Comments on: Between Principle and Practice (Part 2): The New School for Social Research http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2013/03/between-principle-and-practice-part-2-the-new-school-for-social-research/ Informed reflection on the events of the day Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:00:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.23 By: Jeffrey Goldfarb http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2013/03/between-principle-and-practice-part-2-the-new-school-for-social-research/comment-page-1/#comment-26424 Sat, 23 Mar 2013 14:02:00 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=18141#comment-26424 This is a very important point. I am hoping to open a serious discussion about the New School’s principles and how they inform practice, how the principles can be extended in our practices – research, teaching and learning – and how our practices fall short of principles. Student participation and appraisal of all this is crucial. Thanks for opening it.

]]> By: Scott http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2013/03/between-principle-and-practice-part-2-the-new-school-for-social-research/comment-page-1/#comment-26423 Sat, 23 Mar 2013 05:59:00 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=18141#comment-26423 I have been out of the country for the past 6 months or so,
and have missed much in Town Halls, etc, that may have taken place about what I
am about to discuss. However, I feel that it is necessary to say something
about “principles and practices” from a student’s perspective. I believe that
the effectiveness of the New School’s principles should be measured in part by
the experience of its students, both inside and outside the classroom. In a
time of continually expanding costs of education, the ability of student’s to practice
these principles may in fact be hindered by an unreasonable, and
dis-empowering, debt burden.

Furthermore, I find it to be ironic that many
students which recently protested the malfeasance of the largest financial
institutions in our country are at the same time often dependent on these
institutions for the capital necessary for “free inquiry” and criticism of the
problems these institutions cause. Perhaps this is an example of the “Social
Condition” which has been recently written about on this blog; it creates a contradiction
where, at least for a good many students, social criticism in the academic
environment is all too often dependent on those same institutions which are
being criticized. The principle of “free inquiry” is being put into practice,
but at a very real cost.

This is of course a problem faculty and administration have been working diligently on, and have
taken steps to address. Also being addressed are the fates of students after
leaving the New School, and possibly how they live out the New School’s
principles post hoc. A discussion of these constraints (and conditions of our
times), as experienced by both students, and former students, as they relate to
principled practice should be placed alongside a discussion of the universities
founding principles.

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