Without borders

Perhaps it is a sign of the times that we find it worthwhile to consider this question, but there is something to be said for the uncertainty that surrounds issues of national identity. There is a growing acceptance of the possibility that national identity matters less in a world where the traditional signifiers—territorial boundaries, cultural norms, ideological traditions, race, and ethnicity—are increasingly amorphous or interchangeable. Hypothetically, one could transplant Columbia to another country, changing the location, language, and local authority. Assuming the sum levels of institutional knowledge and ambition are held constant, the school would remain a top-tier institution with certain international impact. This suggests that the purpose of the educational project at Columbia, the school’s output, is what ought to be considered. A teleological answer to the question of whether Columbia is an American university does the normative consideration greater justice and strongly suggests not only that the school is fundamentally an international entity, but that it must be so in order to satisfy the educational mandate it has set for itself during the course of institutional growth.

Increasingly, as the forces of globalization shrink the world and create tighter networks of mutual obligation, the definition of the “public interest” is evolving. Now more than ever, the “greater good” for the American public is compatible with or derivative of the interests of the larger global citizenry. The effect of this change is the placement of a new expectation for institutions of higher learning, one that dictates how elite universities advance the project of education. In a sense, it has become less important that Columbia be American in character and more crucial that the school serves as a platform for American contributions to play a role on the world stage. In this framework, the American resources allocated to Columbia, be they financial capital, human capital, or material assets, are being invested in an entity that is itself “international”—a microscopic and institutionalized reflection of the current world order. Within this framework the University remains a non-affiliated, self-contained vehicle for individuals and groups to engage on a global stage.

Columbia is much like the Olympics—the host nation’s resources facilitate the event, but the event itself and its products are inherently international. For the University, the product is intercultural dialogue, structured around formal education and research. Columbia’s commitment to establishing Global Centers, its ability to host events such as the World Leaders Forum, and its consistent standing among the top institutions of learning worldwide all attest to the development of the University beyond a merely American conception of identity or outreach. To underscore this point, plenty of universities in this country host international students and teach courses that espouse an international outlook, but these schools do not have the capacity to engage the international discourse in the humanities and the sciences in quite so participatory a way as Columbia. Columbia serves, along with a handful of other top research institutions, as a principal node in an international network through which information is produced and disseminated. Constraining our conception of the school as an American institution first and foremost ignores the principle that the production and distribution of information ought not be beholden to national, political, or cultural allegiances.

Some might retort that this is an unpatriotic view of the purpose of the University. On the contrary, suggesting that the school has a life and identity fundamentally beyond the United States, one that is intricately and inextricably tied to the purpose of the educational project in which we all participate, speaks to the particular American condition of our time. Today, only the United States could support such a great number of global universities, with the American economy having motivated the continual growth of the university system since before the country’s founding. In the future, another nation may take up this mantle, which we inherited from the United Kingdom. But it is commendable that we have successfully evolved an elite group of institutions to serve beyond our borders and produced a multinational intellectual and managerial class confident in its exercise of power worldwide. While at its inception Columbia may have been American, it now serves the public interest as an international entity. Ultimately, for Columbia to retain its influence in the 21st century, it will have to continue to calibrate its offerings for a globalized world.

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj is a Columbia College sophomore. He contributes regularly to The Canon.