GWU is a quintessential thriving, urban institution, situated amid the World Bank, State Department and White House. Yet, GWU oddly proposes to shift many of its undergraduates to a suburban satellite campus accessible by bus. Furthermore, the university (including successful schools of medicine and engineering, a hospital, etc.) is being force-fed an over-diet of science, technology, engineering and math at the expense of the social sciences and humanities that have made the university great for 200 years. This wrongheadedness comes in part from the Disney Institute, an Orwellian-sounding “professional development and external training arm of The Walt Disney Company.” GWU faculty and staff have been transported to Florida “to gain firsthand insight into Disney’s approach to culture” and learn new “GW values” imposed from outside. In higher education, thoughtful introspection, change and improvement are always welcome. But so is wise consideration for not trying to fix what is not broken.
