The New University

 

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Jordan Peterson, who should know, has joined a chorus saying that our current university system is unsalvageable, and needs replacing. This is true even purely on technological grounds.

Here is what we need:

First, no funding from any government for the social sciences. If fortune telling is illegal, the social sciences should also be illegal, for the same reason: fraud.

No legal recognition should be given, and no public money spent, for academic qualifications in education, journalism, or art. These degrees do harm and no good.

All universities must have a charter of first principles, and be required to adhere to them in all courses. Without such principles, the humanities, based on deductive reasoning, are impossible. This indeed used to be the case: St. Michael’s was Catholic, McMaster was Baptist, Queen’s was Presbyterian. These charters need not be religious; the US Declaration of Independence, for example, would work. These charters must vary to ensure diversity and justify the existence of different institutions. No two institutions with the same or very similar charter in the same state or province.

Professors cannot be selected by existing faculty, as now happens. Once the existing faculty is corrupted, this system cannot work. Instead, professors establish their credentials as was originally the case, by attracting students. They offer video lectures, and see how many students sign up.

Students must therefore be allowed their choice of professors and lecturers online, from anywhere in the world, given that they are approved as doctrinally sound by the given institution.

To prevent corruption, we need to separate the job of teaching from the job of evaluation. Marking can be done by AI, which can plausibly now create challenge tests by auditing the lectures and the course materials, together with the university’s charter. 

Sitting for an evaluation will have to be done in person at the institution—so that the students cannot, for their part, resort to AI. The institution can also offer “study pods” and tutors, including residence if desired, so that students studying the same field can discuss matters and socialize.

And it would all be much cheaper than what we are doing now. And it would be far easier to upgrade and learn throughout one’s career, necessary when technology is changing so fast.