Dean’s Message
The Value-Added University
Doing Things Well Through Undergraduate Scholarship and Research
At a meeting in the latter quarter of the 19th century, Queen Victoria lamented to Mr. Gladstone that there weren’t very many good preachers. “Madam,” replied the prime minister, “there isn’t very much good anything.”
Victoria’s lament and Gladstone’s trenchant retort remind us that bona fide achievement is exceptional. It is beyond the laudatory self-interest of just working a little harder to get a relative “A.” That Victorian conversation also prompts the most important question for any variety of institutions that embrace the operational precept that quality is measured by human attainment.
What are the circumstances that foster high attainment?
From the Medici to Microsoft, there is no more important leadership question. An answer should imply directions in which an organization should move. Simultaneously, it should provide specific guidance for the allocation of resources to maximize the authentic attainment which is quality.
Doing things well intellectually takes a combination of ingredients. Essential to the mix is discipline, time, and curiosity. It is paradoxical but too often the case that a serious undergraduate is too busy to do something well intellectually. There are requirements to be fulfilled, cocurricular activities, and five or six classes per term to be completed, all with exams and papers. The realization is inescapable for students that it will be necessary to compromise, to make educational decisions for noneducational reasons. For example, students routinely curtail efforts in areas of special interest and ability to maximize their overall quality point average, ever the putative indicator of achievement. Additionally, we all know able students who live in the starting blocks, waiting to relentlessly pursue any task a professor puts before them but who, when given the opportunity to initiate their own intellectual endeavors, demonstrate a remarkable incuriosity and lack of academically competitive initiative. They are intellectually passive, looking good because they are afraid not to; their seeming attainment is inauthentic.
What are the circumstances that lead to high attainment for the intellectually authentic undergraduate with curiosity, drive, and ability?
There is no unique answer, but certain combinations of opportunity and ambience seem to be particularly helpful. In-depth independent scholarship is a value-added opportunity that the research university can provide in abundance. The special opportunity is to work closely with faculty who themselves survive by doing intellectual things well as a result of high standards associated with professional scholarship.
Additionally, there is association with a community of scholars including other undergraduate students who share an enthusiasm for ideas and the life of the mind. Summer research through the Brackenridge fellows program and special degrees such as the honors college Bachelor of Philosophy that require a formal thesis with a competency-based evaluation are two distinctive opportunities. This Web site describes some Pitt research opportunities that enable students to engage in unfettered scholarship where the objective is fulfillment by doing intellectual things well.
Mr. Prime Minister, this is something good!