AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

In his recent report, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (see endnote 2), Ernest L. Boyer makes the observation:

Today, on campuses across the nation, there is a recognition that the faculty reward system does not match the full range of academic functions and that professors are often caught between competing obligations . . ..

It is this issue -- what it means to be a scholar -- that is the central theme of our report . . ..

How can the work of the nation's colleges and universities become more intellectually coherent? Is it possible for scholarship to be defined in ways that give more recognition to interpretive and integrative work?

These quotations paraphrase the charge to our Task Force. We endeavor to respond for the University of California.

The evolution of American colleges and universities has reflected important societal needs at critical times. Early colonial colleges focused on the intellectual and moral development of a (male) student body, which would in turn contribute to the public good. In 1869, the mission statement and concomitant work of the faculty were reflected in the words of Charles W. Elliot, the newly appointed President of Harvard College, when he declared that "the prime business of American professors . . . must be regular and assiduous class teaching."

The Morrill Act of 1862 and the Hatch Act of 1887 provided unprecedented opportunities for states to develop a new kind of public institution that would support education in the liberal arts as well as in the mechanical arts and agriculture. Productive service was added to the obligations of public and private universities and their faculties.

The University of California was chartered in this environment. The original academic organization of the University attests to the significance of service to society: The founding colleges were Letters, Chemistry, Agriculture, Civil Engineering, Mechanic Arts, and Mining. In addition to teaching and research, applied research and service were embodied in the mission and the faculty's work.

The historic vision of the University of California, as advanced by President Daniel Coit Gilman in his inaugural address of 1872, is especially significant:

. . . this is "The University of California" . . . the University of this State. It must be adapted to this people . . . to their peculiar geographical position. It is not the foundation . . . of private individuals. It is "of the people and for the people" . . . in the highest and noblest relations to their intellectual and moral well-being . . .. It opens the door of superior education TO ALL . . ..

President Gilman framed the unchanging principle that shapes our commitment to academic excellence.

A dramatic change in the mission of American universities occurred during WWII as a result of the federal government's turn to academia as partner in pursuit of the war effort. Following that war, the National Science Foundation was established, and federal agencies expanded support for research and graduate study. These two developments set the stage for the strengthening of discipline-based departments and for a concomitant shift of allegiance toward discipline and department and away from school and institution. Emphasis was placed increasingly upon pure research unencumbered by social determination or utility. At the same time, the question of access to higher education was being redefined, and institutions were being moved from an "elitist" to a "universal access" system of higher education. The California Master Plan for Higher Education emerged in a milieu in which these parallel forces operated. The civil rights movement and consequent legislation added affirmative action and commitment to diversity to the mission of universities and the work of faculty.

As the twenty-first century approaches, the University of California has an opportunity and the obligation to take the lead in examining its mission, in ensuring that faculty are encouraged to support the full-breadth of the mission and are properly rewarded for doing so.

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