Recently, higher education policy and practice has become dominated by materialism, individualism, and competitiveness, at the expense of attention to the affective aspect of student development and, in a broader perspective, to the emotional and spiritual divisions that threaten humanity. Higher education can and should be more constructive. (MSE)

This lecture decries the lack of any real sense of community in the modern university. It argues that the fundamental difficulty of creating a greater sense of community in higher education institutions is a problem of values. Competitiveness and materialism are emphasized more than those values that support and nurture a sense of community. There…