Accountability and Change
Challenging all the other gremlins gnawing away a t higher education for harassment-withontaccountability honors of the biennium is accountability itself. It is such a morally commanding, pragmatically compelling, and logically satisfying concept that few can see beyond its deceptively simplistic facade to the incredibly complex issues that must be dealt with if its results are to he trusted and acted upon. Who could possibly be against accountability? What could he more reasonable than to require of institutions and teachers that they render an accounting of edncational results commensurate with the massive idvestment this society has made in them? And yet, how is it decided just who is accountable for what and to whom? Are the administrators accountahle to the public, to the trustees, to the faculty, to the students, to the alumni-to all of these on all things, to some of these on some things, to none of these on some things? Are faculty members accountable to all of the above plus their own profession? For all aspects of their professional activities? To whom are students acconntable? For what is each group accountable? Who, for example, is accountable for the wise expenditure of funds? Who decides what is wise? Who, for example, is accountable for the students who fail, for the graduates who do not fulfill their promise, or for those who are not fulfilled by their life's work? Who is accountable for producing or failing to produce a generation of citizens competent to solve intelligently the social and economic problems of the time? Who is culpable for increased drug use, for altered codes of sexual behavior, for rising campus crime rates? Who is answerable for the transition in value patterns from what has been called a predominantly moral-stoic to a predominantly secular-epicurean philosophy of life among many members of the higher education community? Who is accountable for the validity and reliability of the accountability procedures themselves? Who is accountable for accountability? Lest all this seems like an attempt to avoid the issue in an avalanch6 of ambiguity, let it be remembered that the. intellectual excellence on which higher education has earned the respect of all is based on rigorous stan-
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dards of accountability in the classroom, in the research laboratory, in the personal scholarship of its faculty and students. Therefore the real issue is not one of acceptance or rejection of high levels or complex pa& terns of accountability. The higher education community has worked successfully with these for decades; and while improved and more elaborate patterns must accompany the increasingly complex mission of higher education, much of the current emphasis on accountability amounts to little more than harassment, accomplishing few, if any, of its intended goals. The real issue here centers on the intellectual and spiritual gap between the higher education community and the society outside, and on the extent to which the college graduate of 1971 is adequately prepared by training or attitudes to be comfortable enough in the world as it exists today to he a productive and creative citizen. Stated in another way it is a question of whether the ever-more-sophisticated pluralism within higher education, with its accompanying appetite for more freedom of expression and greater depth of knowledge and ideas, but with less and less reliance on broad understanding, is carrying faculty and students too far beyond the basic need structure and the fundamental capacity-for-change pattern of the society a t large to make the products of higher education useful to and compatible with that society. And to the extent that this should indeed turn out to be a problem with a sizeable fraction of current college students, by what accountability guidelines should we decide how far we should go in ameliorating this situation? One answer to this question would appear to be abundantly clear. Regardless of the involvement of other groups, students and faculty have a substantial interest in seeing to it that graduates can relate to the society as it is. While both groups might hope and work for the day when the public a t large is able to accept a more sophisticated life style and philosophy, neither can expect to see the seeds of education hear fruit unless they are nurtured by an understanding and empathetic public-a public that has enough respect for higher education and for its products to make itself accountahle for the husbandry of the seeds of change. WTL
Volume 48, Number 4, April 1971
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