Advocacy
"The Role of Higher Education in Social Change" address by NC State Chancellor John Caldwell in April 1970
Going hand-in-hand with Caldwell’s vision for a more worldly university curriculum was his belief that higher education was involved in social change at all levels. Universities not only caused social change and helped people to adjust to it; they were also affected by social change.[1] He claimed that college education guided people to being thinkers and actors in the main stage of life by helping students find new opportunities to help change society for the better.[2] In the journey towards entering the main stage of life, students expanded their knowledge of the world around them, which in turn improved their capacity to do more in society. Caldwell acknowledged education purists’ complaints that adding advocacy to a university’s scope of interest would compromise its ability to transmit knowledge, but he also understood that the world and the country had already changed. If universities did not find a way to dispense knowledge and advocate social change, they would cease to be relevant to the upcoming generations of students.[3]
[1] John T. Caldwell at dinner meeting of American Council Fellows, “The Role of Higher Education in Social Change,” April 29, 1970, box 27, folder 5, John Tyler Caldwell Papers, North Carolina State University Special Collections.
[2] John T. Caldwell at opening assembly at Peace College, “No Escape,” August 25, 1971, box 27, folder 6, John Tyler Caldwell Papers, North Carolina State University Special Collections.
[3] Caldwell, “The Role of Higher Education in Social Change.”