Excerpts From Bok's Annual Report

Following are some excerpts from "The President's Report, 1986-1987."

Other institutions in society also play an important role in the development of young people--especially families, schools, and communities of faith. But only a minority of children will live their entire youth in a two-parent family, and the time they spend with adults of any kind has been dropping steadily for several decades. Schools are often preoccupied with problems of racial integration, political intervention, drugs, and strikes while suffering the effects of a long-term decline in the status of teachers. Religious institutions no long seem as able as they once were to impart basic values to the young. In these circumstances, universities, including Harvard, need to think hard about what they can do in the face of what many perceive as a widespread decline in ethical standards.

The Secretary of Education, William Bennett, voiced these concerns with customary verve when he spoke at Sanders Theater in October 1986. "Where are our colleges and universities," he asked, "on the issue of their responsibility to foster moral discernment in their students? With the exception of a relatively few places--mostly religious or military institutions--higher education is silent." When asked about efforts such as the moral reasoning courses in the Core Curriculum, he replied: "That's about [moral] dilemmas, lifeboat stuff. I don't mean theory. I meant getting drugs off campus." Alas, the debate was never squarely joined, nor has it been in other forums. Bennett and his supporters seem bent on caricaturing the new courses without understanding what the instructors are actually doing. Proponents of applied ethics, on the other hand, have failed to answer Bennett's charge to look beyond the classroom and consider aspects of moral education apart from courses on ethical issues.

The issue of whether to invest in firms operating in South Africa offers the ultimate example of the difficulties of trying to demonstrate a serious concern for moral standards. The problems of South Africa are far too tragic and inflammatory to escape bitter controversy, whatever a university decides to do. Student activists will claim that officials who oppose total divestment are insensitive to the injustices of apartheid, while conservative critics insist that selling stock is only an empty and expensive gesture to appease irresponsible radicals. In this atmosphere, divestment can easily acquire such emotional, symbolic importance that is difficult to examine the issues with the objectivity they deserve. In such circumstances, the only hope is to try to convince as many people as possible that the university takes its ethical responsibilities seriously by setting forth the arguments for its position with meticulous care. In the heat of controversy, even this goal can be very hard to achieve.

Besides, universities should be the last institutions to discourage a belief in the value of reasoned argument and carefully considered evidence in analyzing even the hardest human problems. And universities should be among the first to reaffirm the importance of basic values, such as honesty, promise keeping, free expression, and nonviolence, for these are not only principles essential to civilized society; they are values on which all learning and discovery ultimately depend. There is nothing odd or inappropriate, therefore, for a university to make these values the foundation for a serious program to help students develop a strong set of moral standards. Indeed, the failure to do so threatens to convey a message that neither these values nor the effort to live up to them are of much importance or much common concern. This message is not only unworthy of the academy; it is likely in the atmosphere of a university to leave students morally confused and less able to acquire ethical convictions of their own.

Despite the importance of moral development to the individual student and the society, one cannot say that higher education has demonstrated a deep concern for the problem. Some efforts are being made on every campus, and a number of religious institution and small independent colleges actually devote much time and energy to the task. More often, however, and especially in large universities, the subject is not treated as a serious responsibility worthy of sustained discussion with determined action by the faculty and administration.

With their classes, their residential halls, their extracurricular activities and extensive counseling services, colleges and universities have created a world that dominates the lives and thoughts of countless young people during years in which their character and values are being formed. Under these conditions, students must get help from their universities in developing moral standards or they are unlikely to get much assistance at all. Thus, even if presidents are overburdened and professors happen to prepare themselves in specialized disciplines, universities have an obligation to try to help their students understand how to lead ethical, reflective, fulfilling lives. One can appreciate the difficulty of the task and understand if progress is slow and halting. What is harder to forgive is a refusal to recognize the problem or to acknowledge a responsibility to work at it conscientiously.