Charting a Path to the Future: The Pan-American Cooperative
DR. ROSEANN O'REILLY RUNTE, President, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
Several years ago, a report to UNESCO outlined a series of tensions in education, omitting the two principle sources of tension I have observed personally: time and money. As our knowledge of the universe expands, there is ever more material to include in the curriculum. We want our students to be both broadly educated and expert in at least one field. They need not only acquire literacy and numeracy, but also computing skills and more than one language. Faculty are pressured by the need to revise continually the curriculum and renew research striving for greater interdisciplinarity and pertinence. Universities are expected to teach and perform innovative research, while providing leadership in the fields of civic engagement and economic development.
Universities are indeed efficient and effective and have demonstrated their ability to respond to society’s needs, and grow with these expectations while increasing access. Today, the tension between time and money offers us renewed opportunity to reflect on priorities and to react through innovation and collaboration.
Among the four areas of endeavor expected of the university: teaching, research, civic engagement, and economic development, research is the single thread which enlivens, enriches all the others. Good research contributes to exciting teaching, to better, more purposeful and effective civic engagement and expanded economic development. Research is an essential cornerstone for the university, for a healthy community and a vibrant economy. Without research, the university would simply not be a university.
Research contributes to economic development, permitting not only the invention of more effective systems of manufacture and alternate forms of enterprise, but sparking new industry and commerce. This function is crucial when the economy is weak. The dozens of companies a university like Carleton creates in programs like “Lead to Win,” change not only individual lives but entire communities.
Research is also one area where federal governments in both Canada and the U.S. can make an impact. Because of the structural devolution of responsibility for education to the Provinces and States, the federal governments’ arena of intervention is limited to research which falls outside these boundaries and may thus benefit from both levels of support.
For some time, the U.S. envied Canada where the federal investment in research chairs across the nation was lauded. Then Canada envied the U.S. with the addition of research funds to nearly every amendment legislated, as a part of military efforts and as a part of the allocations to research councils and granting agencies.
Today, just when governments should be investing more than ever in research which will build strong universities, better communities and a healthy economy, hesitation and cut backs are common currency on both sides of the border.
In the U.S. a consistent investment in research needs to be made. While earmarks to legislation are popular, they result in uneven and unplanned spending, inequalities and inefficiencies in the system. An articulated agenda could inspire a coordinated approach to research development, attract private investment in a meaningful and strategic pattern, and create stability and positive momentum. Similarly in Canada, while the investment in the Canada research chairs has led to exciting research across the nation, it is now time for the next generation of investment.
In both Canada and the U.S., the themes of innovation and entrepreneurship are touted as paths to economic salvation. Since innovation and entrepreneurship are old hat by the time they are described, we need a new, flexible stream of funds available through competition to engender and reward creativity.
It would also be challenging, innovative and entrepreneurial, if the Canadian and American governments could join together to create a fund for research uniquely dedicated to Pan-American cooperative projects by researchers on both sides of the border. There are already a good number of cross-border research projects currently ongoing and researchers in either country working with teams on the other side of the border. This proposal makes the collaboration deliberate, planned and promoted. Such collaboration would certainly contribute greatly to increased international economic development in both countries, better knowledge of mutually significant trading partners and valuable neighbors and allies.
DR. ROSEANN O'REILLY RUNTE is the President and Vice Chancellor of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She is the former President of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and is an internationally respected author and academic. She has previously served as president of Victoria University[6] principal of Glendon College and president of l'Université Sainte-Anne.
|
