Lex Fridman: observation

Transcript context

…Let me ask, okay, how can you explore how to think when you’re only shared a certain point of view? How can you learn about leadership when the governance and leadership at the institution is broken and exposure to ideas, if you’re limited in the ideas that you’re exposed to? I think university is at risk. I mean, the concerning thing is if 34 student organizations that each have, I don’t know, 30 members or maybe more, that’s a thousand. Okay. That’s a meaningful percentage of the campus perhaps that ultimately respond. Now, 10 or so, the 30 withdrew the statement once many of the members realized what they had written. It seems like the statement was signed by their leadership and not necessarily supported by all the various students that were members. If the university teaches people these precepts, this is the next generation of … I wrote my college thesis on university admissions. The reason why controlling the gates of the Harvard institution, the admissions office is important, is that many of these people who graduate end up with the top jobs in government and ultimately become judges, they permeate through society and so it really matters what they learn. If they’re limited to one side of the political aisle and they’re not open to a broad array of views, and this represents some of the most elite institutions in our country, I think it’s very problematic for the country, long term. Yeah, I 100% agree. I also felt like the leadership wasn’t even part of the problem as much as they were almost out of touch, unaware that this is an important moment, it’s an important crisis, it’s an important opportunity to step up as a leader and define the future of an institution. I don’t even know where the source of the problem is. It could be, literally, governance structure as we’ve been talking about. Well, it’s two things. I think it’s governance structure. I also think universities, they’re not selecting leaders. It’s not clear to me that universities should necessarily be run by academics. The dean of a university, the person who helps … There’s sort of the business of the university, and then there’s the academics of the university. I would argue having a business leader run these institutions and then having a board that has, itself, diverse viewpoints, and by the way, permanently structured to have diverse viewpoints is a much better way to run a university than picking an academic that the faculty supports. One of the things I learned about how faculty get hired at universities, ultimately, it’s signed off by the board, but the new faculty are chosen by each of the various departments. There’s sort of a tipping point, politically, where once they tip in one direction, the faculty recruit more people like themselves. The departments become more and more progressive, if you will, with the passage of time. They only advance candidates that meet their political objectives. It’s not a great way to build an institution, which allows for ……

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.