That was the question considered by a panel of professors who expressed concern that as universities emphasize civility in academic discourse and hire administrators in greater numbers than faculty, the American academy is taking on an increasingly corporate identity.
The radical movements have been absorbed into the auction markets, art fairs and museums of our day, and however hard a given artist may try to upend such commodification, or to challenge the frequently sterile civility of contemporary academic discourse, the conditions required for a new liberation do not exist.
It is what US academic Susan Herbst calls "the strategic use of civility".
Among the questions explored are the maintenance of scholarly standards, the quality and even-handedness of peer review, the preservation of intellectual tolerance and civility on campus and within academic associations, and the relationship between government and education.
It begins with finding a way to mix civility – which is different than academic and student freedom – with a respect for difference.
Yet Mrs. DeLana seems to have made her peace with that skewed image, confident of the school's rigorous academic program and proud of its insistence on civility.
Just as the people who write books about good sex are never people you would want to sleep with, and the academics who write articles about the disappearance of civility always sound ferociously angry, the people who write about the way to sustain a good marriage are usually on their third.
Scott Reisinger, the school's assistant headmaster for the past 10 years, said that along with Mr. Coyle's emphasis on academic achievement, he has long been a proponent of fostering civility among students.
A current celebration of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's ebullient life as an academic, diplomat, White House advisor, author and, finally, as a senator, underscores the lack of wisdom, wit, civility and vision that prevails today in the legislature today.
Beginning in the eighties, many colleges adopted codes of civility in order to protect a diversity of viewpoints and insure that campus conversations honored academic freedom.
