Assertions about the irrelevance of universities are part of a broader and growing mistrust of institutions more generally,one fuelled by our intoxication with the power and charisma of the individual and the cult of celebrity.Government, business, non-profits are joined with universities as targets of suspicion and criticism.There are few countervailing voices to remind us how institutions serve and support us. We tend to take what they do for granted.Your food was safe; your blood test was reliable; your polling place was open; electricity was available when you flipped the switch.Your flight to Boston took off and landed according to rules and systems and organizations responsible for safe air travel.Just imagine a week or a month without this "civic infrastructure"without the institutions that undergird our society and without the commitment to our interdependence that created these structures of commonality in the first place.Think of the countries in West Africa that lacked the public health systems to contain Ebola and the devastation that resulted.
