Why is "excellence" a bad word? It's not, in and of itself. But people around universities who use it are people who want to talk about worldly distinction without talking about ethics. "Excellence" means we're smart, we're accomplished, we're successful--and we can be these things without any obligation to help our fellow human beings. When colleges start talking about "humane excellence" or "generous excellence," then I'll want to listen.

You also have my permission--in fact my encouragement--to gently snout-pop people who talk about "leadership." Why is leadership so bad? In itself, it's not. But what people usually mean by a leader now is someone who, in a very energetic, upbeat way, shares all of the values of the people who are in charge. . . .

The residents of scholarly enclaves are harder to spot than the denizens of the corporate university, and I can't give you a definitive field guide to finding them. But I'll say first that they don't talk about being a leader and being an entrepreneur. They talk about working in a lab or developing a questionnaire for psychological research or writing a novel, or getting people who don't belong in jail out of jail, or defending their country against its enemies. And they are not smiling all the time. They are aware of the enormous gap between what humans aspire to and what remains to be done. They tend to take joy in their work, but they never feel that they have quite gotten it right. The people in the corporate university are forever pleased with themselves. They are always succeeding, getting A's that will soon be converted into dollars.

Mark Edmundson, "The Corporate City"