Top Schools Encourage Students to Seek Careers of Service
June 26, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Harvard professor Howard Gardner has begun leading “reflection” seminars at his university, as well as at Amherst and Colby Colleges, in hopes of encouraging more students to consider public-service and other careers beyond those in the financial sector, reports The New York Times.
“Is this what a Harvard education is for?” asked Mr. Gardner. “Are Ivy League schools simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street?”
Such questions highlight the increasing degree to which other institutions, such as Amherst, Tufts University, and the University of Pennsylvania, are seeking to respond to the same concern and, like Harvard, have expanded public-service fellowships and internships in response. “We’re in the business of graduating people who will make the world better in some way,” said Anthony Marx, president of Amherst. “That’s what justifies the expense of the education.”
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