I’ve been focused on poetry these days. But for more than 20 years I wrote and edited a magazine on education. So I can’t read about the college students who are actively protesting Israel’s killing of massive numbers of Palestinians, with America’s support in the form of weapons, and not say something regarding the intersection of the students’ response and the mission of our colleges and universities.

In particular, the protests made me think again about a book I read recently (and wrote about in this blog): The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be, by Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner.

Based on extensive studies of a variety of colleges and universities — from community colleges to public universities to elite colleges — the authors draw some important conclusions about what a good education should look like and where colleges and universities get things right and where they have been falling short of late. First, the authors note, far too many students today feel disconnected from their college and university communities and, as a result, suffer an unacceptably high level of stress and isolation. Mental health issues on college campuses, the authors tell us, are rampant. A high percentage of students also report feeling alienated from both peers and their school’s academic agenda. Second, too many colleges and universities are trying too hard to be all things to all people — and, in not-so-shocking irony, fail to serve their communities as well as they intend. The authors zero in on the idea that the overall goal of all colleges and universities is to develop students “higher education capital” — or HEDCAP, as they call it. To that end, colleges need to clarify this mission and develop programs that support it. Within reason, programs that don’t advance the mission should be culled.

Higher education capital — through a general education in the natural and social sciences, the arts and humanities, and the world of computers and coding — includes the ability to:

• See things from multiple perspectives.

• Develop a cogent argument that accepts the complexities of any situation or problem, and both express the argument and defend it well, while acknowledging (as we all should) the limitations of our individual perspectives.

• Be able to situate problems in context — such as in history or current events or literature.

• Articulate the value of critical thinking, interdisciplinary engagement, and communication skills — and work hard to develop such skills.

A key observation in the book is that too many students see the arrangement with colleges and universities as transactional. Students and their parents pay tuition and, in return, the schools prepare students for jobs. While all of us who attend or have attended college want jobs that pay well and are fulfilling, Fischman and Gardner see this narrow mindset as, at best, a baseline goal for a college education. The bigger, more important, goal for both students and society is that the college experience be transformational — intellectually and emotionally. In doing so, the college experience helps young adults transition into adulthood with skills that will serve them and society well.

I’ve written about how college and graduate school did this for me. So, not surprisingly, I agree with Fischman and Gardner. And I know many other college graduates who share this view. It’s interesting, too, that the vast majority of college professors see student transformation — through deep study of various disciplines and community engagement — as the core of their work.

Fischman and Gardner found that some colleges and universities are doing a good job helping their students develop HEDCAP skills. But there are plenty of instances of mission drift, and of subsequent confusion and disconnect between students and faculty, between faculty and administration, and between administrators and trustees. In other words, colleges and universities could do a better job clarifying and articulating their mission and purpose, onboarding students to that mission, and developing a comprehensive program that services the mission at every turn.

Fischman and Gardner end the book with specific advice for the varied constituents — knowing that this is the best way to get everyone rowing in unison. In the advice section for students, the authors ask students to:

• Acknowledge their great fortune in getting to attend college — a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

• Use the opportunity to expand their horizons and connect with a wide-range of people.

• Take time to connect with professors and seek help, advice, and guidance as needed.

• Work hard to develop both intellectual and social skills.

• Focus on transformation, not transaction. “Explore new territories physically, cognitively, socially, emotionally and remain open to being transformed.”

I have to admit that I have not attended any of the recent student protests. I’ve only read accounts in newspapers — ones I believe adhere to high journalist standards — along with various analyses and commentary from knowledgeable folks (no television news, which I gave up years ago, and very little social media scrolling). But I feel I know enough to say a few things.

