Latest Henry Rosovsky Quotes from Interviews

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• But, before we in America critique East Asia, we must also recognize that we are - unfortunately - taking on some of the same characteristics. Getting in the top institutions has become far more difficult and the value placed on one school over another in terms of education and careers has been much exaggerated.

  Henry Rosovsky

  School, Careers, America

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• There are many in East Asia who simply judge students on the basis of national tests. The top universities in the United States do not do that, and for good reason. We need a careful process for admissions that take all sorts of factors into account: different intellectual strengths, artistic expression, economic standing, social background, ethnicity, regional representation and designs a class as a balanced whole.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Expression, Ethnicity, Class

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• Asian colleges would do well to use a broad range of criteria in selecting students and move beyond the unproductive "examination hell. "

  Henry Rosovsky

  Moving, College, Asian

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• I have not been able to give a concrete answer to the question of how the nations of Asia can create their own unique liberal arts traditions that are not simply the importation of a Western model. The question is a critical one and the answer must come from Asian universities themselves.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Art, Unique, Giving

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• I suppose the situation varies from field to field. If you're a mathematician, your proficiency in English may not be such a problem. If you're in the humanities or social sciences, there is no doubt that it is a handicap for you.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Humanity, Doubt, May

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• There seems also to be a tremendous risk to indigenous cultures if we insist that all scholarship be conducted in English. We are, for example, dealing with ancient and very highly-developed cultures in Korea, Japan, China and the Middle East. What is the impact on cultural and scholarly vitality forcing everyone to do their work in English? I do not have an answer, but this issue has been very much on my mind.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Impact, Japan, Korea

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• On the one hand, there is no question that English - frequently bad English - has become the universal language of scholarship. It is clearly a tremendous handicap for people outside of the United States, Britain, and Australia and a few other countries because few of them are native speakers, but we demand that they present and publish in English.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Country, Hands, Australia

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• English is not the primary language for universities in China, Korea, and Japan, but they are being evaluated on the basis of publications in English and courses taught in English.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Japan, Korea, Taught

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• The question of how much English should be used in international research universities is one with which I am extremely familiar. I would even say I am deeply puzzled by this trend. I am not certain what the correct answer should be.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Research, Answers, Trends

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• The faculty know what they need to develop and they need to work with an administrator with the authority do get it done. To define everything in terms of these index numbers is ridiculous.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Numbers, Needs, Done

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• As academics we have pretty good judgment about the quality of institutions that cannot simply be measured by counting the number of papers published or patents received. Outsiders who swoop in to count beans and make up lists based on statistics have little sense of what excellence is.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Numbers, Excellence, Quality

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• That doesn't mean that the top fifteen institutions in the ranking somehow don't belong there at all. But what is the difference between number two and number eight in any meaningful sense? As an administrator who worked to build a complex university, I find the assumption slightly offensive. We need to be committed to excellence, not to lists.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Meaningful, Eight, Two

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• The president [of American research institute] can act as the CEO and make a firm decision about the long-term development of the institution, but he or she does so in constant consultation with the faculty. It may not always work this way, but the greatest advances occur when governance is truly shared.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Long, Decision, President

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• The rank of a university is similar to an index number say like the NASDAQ index. I don't understand how you can take an institution like Harvard, Stanford, or Michigan, and represent it by an index number. The concept makes no sense.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Numbers, Michigan, Harvard

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• The strong point of American research universities is the manner in which trustees, presidents and other senior executives retain a considerable amount of decision-making authority while at the same time maintaining a culture of open exchange and participatory debate.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Senior, Strong, Decision

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• It is equally unreasonable to run a university as a "participatory democracy," the approach to governance that once existed in Europe. That approach in European institutions of higher learning was appealing to professors because it was democratic. But those institutions also suffered because they lacked an executive decision-making process; making changes became virtually impossible.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Running, Europe, Decision

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• I draw a contrast between American shared governance with "the dictatorship of ministries" wherein policy and direction for the university is ordered by bureaucrats who have never taught a class.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Class, Taught, Ministry

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• If we want to identify the great success of American research universities, and that success goes far beyond Harvard, we have to come back to the question of governance. Excellence requires a firewall between trusteeship, or government ministries, and the academic decision-making process. This American concept of shared governance wherein the faculty are engaged in running the university as part of a collaboration with the other stakeholders.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Running, Government, Decision

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• Equally important for the promotion of excellence in the university is an emphasis on shared governance. The faculty needs to be involved directly in the process of running the university and in the setting of priorities.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Running, Priorities, Excellence

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• Shared governance is often the critical element that is missing in Asian universities, no matter how talented the faculty may be. Either it is ministries of education that are trying to run things, or in private institutions - those who control the funds. Neither group knows much about teaching and research.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Running, Teaching, Missing

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• There are many reasons that universities in East Asia have not reached the positions that they had hoped for. After all, we must remember that modern East Asia did not begin with Confucius. In fact the experience of modern education in East Asia is relatively short and granted that time scale, many universities are doing fine.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Asia, Facts, East

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• There are, however, many challenges to Asian universities. First, academic freedom, in all senses, is much more critical to the success of a university than how much money is spent on infrastructure or on hiring big names. Faculty need to have the space to pursue the research that they are passionate about and the also need to have the freedom to express their opinions in the university, and in the society as a whole.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Academic Freedom, Names, Space

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• Public image is extremely important in American society and I observed personally that the Presidency of John F. Kennedy did much in the public mind for Harvard. Harvard was an excellent school before Kennedy, but Kennedy embodied a new vision for the United States: a leader who caught the world's imagination and that reflected on his alma mater, Harvard.

  Henry Rosovsky

  School, Imagination, Leader

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• There is another innovation at Harvard which I think made a tremendous difference and that is the decision to try to recruit the very best person in the field for an available faculty position. In the period after World War II Harvard literally engaged in world-wide searches for the very best and created a culture in which it was simply unacceptable to hire friends and associates, to make decisions based on personal affections or inclinations.

  Henry Rosovsky

  War, Thinking, Differences

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• I would not say that Harvard possesses any sort of absolute dominance. And I personally do not take the rankings of schools all that seriously. However, I think that Harvard's global visibility increased significantly in the 1930s and 1940s and that the new commitment to excellence at Harvard spread to other institutions.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Commitment, School, Thinking

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com