Former Penn Anthropology professor Arjun Appadurai challenged America's top research universities to redefine themselves yesterday.
The past three decades have brought a knowledge explosion, Appadurai said, and that revolution and its digitization have diluted the university's role as a place for research.
Universities can help to make better global citizens by internationalizing their curricula, he added.
Appadurai addressed a crowd of about 100, many of whom were forced to stand or sit on the floor, in the Golkin Room in Houston Hall.
Think tanks, corporations, churches and newspapers, among other institutions, now all do their own research, but universities can still be vital sources of knowledge, he said.
"Globalization offers unique opportunities for the reinvention of American research universities," Appadurai said.
According to Appadurai, American universities losing their research edge while at the same time having a "near sacred status" and acting as "the face of America abroad."
U.S. scholars are far more respected and esteemed in foreign countries than American diplomats, military personnel or journalists, he said.
American universities are so esteemed, he said, that a Penn graduate student in India could, with some effort, gain access to nearly any government or industry leader.
Because of this, universities have a duty to use their role as major players in global civil society to effect positive change as well as to participate in the globalization dialogue, Appadurai said.
To accomplish this, he outlined a plan that would make law, finance and public-health courses from Penn's graduate schools required for all undergraduates.
"No major university, including Penn, has created a real dialogue between the liberal arts and major professional schools," Appadurai said.
College senior Cho Kim said he enjoyed the speech because it presented many new and old concepts in a fascinating way. He said he aspires to be a professor in the field.
"Penn really has no international curriculum," Kim said, but he added that Appadurai's proposals would be "hard to implement, and not likely soon."
