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Reflecting on an article co-written with Michael Crow and William Dabars, Rosowsky discusses the unwritten social contract between the federal government and universities. He emphasizes the need for institutions to demonstrate the public value of federal investments in research, student aid, and relief funding — not just to policymakers, but to society at large. Using examples from land grant universities, public flagships, and civilly engaged private institutions, he shows how some campuses are integrating service, research, and education to fulfill their broader obligations to the communities they serve.
Sure. Let me step back just a minute. The federal government invests a tremendous amount of money in higher education and has for, for many, many years, not just in the research domain, but in, federal student aid. In relief funds. And in the case of, of, the global pandemic, the federal government has, in essence, entered into a compact with higher education in this country.
And one could make the case that universities have not close the loop with the federal government and showing the return on investment or the value or the strategic use of those funds in a way that meets the meets goals. And I think that's particularly true in the federal student aid area. I think in research, it's fairly easy to show the results of, of, scientific study.
In the case of federal student aid, it's kind of a black box. And I think universities have never been really asked to close the loop. But I think with all of the, scrutiny that's now being placed on higher education and all of the discussions around public perceptions of higher ed, I think as we think about recapturing the narrative of the value of higher ed, we also have to recapture, responsibility for how we steward those federal investments and then show the public how those moneys are being used, for our greater benefit.
We should demonstrate to society why these investments are important and how their lives are being made better. Now, you asked about examples of institutions that maybe do better than others. I can point to certainly the entire land grant, collection of universities by, by mission, statute and, and purpose. They're set up not only, for teaching and learning, not only for research and discovery, but also for service to their communities and to their broader, broader society.
So in many ways, you mentioned distinctions between public and private in many ways. Historically, the distinction among publics was between, say, flagships and land grants or between publics and flagship public flagships and land grants and regionals. Those kind[s] of distinctions were more typical. What I've seen in the last decade, my career has been at public and land grant universities.
What I've seen in the last decade is [that] the distinction between a public flagship and a land grant is very little at this point. We have all, in one way or another, and often in multiple ways, embraced the social compact, embraced our commitment to our communities and to our state and in the region and the nation. And I can point you to several public flagships that look very land grant, and you can't distinguish.
Arizona State would be an example. Many people might think Arizona State is the land grant, not just because the state is there, but because of our charter and because of the way we comport ourselves and because of the recognition that we've generated for how we serve society. We're not the land grant. The University of Arizona is the state's land grant.
They had the College of Agriculture, they had the extension service and so forth. Public and land grants, I think, are good examples of universities that have embraced that. The privates have been a little bit slower. There are private [universities] that are deeply connected with their communities and take institutional responsibility in the way that ASU takes institutional responsibility, takes institutional responsibility for their communities.
Two that come to mind would be Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and Yale and New Haven, elite private universities that recognize not just the privilege that they have, but the obligation that they have to, helping members of their community and helping and helping the entire community, be lifted up, become safer and become more prosperous.