Description: To be a citizen in the 21st century, Gutmann says, you can't be a dilettante.

Question: What impact does your work have on the world?

Transcript: Well if it has a little impact on the world, I’ll be very pleased. I guess I’d have to start with Penn because my work is multiplied a thousand times because of the students who go out from Penn and do great work; and the faculty who are great scholars and teachers; and the faculty who are doctors who are saving people’s lives; the faculty who are nurses who are at the forefront of nursing. And as I think, you know, there is a great, great shortage of nurses in this world. So the biggest impact I’ve had is in three years as Penn’s president. And I hope that will just continue.

Prior to that, I think it was because of my scholarship and teaching on social justice, and in particular I helped to revive the tradition of showing how important education is to democracy when I wrote “Democratic Education”. And I was particularly delighted when it was reviewed as the best book perhaps since John Dewey’s “Democracy and Education”. And that’s a book that is taught in introductory courses in both democratic theory and education. And then I went on to write and to teach a lot about how important deliberation is in democracy. And I think I’ve had an impact there as an antidote to what we called “sound bite democracy”, an antidote to end civility in democratic societies. And what’s the antidote? The antidote is to have more opportunities, more institutions that bring diverse people together to deliberate about hard problems; and to be able to live with their disagreements in a civil way. So that’s another small . . .

Question: What is the relationship between education and democracy?

Transcript: Okay. In a nutshell, there’s nothing more important to the future of democracy than education. It is the lifeblood of democracy. And Thomas Jefferson was right. If you don’t have an educated people, you can’t keep a democracy. And when Franklin was asked at the end of the Constitutional Convention by a woman, “Tell me doctor. Do we have a monarchy or a republic?” And he said, “A republic, if you can keep it.” The answer to whether you can keep it is whether we will be successful in educating our population.

Question: How should citizens be educated?

Transcript: Well they should be educated broadly. They should . . . And what that means is they should know enough about the world in which they live to be able to see themselves as empowered citizens. Now I think in the 21st century that is a very tall order. It means to be a leader – a civic leader. You have to know something very well. You have to be a specialist in something. You can’t be a dilettante. But you also have to be broadly educated. You can’t just be a specialist. So in order to be a good citizen and know what it is that it would take to hold your government accountable, you’ve gotta know some economics. You’ve gotta know some political science. You’ve gotta know some arts and culture. You’ve gotta know something about technology and science. It’s a huge, tall order; but the reason it’s possible is it’s the joy of most people’s lives to be able to be lifelong learners.

Question: What is your legacy?

Transcript: It’s too early to describe my legacy. When I was inaugurated as president, it felt like I was at my funeral because I was hearing all of these what could have been eulogies. So it’s a little too early to tell what my legacy is. But to the extent that being president of Penn was, as I’ve described it, a dream I’ve never had come true, my legacy is to take the tradition of political philosophy, which is always . . . from Plato, through John Stuart Mill, through contemporary political philosophers, of whom I am one . . . to take that tradition and show its relevance to the contemporary world. Show why thinking and living a life of social justice is absolutely critical to the future of humankind. And then not only showing that by one’s teaching and research, but putting it into practice. So showing how a great university can contribute to its community; showing how a great university can launch people from every background and every country in the world into leadership positions; and showing how we can actually be globally engaged and make a difference in the environment, for example.

Question:What is the biggest challenge your field faces?

Transcript: The biggest challenge we face is support from the larger society. nd support in many ways . . . some indirect. Supporting elementary and secondary education – public education in this country is absolutely essential. Supporting science and research is a very direct kind of support, and that we’re extraordinarily dependent on. The government is the single biggest contributor to the science and technology engine that higher education represents. And then the third biggest challenge is how we are going to actually become more accessible to talented kids in our society and the world over who can’t afford higher education. I have an answer to that, and Penn institutionalized the answer to that, which is all of our financial aid is based on need. We do not give scholarships to compete for getting students who otherwise could afford to come. So we put all of our resources into financial aid. That’s a huge challenge for us moving forward, but it’s one that’s very worthy.

Question: What are you doing to address these issues?

Transcript: You know universities are engaged in higher education. And higher education is dependent on elementary and secondary education. We can’t change our social mission; but we at Penn believe we have to do our part in our community in elementary and secondary schools. So we run a great K-8 school called The Penn Alexander School. It’s a public school. We subsidize it, but it’s entirely public. And it is overwhelmingly minority and overwhelmingly low income. And these kids all go to magnet high schools. They all become high achievers. On top of that, I’m starting a new public, magnet, international high school in West Philadelphia. And that’s . . . it’s not altruism on our part. It’s the right thing to do, but it’s gonna help us at Penn at the same time as it adds a great public high school to West Philadelphia. So I think we have to do a lot . . . a lot more than we’re doing.

Question: What is the importance of diversity in higher education?

Transcript: Diversity in itself, I think, is not valuable. I like to point out that there’s no particular reason for somebody to have admitted me to a college because I happen to be left-handed and have blond hair and blue eyes, and that could add to the diversity at some colleges. The importance of diversity is to the extent that there are aspects of people’s backgrounds – whether it be racial or socio-economic, and aspects of people’s perspectives on life . . . so religious diversity – that add to the educational enterprise. So if I go to school and I’m surrounded by people who are like me, I’m going to learn less than if I’m surrounded by people who challenge me intellectually, who come from backgrounds that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to actually know firsthand. That’s gonna make a huge difference in my education. Now when I say that, I have to say that I’ve experienced it as well. My education has been as rich as it has as much by the people I’ve come in contact with who have come from worlds that are so foreign to my own as it is by the wonderful teachers that I’ve had. And my own education . . . The reason my father was such an inspiration to me is he was so different from everyone else . . . than every other adult I had ever met in rural New York.

Recorded on: 7/5/07