The New University

Nowadays, it is difficult to imagine what a University is for. We can describe what it does; it teaches, researches, employs, and often irritates, but none of this is unique. We might talk about educating the next generation, pushing the boundaries of knowledge, or enriching our cultural lives, but this still doesn’t quite allow us to put our finger on why they exist in the way they do. Coe reimagines the University as a more civic and personal institution, believing we can get there through realigning our research to communal benefit, adopting outreach into the hardest to reach communities, using our positional power to purchase better, and using our cultural artefacts to draw people together in a society that currently feels fractured.