the time … But now this made no sense. If they already knew what was good and bad, there was no reason for them to take the course in the first place.” As it turns out, teaching people to think is much more difficult than simply telling them what to do.

Higher education has, in so many instances, fallen into the trap of “authoritarian, didactic teaching.” Instead of challenging and opening minds, we’ve affirmed a self-righteous orthodoxy where certain viewpoints are affirmed and others are discouraged. In one instance after another, we’ve witnessed our “intellectual elites” attempt to drown out those who disagree with chants and shrieks as if to say their personal views are above question.

The context for learning has also changed over the last few decades.

Where once colleges and universities functioned as the gatekeepers of advanced knowledge, access to such information is now available to the masses at little or no cost. Want to learn computer programming? Go right ahead. Curious about advanced mathematics? You can explore abstract algebra on YouTube. Theology, philosophy, and history are a click away. From the practical to the theoretical, knowledge is available for anyone who wants it.

But higher education is more than simply acquiring more information. It is an opportunity for us to develop as individuals and build a network of our peers.

Development comes from resistance and challenge, not affirmation. Paul Gregory, James Mahon, Miriam Carlisle, Bill Brewbaker, Bryan Fair, and so many more of my instructors understood this vital principle. The strategic discomfort they imposed on me taught me to defend my views and also admit when I was wrong.

Intellectual curiosity demands the possibility that our views are fallible. It’s humbling. It creates the opportunity to listen and exchange ideas. Without it, we become the closed-minded zealots parading about college campuses today.

Zealots struggle to build relationships across demographic and cultural divides. My friends and classmates from every level of my education represent an extremely diverse group of people connected by the common bond of our shared experiences. I recently watched a video of students at UCLA denying their classmates access to parts of campus if they weren’t in solidarity with the current protest. If I had self-selected my peer group in college to those who affirmed my views, my current existence would be radically impoverished.

If colleges and universities aren’t necessary for knowledge transfer, are failing to develop intellectually resilient Americans, and are self-segregating along ideological lines, can higher education be saved?

Yes, but we need nothing short of a complete overhaul.

Excellent instructors are tilting against the higher education windmills because financial incentives are misaligned. Brilliant teachers may not be the best researchers and vice versa. Higher education suffers from a radical imbalance between the two disciplines.

Research brings in massive dollars from federal agencies and private foundations. Occasionally, academics in technology, medicine, or another scientific field discover something that changes our way of life. Most academic research does not advance the frontiers of human knowledge. In fact, most humans don’t know it exists. That’s irrelevant because the paper is grist for the economic mill of publication. The scales are so tilted away from actual teaching that it’s no wonder we’re witnessing encampments that look like something from Lord of the Flies.

After refocusing on teaching, we must reintroduce intellectual diversity as a chief good. Oddly, so many of our “best” universities have ensconced demographic diversity while producing an intellectual monoculture. Humans are so much more than our biological characteristics, sexual engagements, and political preferences. We are presently witnessing many institutions of intellectual comfort that are physically unsafe. Our future depends on returning to academic instruction that is physically safe and intellectually uncomfortable.

My four sons are quickly approaching the time for them to make decisions about continuing their education. I suspect their academic chautauqua will look different than mine. My hope is that there are still enough professors who will open their minds, lift their souls, and challenge them to become wise men of character. Perhaps the process will instill enough humility that they lift their eyes from their own navels to truth much greater than themselves.

Smith is a recovering political attorney with four boys, two dogs, a bearded dragon, and an extremely patient wife. He’s a partner in a media company, a business strategy wonk, and a regular on talk radio. Please direct outrage or agreement to csmith@al.com or @DCameronSmith on X or @davidcameronsmith on Threads.