The American “Campus”

It is important to acknowledge the global leadership of United States higher education.

My first encounter with the American “campus” was in the summer of 1976, when, on the most suitable day, I landed as a student of English at Yale University. It was a real discovery. Since then, every visit I make to a university in the United States reaffirms that initial impression: The “campus” is one of the great American inventions.

Perhaps originally inspired by schools from Oxford and Cambridge, the American campus grew with a different and diverse personality as it proliferated to different parts of the United States. Campuses tend to be worlds unto themselves. Whether they are in great cities like Chicago, or on the outskirts of smaller towns like South Bend, they are simply citadels populated by university communities, with a life that transcends the classroom.

My first encounter with the American campus also represented the discovery of the library, rather than lecture, as a center of learning. The Beinecke Library at Yale is located in a monumental building, inside which is majestically displayed a sample of their aged books. Although it is an independent institution of the university, the John Carter Brown Library seems to dominate the Brown University campus, with its classical architectural facade.

The buildings are less important than their contents. John Carter Brown Library offers the most complete collection of colonial documents in the Americas until their independence in the 1820s. The 14-story Hesburgh Library, at Notre Dame, filled with books on shelves accessible to readers, is the delight of any researcher. Its valuable collections include specialized collections on Jonathan Swift, Edmund Burke and the legacy of José Durand, a Peruvian poet who was devoted to Hispanic literary treasures accumulated from the time of The Inca, Garcilaso de la Vega.

Open until after midnight, their central libraries usually have available on their first floors the most recent issues of hundreds of newspapers and journals. The Internet age has served to expand these services. They serve students, of course, but libraries are also the natural market of the book. The volume of their demand ensures minimum changes to the publishing world, which also benefits teachers and writers, knowledge and research.

The American campus is best seen in the smaller towns, not in the capital cities. Many have fascinating stories, like the one told by Father Edward Sorin, who with other brothers of the Congregation of Sainte-Croix, established in 1842 at the edge of a lake soon to be known as the University of Notre Dame. Its beautiful campus retains the spirit of recollection of those French missionaries, and it is the house of an exquisite collection of art in the Snite Museum.

Sorin’s vision and that of others who decided to establish universities just as early in remote sites is not surprising. Through its geographical dispersion, the American campus is a decentralized source of progress. Today, South Bend proudly has a museum of Studebakers, an automotive symbol of its industrial past, but the university is perhaps the engine of its economic life.

It is important to recognize the global leadership of U.S. higher education. It has almost no rival in other countries, with the exception of a few universities, particularly in Britain. Part of its success lies in the rich endowments given by philanthropic entrepreneurs, but it also lies in a vision for progress which very quickly understood the value of education. Those who insist on the refrain of the decline of the United States should visit the American campus.