ASU president joins discussion on role of academics in public issues

Navigating the thorny issue of how academics could better inform public debate brought much accord from four university presidents assembled at the Rackham Amphitheater for a Michigan Meeting discussion May 13.

The panel consisted of Arizona State University President Michael Crow; Philip Hanlon, president of Dartmouth College; and Teresa Sullivan, president of the University of Virginia.

They agreed that being engaged in public discourse was part of academics' obligation to society and is an important component of how the public views them.

Crow said that universities should be involved without being political: "The institution has to be above the process."

Here we sit as the academy having created these ideas, these technologies," Crow said. "We have this ubiquity of information. What we're seeing is confusion. We haven't articulated how information evolves and what is the hierarchy of information."