5
UNIVERSITIES, CULTURAL DIVERSITY
AND GLOBAL ETHICS: OPPORTUNITIES
FOR MORAL LEADERSHIP
Martin Prozesky5.1 Introduction
A project that seeks to develop values-driven leadership presents
today’s universities with an important new opportunity. It was
anticipated nearly a century ago when the eminent Harvard professor of
philosophy, Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) wrote prophetically
that the “task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as
rational thought, and civilized modes of appreciation, can affect the
issue.” (Whitehead 1938, 1966: 171) Now, several generations later, the
global future faces world-wide problems of a magnitude that were
unknown in his day, including environmental degradation, global
warming, gender discrimination, a deeply disrupted Middle East (as
westerners call it), inter- and inner-religious fanaticism that includes the
horror of video-taped beheadings, not to speak of the huge number of
the poor, homeless and unemployed around the world.
In addition to these problems there is widespread evidence of another
serious problem that is of great relevance to universities (and other
institutions) as they work for a worthwhile global future, especially