As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, University of Utah President Taylor Randall notes the key role of higher education in building the nation’s foundation.
“Benjamin Rush, who was our physician founder, was very clear that freedom doesn’t exist unless you have an educated populace,” Randall told Utah lawmakers during a Higher Education Appropriation Subcommittee meeting on Thursday, Feb. 5.
View the slides from Randall’s presentation here.
Each year, all leaders of institutions in the Utah System of Higher Education present to lawmakers during the legislative session. These presentations highlight institutional progress and goals and include funding requests for lawmakers. This week, the committee met on the U’s campus for the first time during a legislative session. Leaders from the U and Utah State University presented—the state’s two public R-1 institutions.
“In 1776, the fundamental function of universities was to focus on nation building—to build a literate population and to actually begin to discover what is going on in our physical world,” Randall said.
But after World War I, and even more so after World War II, Randall said that the United States began to seriously fund research universities.
“A lot of this is because of the national defense industry and the competitiveness that was going on with the Soviet Union at the time,” he said. “That has continued today as competition in technology with China.”
Though the necessity of research institutions has only grown over the past two and a half centuries, Randall says, in this time of unimaginable amounts of information, higher education is facing another shift.
“If you go back to the 1800s and compare the amount of information we currently consume in one year, that is more than someone then would have consumed in their entire lifetime,” he said.
New economic realities are also driving this change. Individuals born in the U.S. in 1940 had a 90% chance of doing better than their parents, Randall said. Those born in 1985 have a 50% chance. In addition to the high costs individuals face, governments are also feeling budget strains.
“ Universities need to reinvent themselves,” he said. “You will see us on the cutting edge of that. We are creating a new type of university—an impact university.”
Randall imagines an impact university as nimble and entrepreneurial, focused on partnerships and solution-driven for not only students but the entire state.
“The number one economic driver is education— human capital,” said Rep. Neil Walter, a Republican from Washington County. “That is what is going to propel our state forward and create opportunity for our youth, whether they are from the Wasatch Front or Southern Utah or one of our rural communities.”
The university experience is designed to help students discover themselves. When done right, Randall says the process sets them up to fulfill themselves intellectually and secure themselves financially.
“The ideal is find something you’re good at, something you’re passionate about and something somebody will pay you for,” he said.
During the meeting, lawmakers also unveiled a proposal to invest $100 million to support research at the state’s two public research institutions.
Read about the announcement here.
