Higher Education and the 5 Ds: Insights Courtesy of “On Point”

I sometimes listen to the live or podcast version of On Point. It’s a daily talk show, ably moderated by Meghna Chakrabarti and distributed by National Public Radio. On Tuesday, March 24, I caught part of the discussion; I found it of sufficient interest that I subsequently downloaded the podcast. The substance of the hour-long discussion intrigued me—but I was grateful for a quite different reason. As signaled by the title of this blog, the discussion enabled me to connect two lines of our research, both of which I’ve been pursuing for many years…and to suggest a new line of analysis as well.

The program focused on “Vaccine patents, global equity, and how to vaccinate the world.” It began with a message from a manufacturer in Bangladesh; he was prepared to partner with American firms to produce massive amounts of vaccines for use in the developing world. But when he had approached the major American drug manufacturers, none seemed willing to cooperate. (https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2021/03/24/how-to-equitably-vaccinate-the-world)

This opener defined the problem space for the next fifty minutes. On one side were industry representatives who explained that the development of the vaccine had been an expensive and risky process, drawing on scientific knowledge and corporate contacts that had been developed over many years; the companies needed to protect their investments for future challenges. Also, though not umbilically related, since these companies were American and had been supported by American taxpayers, the first obligations were to inoculate American adults—then other vaccination campaigns in other parts of the world should be contemplated.

Sharply arrayed in the other camp—and possibly closer to the usual audience of National Public Radio—were legal experts and leaders of nonprofit organizations that have a global orientation. Their argument had two principal thrusts. First of all, the US government invested billions of taxpayer dollars to support pharmaceutical efforts on COVID19; the profits, if any, should be directed toward US taxpayers and their priorities, not to the tills of the drug companies—which have been financially very successful over the years. Second, COVID19 is a worldwide challenge and no countries will be safe until all are safe. Accordingly, the drug companies should take the initiative in collaborating with competent partners all over the world; they should strive to ensure that the vaccines are made available globally, and not just to Americans and citizens in other high-income countries. Of course, the discussion was much subtler and more complex than this. But I use this as an opener because it helped me to make connections I had not appreciated before.

On the one hand, colleagues and I have been studying the nature and realization of good work—what it means in our time to be a good person, a good worker, a good citizen. One of the chief vehicles for achieving these admittedly ambitious goals has been to develop ways in which individuals can deal constructively with difficult issues (thegoodproject.org). Accordingly, to aid in discussions of knotty problems, we’ve developed the notion of the 5 Ds: First you need to identify a Dilemma (in this case, evidently, how to influence companies that have developed the vaccines and now need to decide how to distribute the vaccines and with whom to collaborate); and then, in rough sequences, you need to Discuss, Debate,Decide and in due course Debrief (what worked, what could have been done differently and more effectively). Ideally, we will all learn to go through this sequence of steps regularly, almost reflexively; and while it hardly guarantees the right choice each time, over the long run it should lead to better decision making.

On the other hand, colleagues and I have been studying higher education in the United States. On our analysis, one of the chief desired outcomes of nonvocational higher education is the development of what we have termed “higher education capital”—as we describe it, the ability (and the inclination) in conversation and in reflection to attend, analyze, reflect, connect, and communicate. We believe that the traditional college age is the optimal time to increase Higher Ed Cap (though of course its cultivation can begin earlier and should continue throughout life); and that if colleges fail to increase higher education capital, they failed in a primary—perhaps THE primary—goal of nonvocational higher education (therealworldofcollege.com).

As I was listening to On Point, I was highly engaged. I found myself trying to analyze the arguments, putting my finger on the scale in different ways, being swayed one way or the other by the most recent speaker, or by the host’s questions, or even annoyed and wanting to refute a remark that seemed to be wrong, of self-serving, or irrelevant. But in addition to the connections already cited, I also hit upon a line of thought that was new for me.

Let’s say that you are the czar, and you could decide which low-income countries should first receive the vaccines (available now or shortly).

Three Options:

1.     You could do it randomly—choose names out of the hat. 

2.     You could favor those countries whose citizens have already been wearing masks and practicing social distancing—rewarding good behavior, so to speak. 

3.     You could favor the countries whose leaders have flouted the norms—because those citizens are even more vulnerable.

This is the kind of issue that I hope that our college students will take seriously and learn to engage with constructively. Whatever the merits of my discussion, a broadcast of less than an hour can both enrich one’s own understanding of a complex issue and give rise to new and possibly promising lines of thought.

Which leads me, again unexpectedly, to a third line of my current thinking: the importance of developing a synthesizing mind (more information at howardgardner.com). And that’s not a bad way of distinguishing public broadcasting from private broadcasting—in general, of course there are exceptions.

Here’s my analysis. In general, cable news networks don’t try to complexify thinking—they try to support and enhance already entrenched and extreme points of view. On MS NBC, one would likely encounter those who are critical of the drug companies, with one sacrificial lamb brought in to defend those “evil” corporations. On Fox, one would likely encounter those who defend the drug companies, also with one sacrificial lamb brought in to critique them from the “cancel culture” left. And quite possibly, the respective “actors” or “performers” look as if they had been selected by central casting!

For these reasons, cable news is not a way to promote more complex thinking—and if one wants to promote such thinking, it’s best to do so on a more balanced platform and with topics that are not quite so divisive. The very fact that most listeners to the program had probably not thought seriously about these issues beforehand (at least I hadn’t) makes it better aliment for developing the 5Ds. I am happy to do a shout out to any medium—non-profit or for-profit—that can complexify thinking on hot-button issues. And if we are fortunate, that medium can provide a positive model for how dilemmas should be tackled and resolved—in class, around the dinner table, at the workplace, and in the communities to which we all belong.

Acknowledgments: 

For their timely comments, I thank Lynn Barendsen, Shelby Clark, Wendy Fischman, Kirsten McHugh, Danny Mucinskas, and Ellen Winner.

Photo by Shravankumar Hiregoudaron Unsplash