What We Value: Public Health, Social Justice, and Educating for Democracy

By Lynn Pasquerella and David J. Skorton

In We Value, acclaimed bioethicist and educator Lynn Pasquerella examines urgent issues—the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic, the student debt crisis, and racially motivated violence—with which Americans wrestle daily, arguing that liberal education is the best preparation for work, citizenship, and life in a future none of us can predict.

Pasquerella addresses medical ethics and public health in the context of the pandemic, unpacks the current challenges surrounding free speech and inclusion on American campuses, and examines the growing racial and economic segregation in higher education. The author makes a forceful case for the value of a liberal education in providing the skills and competencies, alongside the habits of heart and mind, required to address the issues facing us all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Release date: Jan 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9780813948485

Book preview

Cover Page for What We Value

What We Value

THE MALCOLM LESTER PHI BETA KAPPA LECTURES ON THE LIBERAL ARTS AND PUBLIC LIFE

EDITED BY DAVID A. DAVIS

What We Value

Public Health, Social Justice, and Educating for Democracy

Lynn Pasquerella

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA PRESS

Charlottesville and London

University of Virginia Press

© 2022 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia

All rights reserved

First published 2022

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pasquerella, Lynn, author.

Title: What we value : public health, social justice, and educating for democracy / Lynn Pasquerella.

Description: Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2022. | Series: The Malcolm Lester Phi Beta Kappa lectures on the liberal arts and public life | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021035857 (print) | LCCN 2021035858 (ebook) | ISBN 9780813948478 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780813948485 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Education, Humanistic. | Public health—Moral and ethical aspects. | Social justice and education. | COVID-19 (Disease) | Democracy—Study and teaching.

Classification: LCC LC1011 .P32 2022 (print) | LCC LC1011 (ebook) | DDC 370.11/2—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021035857

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021035858

Cover art: Highlighter, mr.kriangsak kitisak/Shutterstock.com; lettering, Derek Thornton/Notch Design

To Dr. Sam Pope and Dr. Oladunni Filani, for embodying Francis Peabody’s adage that the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword by David A. Davis

Introduction

1 | Moral Distress, Moral Injury, and the Concept of Death as Un-American

2 | On Snowflakes, Chilly Climates, and Shouting to Be Heard: The Role of Liberal Education in Weathering Campus Storms

3 | Preparing Students for Work, Citizenship, and Life in the Twenty-First Century: Reestablishing Liberal Education as a Public Good

Afterword by David J. Skorton, MD

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

The essays contained in this volume were written during a period of quarantine and lockdown resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. When the offices of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) closed at the beginning of March 2020 and we transitioned to remote work, I returned to our family home in Woodstock, Connecticut, to be with my husband, John Kuchle. In the more than four decades that we have been married, he has offered constant support—cheering me on throughout my professional life and being all one could hope for in a husband and father to our twin sons, Pierce and Spencer. I learn from him daily, and I am deeply grateful for his enthusiastic response whenever I ask if it would be okay to read him my latest speech, article, or chapter.

Within a few weeks of my settling into life in the Quiet Corner, we were joined by Spencer, whose AmeriCorps service sites in Appalachia were temporarily shut down, and by my sister, Keli, and her husband, Peter, whose businesses were placed on hiatus. I could not have asked for better companions for late-night conversations, corn hole, pool matches, and board games. The stress and uncertainty of the seemingly endless days were mitigated by being with caring, fun-loving, and intellectually stimulating individuals during a time when we all came to realize that health and family mean more than anything. I am truly grateful for all they did to make my work possible. Although Pierce was not with us, I deeply appreciate the enormous contributions he made to my finishing this manuscript by using his skills as a cinematographer to ensure that I was able to connect with our members digitally while remaining safe at home.

In addition, I want to thank my inspirational colleagues at AAC&U and at the Phi Beta Kappa Society for their extraordinary commitment to championing liberal education, the free exchange of ideas, and quality and equity in higher education. I was honored to receive the invitation from David Davis to deliver the 2020 Malcolm Lester Lectures at Mercer University, and his leadership in furthering the values of the Society has been exemplary. Thanks also to Eric Brandt, Ellen Satrom, and Helen Chandler from the University of Virginia Press for their guidance, support, and encouragement throughout this project.

