Social expectation for universities

Individual responsibilities have declined and society expects more from organisation, which has generated the whole move towards corporate social responsibility. For the private sesctor, the business of business can no longer be just "business". It is expected that corporations also do something for the common good, before passing the profits to their shareholders. Now the  movement seems to be touching universities. Education has traditionnally been seen as part of the public sector, or already in the actions for the common good, even if some institutions have a private structure. But some people believe that the huge endowments and fundraising capabilities of some of the great American universities should be used to help less favored countries or causes. An article in the New York Times entitled "Alumni Group Tries to Elicit Social Action from Harvard" describes such an endeavor by  group of Harvard alumni to get the university to use some of its money to help education in Africa.

So, is it the Robin Hood mentality again, where anybody who has money is a target for people who have other uses for it? Or are we seeing  a shift that all organisations, whether working for the common good or not, will have to have a program of social action? The interesting thing here is the participatory aspect of this endeavor, as it goes beyond the traditionnal earmarking. Is this the beginning of "donor activism" ? Whereby the donors try to redefine the objectives of a well known institution. And if this is so, how long before government will be subjected to this kind of pressure? The definition of common good will not be left to the elected officials, parlamentarians and other senators, but will actually be chosen by all constitutants, probably on a peer-to-peer popularity model. It will be well worth watching this development.

Comments

[steven andresen]

You said this,

"...Individual responsibilities have declined and society expects more from organisation, which has generated the whole move towards corporate social responsibility."

however, you did not indicate why we should think you are at all correct about these changes and expectations.

Maybe you think that the current media talk about being "green" and how much we hear about companies paying attention to our environment really means something. Actually, we hear a lot of talk, but we have seen no real evidence that these companies, or the ones that are quietly destroying the planet, are feeling any heat to be careful, not to pollute, to clean up after themselves, and so on. It's all talk as far as I can see.

No one has said they will pick up the little bomlets. No one will add new scrubbers. Where are the fuel efficient cars?

In fact, I think, if anything, we should expect less from both individuals and from organizations to do socially "good" things.

I think the general collapse of the economy and the complete discrediting of the political system will exacerbate the general policy of "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable."

This is what has happened in the past, and I suspect it will happen again. During the depression, we could see all over the rise of political movements that promoted authoritarian rule and wealth distribution from the poor to the rich.

We can read Naomi Klein's new book on "disaster capitalism" and hear her case that this process has been promoted even in times of relative prosperity.

No, one may hope and pray that organizations will be pressured to help the less fortunate, but, on the contrary, organizations will instead be pressured to help out those people who already have most of what there is.

The poor and the weak really cannot mount any kind of social pressure to work on their behalf.