CHAPTER 1: Re-Visioning Higher Education: The Three-Fold Relationality Framework

Rightly, many of us who teach in institutions of higher education are dissatisfied, if not disillusioned, about our efficacy as educational leaders in moving humanity towards a more just, compassionate, and peaceful world. Pessimism abounds: “All things considered, it is possible that we are becoming more ignorant of the things we must know to live well and sustainably on the earth” (Orr, 1994, p. 11). In fact, states David Orr (1994), “[h]igher education has largely been shaped by the drive to extend human domination to its fullest. In this mission, human intelligence may have taken the wrong road” (p. 9). Before him, E. F. Schumacher too expressed deep skepticism concerning education: “If Western civilization is in a state of permanent crisis, it is not far-fetched to suggest that there may be something wrong with its education” (1973/1999, p. 59). But, apparently, it is not just Western civilization that took a wrong road. William Irwin Thompson (1996/1998), commenting on the “wrong road” that the ancient Chinese civilization took, states: “Over two thousand years ago, humanity chose the militarist and hierarchical path at the fork in the road. Now here we are again, and I, of course, hope that the road not taken 2,000 years ago will be the road we take this time for this axial shift of the year 2000” (p. 262). Today, 13 years later, it seems that we still are, by all accounts, on the same wrong road—a road leading to the planetary destruction and despair.