Finally, whenever I am up at night, going over in my mind the most vexing philosophical conundrums, I turn to Professor Cheryl Foster, from the University of Rhode Island, and Secretary Frederick Lawrence, CEO of Phi Beta Kappa. The keen analytical ability, wit, and wisdom they display is matched only by their integrity. I hope they know how profoundly I cherish their friendship and their extraordinary contributions to excellence in liberal education.

Foreword

Mercer University hosts the Malcolm Lester Phi Beta Kappa Lectures on the Liberal Arts and Public Life each year as part of our Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony. The lectures allow our students to meet an important figure in American higher education and to have conversations about the value of the liberal arts. This experience reinforces the significance of the students’ accomplishment in being inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and the conversations can be inspiring, but a series of lectures and conversations among a small group of people has a limited effect. Dr. Malcolm Lester had a vision for a series of lectures that supports the mission of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and that reaches a broad audience to influence the discourse about liberal arts in the United States.

Dr. Malcolm Lester graduated from Mercer in 1945, and he returned to Mercer after graduate school to teach history. He was named dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1955, and in 1959, he left Mercer to join the faculty of Davidson College, where he taught for the next thirty years. While at Davidson, he served as a Phi Beta Kappa senator and member of the Committee on Qualifications, which reviews schools’ applications to shelter chapters of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He felt strongly that Mercer should also shelter a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and he encouraged faculty to apply. In 2007, he made a gift for a lecture series on the liberal arts at Mercer to commence once Mercer sheltered a chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and Mercer received a charter in 2016. His bequest states that the income of such endowed fund shall be used to pay for the delivery of and publication of an annual oration to be delivered by a distinguished scholar at the annual initiation of members in course of Phi Beta Kappa. The lectures are published by the University of Virginia Press, as requested by Dr. Lester, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa as a graduate student.

The 2020 lectures were scheduled for March. In January 2020, a novel coronavirus entered the United States, disrupting most aspects of daily life. The deadly pathogen was passed by respiratory excretions, which made gathering in large groups dangerous, and it progressed rapidly across the country with high rates of infection and shocking rates of mortality. Institutions of higher education, like all other enterprises, scrambled to respond to the pandemic. By the end of February, most institutions had canceled in-person classes, rearranged syllabuses, sent students home, and turned to online technology to deliver instruction. The Lester Lectures, like many other ordinary events, were postponed as Mercer grappled with the pandemic on campus. By August 2020, universities had developed protocols for managing the virus. Many schools continued to use online instruction; some, including Mercer, returned to face-to-face classes with elaborate public health measures in place; and others offered hybrid options that blended in-person classes with virtual courses. The lectures were rescheduled for September and, like many other events, delivered over Zoom.

The pandemic was an inflection point for higher education that simultaneously amplified underlying challenges and revealed institutional values. Going into 2020, many colleges and universities still contended with reduced funding levels extending back to the 2008 economic crisis, and some institutions were experiencing declines in overall enrollment that led to the closure of several smaller tuition-dependent schools. Liberal arts disciplines, meanwhile, continue to experience lagging majors as students gravitate toward more presumably lucrative vocational fields, which has led to the downsizing and closure of some liberal arts departments at colleges across the country. Contempt from politicians and state legislators, who sometimes question the utility of liberal arts majors, and concern from parents and students about the cost of a liberal arts degree have added pressure on institutions struggling to maintain their viability.

The pandemic amplified these pressures. The abrupt pivot to online instruction in the spring of 2020 created a ripple of challenges that increased costs, reduced revenue, disrupted the learning environment, taxed faculty resources, and placed students in academic jeopardy. All of these problems endured through the 2020–21 academic year, leading to declines in new student enrollment and international student enrollment, pay cuts and furloughs for faculty and staff members at many institutions, reductions in revenue from tuition and fees, suspension of international programs, and disruptions to college athletics. These challenges have stressed institutional budgets and negatively affected the student experience at schools across the country.

