The role of universities in bridging gaps among cultures, civilizations, and people

Abstract EN

The paper is concerned with defining the role of universities in bridging gaps among cultures, civilizations and people in an age of globalization.

Universities' policies and statements of missions, it is maintained, lack adequate interest in promoting mutual human recognition, tolerance, as well as constructing intellectual bridges across cultures.

The paper emphasizes the urgent need for offering study materials (especially in the fields of social sciences and humanities) designed to achieve the above-mentioned humanistic goals.

The educational practices adopted at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and supported by the UNESCO in connection with gearing education to achieve humanistic ends are presented in the middle section of the paper as good examples of institutionalized preoccupation with the development of humanism-inspired curricula.

The paper also examines philosophical views of writers, social thinkers, and intellectuals on basic requirements of education at the present time, views which may well serve as sources of inspiration for academics to design modules concerned with promoting human understanding, reciprocal knowledge, and tolerance across cultural and civilizational boundaries.

The final part of the paper points out that the role of universities in these humanistic terms may well be enhanced if universities give more attention to teaching comparative literature, foreign languages and translation-three effective mediums for promoting better reciprocal knowledge of cultural, ethnic, and religious dimensions of other people, nations and communities.