Research is increasingly overlooked as a fundamental part of the university experience (Marquette University/ Flickr CC)

In today's tight job market, increasingly, the public often views college as a way to learn the skills necessary to find a fulfilling career, but many don't realize that research is close to the heart of those who work in higher education. In his recent essay, The Soul of the Research Institution, Nicholas Lemann, staff writer at the New Yorker, defends the value of university research.

In Nashville last month, WGBH's On Campus sat down with Lemann to talk about research and higher education.

Interview highlights:

LEMANN: A lot of the life of the university just doesn't have to do with teaching people in a class, it has to do with highly trained professors conducting research to expand what is known.

CARAPEZZA: Why do you think university leaders are struggling to explain that research is critical to what they do?

LEMANN: Universities are big and they do a lot of different things. They have a lot of constituency groups that don't understand each other and have very different understandings of what the university is. So the football fan who lives and dies for the game on Saturdays in the fall is an important constituency group. So is the employer, so is the parent of the student, and so is the faculty member. And these people don't see each other and have a very little to do with each other. It falls to the senior administrators to try to sort of create some semblance of order and unity out of all this chaos. And I think a lot of senior administrators, they all known how important the research mission is, but a lot of them think just can't explain this to people.

You know being a research university is expensive and if on the consumer side it has very severe cost pressure research is something that can be trimmed to keep costs under control. So I do think the research mission in the university is under pressure now and will be under increasing pressure in the coming years.

CARAPEZZA: There's a lot of skepticism about the value of a college education. How do you think we should define a meaningful education?

LEMANN: My view is that universities should try to be more forthright about selling what they really believe in instead of telling people what they want to hear. You know, you're giving up a lot of ground when you say 'I'm just going to make our argument about research based on things like breakthrough cancer drugs and things that have an immediate, obvious practical application. And I'm just going to make my argument about curriculum based on what you can take out into the job market.' Because then you end up just cutting out a lot of what universities do, which I think is depriving people who go to college of a lot of the long term benefit of college.