“Academic Governance and Academic Freedom”
Pauline Yu, President of The American Council of Learned Societies
address at Colgate University February 16, 2006

“We find ourselves at a moment when the most newsworthy happenings in academia are not discoveries, publications, or student achievements, but controversy, invective, and tumult.” In answer to the question of “balance” in universities, Pauline Yu responds that in order to uphold the integrity and effectiveness of a university, it must be able to self govern. Under attack is the hallmark of academia, “peer review,” the process in which experts in a field, who prioritize scholarship over politics, are able to select and evaluate facutly, rather than having them judged by outsiders with non-academic motives. Yu insists that scholarship thrives when scholars are able to represent their viewpoint in a civil debate. (back to academic freedom)