What is the Academic Life? series:
1. General Answers to Essential Questions
2. The Idea of the University
3. Upholding Professional Standards and Ethics
by Steve McCarty
Professor, Osaka Jogakuin University
President, World Association for Online Education
What is the Academic Life? 1.
General Answers to Essential Questions
Original Source: McCarty, S. (2012). What is the academic life?
1. General answers to essential questions. Education India
Journal, 1 (3), 6-12.
[Articles reprinted by permission of the Editor; 2023 update]
Series Introduction
What is, or should be, the academic life? After many years of thinking about
academic ideals to live by, and seeing where academic standards and ethics
are not upheld, this series is offered, for a journal interested in the idea
of the university (Sharma, 2012).
, Questions Definitive of the Academic Life
The following questions are proposed to point to the universals of the
academic life. What is a university? What is a professor? Who are the
colleagues of a person in higher education? What should be learned in
graduate school regardless of the field of specialization? To what extent
can a human being live by academic standards and ethics?
General Answers to the Essential Questions
The author addressed some of the key issues earlier as follows:
The essence of the university is its universality, as represented by
academic standards, ethics, and meaningful subject matter that
transcends cultural boundaries … Liberal arts requirements for all the
students unify the university, lest its purpose be narrowed to
vocational training in separate departments … When atomic weapons and
other scientific advances posed potential hazards to civilization,
those with a well-rounded education pointed out the dire necessity for
ethical responsibility, encouraging initiatives such as bioethics and
disarmament. (McCarty, 1995, p. 43)
What is a university? – The essence of a university is its universality. All
true universities have this quality in common. There can be a universal
academic approach to any subject matter. Thus, the curriculum can include
pure and applied fields, theoretical and practical approaches, education and
training, but not solely the latter elements. A true university does not
yield to contemporary societal imperatives, otherwise education is
sacrificed to vocationalization or whatever trend rules the day.
In one sense a university is a unity in itself, as cited above. General
education or liberal arts subjects that round out higher education for all
students provide a commonality within the university as well as an interface
toward the world. The liberal arts are thus essential to all specializations
and provide a practical world-view as well, for example in foreign policy
studies (Walt, 2012).
A university is situated in a certain community, era, and culture, but it
shares the universality of the academic life in common with other
universities in the world. All universities should be inviolable by forces
that devalue or corrupt scholarship. An institutional culture where the
1. General Answers to Essential Questions
2. The Idea of the University
3. Upholding Professional Standards and Ethics
by Steve McCarty
Professor, Osaka Jogakuin University
President, World Association for Online Education
What is the Academic Life? 1.
General Answers to Essential Questions
Original Source: McCarty, S. (2012). What is the academic life?
1. General answers to essential questions. Education India
Journal, 1 (3), 6-12.
[Articles reprinted by permission of the Editor; 2023 update]
Series Introduction
What is, or should be, the academic life? After many years of thinking about
academic ideals to live by, and seeing where academic standards and ethics
are not upheld, this series is offered, for a journal interested in the idea
of the university (Sharma, 2012).
, Questions Definitive of the Academic Life
The following questions are proposed to point to the universals of the
academic life. What is a university? What is a professor? Who are the
colleagues of a person in higher education? What should be learned in
graduate school regardless of the field of specialization? To what extent
can a human being live by academic standards and ethics?
General Answers to the Essential Questions
The author addressed some of the key issues earlier as follows:
The essence of the university is its universality, as represented by
academic standards, ethics, and meaningful subject matter that
transcends cultural boundaries … Liberal arts requirements for all the
students unify the university, lest its purpose be narrowed to
vocational training in separate departments … When atomic weapons and
other scientific advances posed potential hazards to civilization,
those with a well-rounded education pointed out the dire necessity for
ethical responsibility, encouraging initiatives such as bioethics and
disarmament. (McCarty, 1995, p. 43)
What is a university? – The essence of a university is its universality. All
true universities have this quality in common. There can be a universal
academic approach to any subject matter. Thus, the curriculum can include
pure and applied fields, theoretical and practical approaches, education and
training, but not solely the latter elements. A true university does not
yield to contemporary societal imperatives, otherwise education is
sacrificed to vocationalization or whatever trend rules the day.
In one sense a university is a unity in itself, as cited above. General
education or liberal arts subjects that round out higher education for all
students provide a commonality within the university as well as an interface
toward the world. The liberal arts are thus essential to all specializations
and provide a practical world-view as well, for example in foreign policy
studies (Walt, 2012).
A university is situated in a certain community, era, and culture, but it
shares the universality of the academic life in common with other
universities in the world. All universities should be inviolable by forces
that devalue or corrupt scholarship. An institutional culture where the
