Revolutionary Ideas for Research Universities: Where all of the students learn how to do research.

Let us change the metric for excellence from the quantity of research funding that our faculty attract to the number of students—at all levels—who are learning how to do research. In my recent book, What Could a University Be? I explore several new ideas in order to turn the university upside-down, round-and-round, and inside-out—and the focus for each revolution is the students’ education. By distinguishing the ideas of knowledge and critique from that of inquiry, I propose that all of our students should be learning how to pursue new ideas, new interpretations, new methods of knowledge, to meet the challenges that are coming at us from the future. To put the students in focus is also to explore how they connect the university with the city—that they live in the city and study at the university, and that the questions and problems from home can be brought to the university as topics for research; and that the questions from the university can often be met with bodies of knowledge and practice that inhabit our city. Here an idea of permeability can renew our relationship with society.

I propose a better way to think about and to organize our education, and while there are many specific programs underway, a more coherent and articulate program will allow these innovative changes to thrive. These ideas help us imagine the future for research universities.

Speaker Biography:

Robert Gibbs is a Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Toronto.

He was the Inaugural Director of the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto, where he engaged in exploring new horizons for humanities research, supporting leading scholars at all career stages.

His research is located on the borderlines of Philosophy and Religion, with a comparative and historical focus on Law and Ethics. He has numerous publications in Jewish Philosophy and in related fields in continental philosophy, including two books, Correlations in Rosenzweig and Levinas and Why Ethics? Signs of Responsibilities.

His current research focuses on Higher Education, and he has recently published What Could a University Be? Revolutionary Ideas for the Future in the On Campus series at UBC Press.  In it, he inquires what a Research University is for and explores different models of universities by refocusing on the research capacities of students.