What is the university for?

I teach two courses during the spring semester – one is a required course for sophomores in the honours college at my university, and the other is an upper-level engineering elective for undergraduate students. Both courses touch on issues related to forced displacement, migration and health access in complex emergencies and humanitarian settings. Given the myriad conflicts that surround us all in the current moment, my students often come up to me after class or in office hours to share their thoughts, ask questions or seek resources. Sometimes I am able to answer their questions related to challenges around healthcare, disease or public health systems. Often I direct them to scholars on campus who have expertise in the regions' history, its politics and its literature. I encourage them to read books or long-form essays rather than tweets or Instagram posts that lack serious analysis or depth. Several of my students come from, or have family in, many countries of the Middle East. I learn more from their nuanced perspective than they do from mine. Through my interactions with them, I have had to confront my assumptions, biases and preconceived notions. To be part of this exchange is an extraordinary privilege, and to me an essential part of what a university can, and should be: a place of ideas and a path to become a better person.

But there is another perspective as well. A few days ago, I came across an essay in the magazine Science with the title "Why I may 'hire' AI instead of a graduate student". The essay is both honest and thought-provoking. The author, Professor Rosenfeld, makes the argument that graduate students learn slowly, AI does not. When work needs to be done faster because of funding pressure, AI is a better bet. Why should a research active professor then have to hire a novice? He ends the essay saying, "I probably wouldn't recruit my younger self."

I discussed this essay with my students, and we have lots of issues with it. Some wondered that AI models rely on existing information, not necessarily inspiration or creativity, often a bedrock of discoveries. Others thought about reliability and accountability. Some used the analogy of entry level positions. If entry level positions all go to AI, then in due course there will be no one to fill mid-level positions and so on. I appreciate my students bringing this perspective, but my main concern is something slightly different. It is about what is the university for? Is it now only a place to compete for new grants, and the job of the faculty to be on a treadmill to produce papers and patents, to constantly create what the funding agencies think is 'valuable'? Is the modern research university no longer a place to learn from mistakes in the classroom or the lab? Is there any space to create something that is not immediately marketable to a company or a funding agency? Or is it still a place to learn, reflect and grow? Is university a place to think deeply or produce quickly?

The idea that faculty need to produce, and produce quickly and do the things that bring in big money exists because of how we define success, and what is valued at the university for promotion and recognition. As the squeeze comes from the top, the greatest pain (or denial of opportunity) is borne by those on the lowest rung of the ladder – the students.

My research and scholarship would not exist if it was not for my students – in the classroom or the lab. Their 'slow' growth has made me a better researcher, and a much better person. Of course, some are better than others and some get things done faster than others, but speed or success in every experiment is not the point of an institution of learning. The biggest challenges facing the world today are not because we need more papers, or patents, faster. Or because graduate students are novices. It is because of intolerance, hatred, greed and injustice. The university can, and should, play a role in addressing those – even when, or perhaps especially when, the students take their time to learn.