Robert J. Sternberg is a well-known, much-honored and well-publicized psychology professor who over a long career has held a host of important administrative positions: president, provost, dean, and director. He served as president of the American Psychology Association, the Eastern Psychology Association, the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and the International Association for Cognitive Education in Psychology. He is more than prolific. Sternberg’s c.v. (academic resume) runs 104 pages long.
The key research areas that have interested Sternberg are creativity, wisdom, thinking styles, love, and hate. His disciplinary influence has perhaps been greatest in his criticisms of narrow understandings of intelligence.
Sternberg’s career has had successes and failures – all of which he has chronicled. Sternberg consistently mines his own life, personal and professional, for articles, presentations and publications. Perhaps the most dramatic part of Sternberg’s long administrative career was his short stint as president of the University of Wyoming. He started in the summer of 2013. He was out of the office by Thanksgiving. Sternberg’s short tenure was marked by conflict, change, and more conflict. He wanted to reshape the institution – especially when it came to admissions – and to promote ethical leadership as the key outcome of a baccalaureate education. Resignations, firings, allegations and counter-allegations made for a very tumultuous few months. Sternberg left administration and joined to Cornell University as a faculty member.
In 2016, Sternberg wrote What Universities Can Be: A New Model for Preparing Students for Active Concerned Citizenship and Ethical Leadership. While one might expect that the book’s primary aim would be to build a case methodically for a new institutional structure and purpose, possibly what he was trying to do at Wyoming, Sternberg’s approach is far more discursive. He mixes anecdote with research, personal experience with policy, and theory with observation. He has a host of complaints about the way higher education currently operates, but he does not focus on particular institutions. He is mostly interested in public universities, but he casts his net widely. He does not prioritize reform or delve into strategies for change. The primary lens of analysis is through Sternberg’s personal experiences. He relies more on psychology than economics or history, for example, to explain – and he rarely references the scholarship of higher education.
The book’s recurring theme is what an ACCEL (active concerned citizenship and ethical leadership) institution would look like. Surprisingly, Sternberg does not direct his attention to the ways that many institutions already promote active concerned citizenship and ethical leadership. He writes extensively about admissions processes but not about service learning. Sternberg has much to say, and some of it is provocative and valuable. Sprinkled throughout the book are important observations.
However, Sternberg’s tendency towards the discursive means that much of the narrative is less relevant to the task at hand. His assertions are often generalized opinion. He is, of course, entitled to his preferences. But the examples and asides, along with his proclivity for using platitudes and generalities to move the narrative, make it is a difficult to hold on to Sternberg’s argument and to evaluate it critically.
Sternberg’s conversational style is engaging but the overall lack of structure, discipline and data makes for a challenging read. What Universities Can Be highlighted to me – and this was unexpected – how important context, structure and the nature of argumentation are when crafting a persuasive case for institutional change. Deliberate and organized planning truly makes a difference. Less can be more. Also, less can be more effective – particularly when we are thinking about how best to effect institutional reform.
David Potash