Editor,
I wish to correct misinformation about the Institute for Advanced Study at
Princeton contained in the article describing the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced
Studies in UBC Reports (Dec.
12). Contrary to what is stated, the Princeton Institute does not “focus
primarily on the hard sciences with little presence in the social sciences and
humanities.” In fact, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton consists
of four separate schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences
and Social Science. Each school has its own permanent faculty of distinguished
professors and emeritii and each year selects by competition a number of visiting
members who are usually appointed for one year and supported by fellowships.
What results is a stimulating international company of nearly 200 scholars drawn
from every continent, ranging in age from 25 to 70, and embracing the broadest
imaginable spectrum of intellectual interest. Having been privileged to experience
the intellectual excitement of membership in the Princeton Institute, I can
recommend it as the ideal target for the aspirations of those engaged in setting
up the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC.
Unfortunately, if the first major thematic research project is typical of
what we may expect in the future, UBC’s version of an Institute for Advanced
Studies offers scant prospect of winning the worldwide recognition “as the pre-eminent
institute focused on basic research linking all fields of enquiry” that its
director seeks. The narrowly utilitarian thrust of the topics selected by the
crisis points group for their endeavours promises no escape from the confining
limits of our own time and place. What true depth of understanding of “crisis
points” in human affairs can be gained when there is no historian to provide
the perspective of past experience, no philosopher to define the moral and ethical
conflicts that crises invariably provoke, no student of literature, art or music
to show how the human spirit responds creatively to crisis and nobody speaking
another language from another culture to offer a different view on “crisis points?”
Clearly we must look to the other initiatives mentioned in the article “to
build a new type of creative environment” for UBC’s Institute — “the three
world-class scholars” perhaps, brought in to discuss ideas amongst themselves
and generate a “global interactive discussion” on the World Wide Web. Their
ruminations, I fear, are no more likely to endow distinction on the Institute
than the presence of three tenors guarantees world-class status for the city
that entertains them.
Prof. James Russell
Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies
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