provided by Research Papers in Economics
IMPROVING THE UNIVERSITY’S PERFORMANCE
IN PUBLIC POLICY EDUCATION
W. G. Stucky, Education Leader
Center jor Agricultural and Economic Development
Iowa State University
My purpose is to offer a strategy which would enable the uni-
versity to serve more fully the need of citizens for knowledge for
public decision making. Contemporary conditions and events have
dramatically placed an obligation on the university to aid citizens in
more quickly overcoming society’s human welfare problems. The
suggestion that follows is introduced to stimulate our thinking about
developing the use of science to foster social innovation as a parallel
to our well developed capacity to foster technological innovation.
Putting new technology into the economic system without accompany-
ing changes in the social system produces a certain degree of disorder.
INSTITUTIONAL SYSTEMS AND THE HUMAN CONDITION
What makes the most difference in the human condition? Modern
man is socialized, protected, and directed by man-made institutional
systems. These institutional systems provide the mechanism through
which man makes choices relating to his human condition. The fam-
ily, the school, the health care system, law, jurisprudence, public
codes, taxation, roads, communication, self-government, waste dis-
posal, research, national defense, natural resource conservation, re-
ligion, and tap water are just a few of the human institutional inven-
tions that greatly affect the quality of living. It is clear that the func-
tions of these institutions are vastly more than a prerequisite for
survival and orderliness in the complex contemporary economy.
If we are to make any sense at all out of discussing issues relating
to improvement of the human condition, we need to conceptualize
the content of an ideal life of quality. At least I do, and thus I have
made a rough outline to serve my purpose (see appendix, pp. 25-26).
Scientific Versus Folk Knowledge
Scientists have been quite shy about studying their institutional
systems, which are human inventions responsive to human decision.
But not so the “firm,” which also is a human invention and subject to
human decision. The firm gets much attention and therefore people
know a whole lot about it. Some firms appear and disappear and some
make transitions to fit contemporary demand. From this applied
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