First, I’m glad so many college students are taking what they believe is an important moral stand. They’ve learned about events in Gaza and have decided the right and moral thing to do in response is to let their campuses and the world know they find the killings unacceptable. Some of the messaging may be oversimplified, and some of it misguided, but I think it’s clear that the overall goal is change in the name of peace and justice. Much of the media coverage of the protests, to my mind, tries to make these events into an us-and-them struggle — either pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli. In reality, as Robert Reich wrote in a recent New York Times column, the vast majority of protesters are not pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli, or vice versa. What they are push for is the end to enormous collateral damage in Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. To date, more than 34,000 civilians have died. Another 77,000 have been injured and an estimated 1.1 million are experiencing catastrophic hunger. Student protesters find this unacceptable in the extreme — as all of us should. In pushing for the end of such slaughter, they are asking the U.S. government to stop supplying the Israeli government with weapons that are being used in such an immoral and repulsive way. They are also asking their institutions to divest from Israeli companies as long as the Israeli government continues the bombing of innocent people. More generally, they are asking the rest of us to make our voices heard on the subject.

The question of the right Israeli response to Hamas’s killing of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens on October 7 is a challenging one — informed by a complex web of historical, religious, political, and cultural issues. And some of the protesters, like many adults, may be oversimplifying matters and saying things that aren’t helpful. Reliance on slogans and signs has a tendency to do that. But I’m still glad the students have stepped up to challenge the adult leaders on their campuses and beyond — to say it’s not OK to sit on the sidelines doing nothing. And I’m dismayed by the college and university administrators who have decided the best way to engage the students is with riot squads.

I suppose what I want is for more colleges and universities to acknowledge and support the students who are pushing for nonviolence solutions in Gaza. At the very least, we should listen to them, not instantly vilify them. I want most is for college administrators to take a careful look at their students and find ways to connect the protests to the colleges’s missions; see this moment as an opportunity for deeper learning, the kind that happens on the best college campuses. I hope it goes without saying that there’s no place for antisemitism, Islamophobia and expressions of hatred on campus. But as long as the students aren’t engaged in violence or the threat of violence, administrators would be wise to find ways to connect these protests to the central mission of the schools.

The Real World of College spells out ways in which colleges could use the protests as a springboard for deeper learning — for instance, through linking events in Gaza with other historic periods of war and political unrest, or through a deep analysis of contemporary geopolitics, or even through the study of literature and art. In truth, just about all areas of study offer the opportunity for deeper cross-disciplinary learning and for building skills is human interaction. I imagine there are many college presidents thinking along these lines. One who stands out to me is Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University. Rather than push to have protesters arrested and encampments disassembled, Roth allowed students to protest, as long as it was peaceful and the protesters weren’t blocking access to buildings or threatening or interrupting other students in their learning. While acknowledging that he didn’t agree with much of what the protesters were demanding, he says in an essay in The New Republic:

“How can I not respect students for paying attention to things that matter so much? I respect that they’re concerned about Gaza; I admire that they’re not entirely taken up with grades or lining up their credentials…. I would prefer they use their energies to pressure the U.S. government to do more to get the hostages released, to stop supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war tactics, and to bring more direct aid to people in Gaza on the brink of starvation. My team expects to discuss all of this with students in the coming days. Right now, I’m most concerned with protecting their right to protest in nonviolent ways that don’t undermine our educational program. For me, the modest violations of the rules are preferable to the narrow-minded vocationalism that others seem suddenly to pine for.”

Roth’s views tie in well with the points Fischman and Gardner make in The Real World of College. If we are, as we say, educating the next generation of leaders, it’s essential that we not only listen to them and take their concerns seriously, but that we help them develop the whole gamut of interpersonal skills along with a strong academic base of knowledge so they will be poised to tackle the world’s most pressing problems as they arise in the future.

As Dartmouth history professor Udi Greenberg said to the New York Times following Dartmouth’s quick crackdown on peaceful student protesters, “We’re supposed to be a living example for how we manage divisive topics, and the most important thing in this process is that we don’t engage each other as enemies. Sending the police on protesters is the exact opposite of engaging each other in good faith.”

Calling in the riot squad to shut students up is not the right response. Rather, the student protests offer colleges and universities an opportunity to engage in deep conversation with students about the world around them. It’s also an opportunity to show we take them seriously. For colleges and universities that simply want their campuses to be bucolic places for job preparation, maybe this summer is the right time to reexamine their mission and purpose.