Bloomington Leader

From the Desk: Love and education

Those of you from my generation should have no trouble finishing this line: “What the world needs now is …”

All together now: “Love, sweet love.”

Lyricist Hal David, who wrote these words, was definitely onto something. His message was still true two decades later when composer Burt Bacharach, who put them to music for a song made famous by Jackie DeShannon, sang them for the first “Austin Powers” film. They are still true today, especially when we consider the hatred and violence that rage on around the world.

I would like to add a request to David’s line, though. Something else that the world needs now is education, affordable education. (OK, it’s not quite so singable, but I’m a chancellor, not a songwriter.)

If we stop to consider some of the other problems that plague us — climate change, injustice, hunger, economic crises, misinformation — the point becomes clear: Education is key. The only way we can make progress on overcoming these “wicked problems” (to borrow a term from Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber for complex issues that defy single solutions) is to know more and then to do more with what we know.

The evidence is there in the historical record. Education is what has allowed humanity to make enormous progress in a variety of realms. Sure, the world can seem dark these days, but it’s much brighter than it was 1,000, 100 or even 50 years ago.

Thanks to new knowledge gained through education, the numbers of people suffering or dying as a result of polio, tuberculosis, genocide, hunger, enslavement and exploitation have fallen dramatically. For example, as Hans Rosling explains in his 2018 book “Factfulness,” “In 2017, only 9 percent of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty, down from 50 percent in 1966.” (In the early 19th century, the number was a stunning 85 percent.)

Education empowers more than just the scientists, inventors, writers, activists and leaders who spark breakthroughs, theories and legislation. At least as important is what it does for the rest of us. Education makes more informed voters, consumers and citizens. It helps to protect us against tyranny and inoculate us against misinformation and cognitive biases. (Two IU Kokomo colleagues and I are doing our part with our “Mind Over Chatter” curriculum, supported with a generous grant from the Rita Allen Foundation and RTI International.)

In fact, as another IU Kokomo colleague (from physics, no less) recently reminded me, education can even be a key to love — or, as he put it, empathy. As an English professor, I have to agree. Reading the works of Frederick Douglass, Maxine Hong Kingston, Walt Whitman and others is a powerful means to connecting with our fellow human beings, especially when we engage with their works in the presence of those different from us. Of course, courses in art, music, history, sociology and other disciplines serve the same purpose.

Education has taken us this far, and it will take us further — if we support it.

Indiana University and other public universities play a vital role here. As a proud graduate of IU Bloomington and a longtime professor and administrator with two regional institutions, I value the affordability and accessibility that public universities provide, especially to first-generation college students (like me).

Thanks to the strong support of the state of Indiana, IU can make a world-class education available to huge numbers of students — the same people who will keep moving this world forward, out of the darkness and into the light.

What can we all do to make sure we succeed? Of course, we must continue to teach in thoughtful, effective ways (especially through experiential education, as IU Kokomo does with the KEY), but we must do more.

We must open our doors to students of all backgrounds and help them to see how education will empower them. We must support them academically, socially and emotionally when they are with us. Finally, we must champion the cause of education outside of our campuses — in the minds of lawmakers, voters, parents and prospective students.

As the new chancellor of IU Kokomo, I invite all of my colleagues here on our campus and across Indiana University to join me in elevating education and making it available to all.

The world needs both love and education. IU provides both.

Mark Canada is chancellor of IU Kokomo.

Original source can be found here.