On pecking orders

New England Journal of Higher Education, The, Summer 1998 by Gee, E Gordon

I believe that some of the most serious mistakes we make in higher education are our attempts to be like someone else. This is just too low an aspiration. Once, at a faculty meeting of the University of Colorado, a professor in the back raised his hand and said, "President Gee, isn't it wonderful that Colorado is now the Harvard of the Rockies?" I certainly did not want to give the standard response, that wasn't it wonderful that Harvard was really "Colorado on the Charles?" Such an answer would be a disservice to Colorado and Harvard.

For too long now we have had a follow-the-leader syndrome in higher education. If you are a state college, you want to be a state university. If you are a state university, you want to be the state's flagship institution, and on and on. We have developed a pecking order that has limited our ability to think creatively and to determine and appreciate each institution's unique calling and mission.

The best institutions are those with a clear sense of what they are and what they wish to accomplish. Brown, for example, should not be Harvard or Yale or Stanford. Those institutions are quite different from Brown. They have different aspirations and agendas. Their strengths are not Brown's strengths; their particular challenges are not ours. We will create better institutions when we each push toward our own expectations and our own benchmarks.

The greatest strength of American higher education has always been its diversity. It is wonderful to be in a nation where you can attend Ohio State or Denison in Ohio, or the University of Rhode Island or Brown in Rhode Island-that makes for a vibrant, diverse intellectual community. But if we become amalgamated and alike, or driven by the same motives, we lose our ability to innovate and respond to change. The opportunity to differentiate is a great opportunity in higher education today.