Higher Ed: A Vision, Not a Calculation
The Journal of Management Inquiry (JMI) recently turned 20, celebrating in style with a special anniversary issue that truly represents the journal’s unique identity.
JMI co-editor Christine Quinn Trank of Vanderbilt University and former JMI co- editor Kimberly B. Boal of the University of Wisconsin wrote in the introduction:
After engaging in this taking-stock process on the occasion of JMI’s 20th anniversary, we can say that the journal has an impact. It still inspires and incites. JMI is still different from the mainstream and edgy in the best sense. It is still, as Marvin Washington put it, “hip and funky,” and to borrow from Paul Simon, we are still crazy after all these years.
Today we bring you a piece that serves as a perfect example of JMI’s inspiring qualities: “A Scholar’s Quest” by James G. March of Stanford University, who writes about the truth, beauty and justice in scholarship. Dr. March writes in his essay:
A university is only incidentally a market. It is more essentially a temple —a temple dedicated to knowledge and a human spirit of inquiry. It is a place where learning and scholarship are revered, not primarily for what they contribute to personal or social wellbeing but for the vision of humanity that they symbolize, sustain, and pass on. Søren Kierkegaard said that any religion that could be justified by its consequences was hardly a religion. We can say a similar thing about university education and scholarship. They only become truly worthy of their names when they are embraced as arbitrary matters of faith, not as matters of usefulness. Higher education is a vision, not a calculation. It is a commitment, not a choice. Students are not customers; they are acolytes. Teaching is not a job; it is a sacrament. Research is not an investment; it is a testament.
Read more here, and delve into the special anniversary issue by following this link. To learn more about the Journal of Management Inquiry, follow this link.
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