Nicholas Dirks - In Search of a City of Intellect

Former UC Berkeley Chancellor and President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences Nicholas Dirks joined us to discuss his latest book, City of Intellect. We began with an assessment of the free speech movement and the trajectory to more recent efforts by protestors to shut speakers down. The dialogue proceeded from there to questions about hate speech and so-called safe spaces and trigger warnings as well as broader questions of what a university is for, who it serves and what it can and cannot do. We discussed access and costs and the economics of universities as well as questions of diversity and differences between public and private universities and we then turned to a consideration of leadership and the example of former UC Berkeley President Clark Kerr. Our expansive dialogue took up the importance of a liberal arts education, AI and online education, job training in higher ed and the role of community and junior colleges, which Dirks called "the real workhorses," and the apparent revival of admissions tests. Dirks concluded with wise and thoughtful reflections on how universities need to look toward the future and emphasize the transformation of lives, exposure to the world of possibilities and what it means to be human.