Being a neighbor is not just a term, it's not a geographic term, it's a moral concept.

What does that mean when we think about education?

What if we really thought that being of a community not just happenstance located in the community

was a moral construct about collective responsibility?

So what is the responsibility of institutions of higher education for the communities

they inhabit?

And how do they nurture students as citizens and leaders for the emerging world?

These 21st century questions are evolving the traditional ivory tower.

I took them up with two visionary college presidents from two very different institutions

at a national gathering of educators.

Nancy Cantor is chancellor of a large public university in the Northeast, Rutgers University,

Newark, one of the most diverse institutions in the US.

Christopher Howard is the first African American president of an historically white all-male

school in the south, Hampton, Sydney College of Virginia.

It's not that a student thinks it's the right thing, but how can he or she actually be

an upstander and try to address it, to be in the world, to bring those values of the

civilization right there in the dorm room in the fraternity house or what have you?

And it can be just as powerful as what you're learning in that calculus class or in that

political science class.

And actually tell the truth, there's a seamless web when done properly that runs through

all those experiences that makes you a better citizen in the polis.

I'm Christopher Tippet and this is on being.

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