Reflecting on my notes from Minerva's book, I think I'm most struck by just how seriously it takes its own goals and their associated implications. (I wish that weren't rare enough to be such a striking achievement!)
mitpress.mit.edu/books/building
It repeatedly deploys this sequence:
Conversation
1. All universities *say* they want to… (e.g. help students attain a global perspective)
2. … but they're not really doing it (e.g. many students rarely stray from campus)
3. … for these possible structural reasons (e.g. we think of a university as a place)
Replying to
4. Play out the implications of the goal as seriously as you can. That might look like… (e.g. students should live in a rotation of international cities, collaborating with local communities)
5. … and indeed, that's exactly what we're doing.
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In some instances, the skew between many universities' goals and the situation on the ground is quite dizzying, e.g. this gulf between institutions' views of how well they prepare students for professional work and how business leaders judge the same.
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