Dr. Bob Rudd
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Biography:
One of my graduate professors, Carl Bybee, used to tell his students that university professors are the privileged class in our culture. It is, I believe, something which in our occasional discontent over such issues as workloads, salaries, or the increasing corporatization of higher education, we should never forget. We are a privileged class.
And, like all beneficiaries of privilege, we should be judged by what we do with that privilege — whether we use that privilege solely to further our own self-interest and well-being, as so many of privilege in our culture do, or whether we use our position of privilege to serve as an advocate, in our instance through education, for those not as privileged; for those whose voices are too often unheard in our culture, for those who are rendered powerless in a society whose institutions too often serve only the interests of the privileged.
There is considerable debate in our culture about what purposes, and whose interests, higher education should serve. In my view, the university should, above all other pursuits, be about the building of a more just, a more equitable, and a more democratic society. There are increasingly few institutions in our society which take seriously these values, much less accept them as their primary obligation. Let us hope that this university remains one of those few.
To learn more about me, you can click on my vita. The other links will direct you to information about my courses, as well as a range of media and political sit