Teaching and learning through a crisis have also revealed the fundamental values of higher education. As institutions grappled with challenges and disruptions, the top priority for most schools was how to protect student safety while delivering quality instruction. Schools implemented a range of procedures to achieve these goals, and they were successful for the most part. Despite enormous pressures, courses were delivered, most students made progress, and classes graduated. Many students, however, struggled with mental health issues and financial challenges, and others deferred or delayed higher education, at least for a while. As the pandemic subsides, many questions linger about how institutions of higher education will change as a result of the crisis and how they might reevaluate their mission going forward.

Higher education faces enormous challenges at this moment, and the Lester Lectures committee selected the ideal person to address these issues. We chose Dr. Lynn Pasquerella, a person who has devoted her career to addressing issues of accessibility and quality in the liberal arts. Dr. Pasquerella is president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and immediate past president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. A graduate of Quinebaug Valley Community College, Mount Holyoke College, and Brown University, where she earned a Ph.D. in philosophy, she taught at the University of Rhode Island and served as provost of the University of Hartford and as president of Mount Holyoke College. As a scholar, she has received major grants to study the ethics of the Human Genome Project and to promote the careers of women in STEM fields in addition to other projects. She has served on the boards of major organizations and has received numerous awards, including several honorary doctorates. She also hosts The Academic Minute on public radio. As a scholar, administrator, and advocate, she understands the complexity of the issues higher education currently faces.

In What We Value, Dr. Pasquerella demonstrates how liberal education prepares students to respond to moments of crisis by examining three test cases that demonstrate how free inquiry and critical thinking promote ethical decision-making. She first addresses how Americans regard death, an issue exacerbated by the pandemic, and she explains the moral distress that physicians endure as they negotiate end-of-life issues. Next, she discusses the politicization of free speech on college campuses, which became highly contentious in the previous presidential administration, and she explains why free speech is valuable even when it is unpopular. Then, she analyzes the role of liberal education in post-truth political discourse, in which rampant charges of fake news and the proffering of alternative facts, along with massive misinformation campaigns, have challenged our nation’s collective ability to understand and process information. In this environment, critical thinking skills are more important than ever to find meaning, make decisions, and rebuild civil discourse.

The Malcolm Lester Lectures provide an important platform for thought leaders in the liberal arts, such as Dr. Pasquerella, to articulate the role of the liberal arts in public life. The Phi Beta Kappa Society is a leading organization advocating for the value and benefits of liberal arts and sciences education, fostering freedom of thought, and recognizing academic excellence, and the Lester Lectures reinforce the Society’s mission to advocate for the liberal arts. Many people likely see the value of the liberal arts as self-evident, but the social and political opposition to liberal education indicates that we need to explain how liberal education works, why it matters, and how people benefit from it. The Lester Lectures offer important contributions to the ongoing discourse about the liberal arts and public life, and we are grateful for our partnership with the University of Virginia Press to make this possible.

DAVID A. DAVIS

What We Value

Introduction

On a sunny October day, about a mile and a half from my home in Washington, D.C., twenty thousand chairs sat empty on the Ellipse, a fifty-three-acre park just south of the White House. Each chair represented ten Americans killed by the novel coronavirus in the nine months following the Trump administration’s declaration of COVID-19 as a public health emergency in the United States. At the time, the president himself was at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center being treated for the virus, in the wake of a gathering held at the Rose Garden to introduce Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett—a reception resulting in at least thirty-four of the two hundred attendees testing positive for COVID-19.

The moving installation at the Ellipse, also called President’s Park South, was part of a national day of remembrance organized by COVID Survivors for Change, a network to support those impacted by the coronavirus. The event, which was broadcast virtually, featured musical performances, speakers, and memorial tributes by relatives and friends who had come together not only to mourn but also to call for a national strategy with strong leadership to prevent another two hundred thousand deaths. Grammy Award–winner Dionne Warwick served as the host and highlighted the disproportionate toll the pandemic has taken on Black, Latinx, and Native American communities, alongside the need to acknowledge the ways in which individuals from these groups are often frontline essential workers who have kept the nation fed, housed, and educated. Standing in the background as Warwick spoke was Brian Walter, an attendee whose mask bore the words, I lost my father. I wear this mask to protect yours. #notjustanumber—a message reflecting the pain and frustration of those who have lost loved ones and for whom life has been irrevocably changed.¹

That same week, a plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In April, protestors wielding guns, wearing bulletproof vests,