ACTA's Must-Reads

Anne Neal decries the second draft's "studiously process-oriented focus on how to make colleges and universities more accessible, more affordable, and more accountable". Well, at least in Oregon, where I teach, that is exactly what the state board cares about, in that exact order. A reconstituted core is not high on anyone's agenda, it's not on anyone's agenda at all. Anne Neal surely knows that the core battle was fought and lost at the University of Chicago, where they got more and better students when they watered down their estimable core.

Why is anyone surprised that the commission would care about what the past presidents of MIT and Michigan have to say more than the opinions of a few outsiders? Anyhow, the commission appears to have at least as much corporate as higher education representation.

And by the way, whose commission is this? Margaret Spellings? Who is Margaret Spellings? Secretary of education, and former Bush operative and school board assocation hack from Texas. Aside from her current fortuitous position, who cares what she thinks?

Sorry, I've resisted grade inflation more than most, grumbled about the debased general education curriculum plenty, but this is how the real situation looks to me!

Why isn't the DRAFT "published" and given wide distribution as "The REAL Education Department's Commission on the Future of Higher Education Report?"

Why is anyone surprised that the commission would care about what the past presidents of MIT and Michigan have to say more than the opinions of a few outsiders?

I will venture that no one is surprised by that, or by your presupposition that the madam is best equipped to clean up the whorehouse.

surely knows that the core battle was fought and lost at the University of Chicago, where they got more and better students when they watered down their estimable core.

Just out of curiosity, how is 'better students' defined, and by what method was the cause of the recruitment of same attributed to relaxing course requirements?

And a question Allen Bloom asked which has not been answered: if the construction of a core curriculum is an impossible, wasteful, or pernicious activity, what is the justification for requiring students to spend more than two years on a campus, and to devote time and money to anything but the study of their chosen field?

Art D: I didn't make any such presupposition as you, well, suppose. But I would take issue with the notion that MIT is a whorehouse.

Better students: better SAT's, class rank. If you know of better ways to measure "better", I'd be interested. And more students. Chicago was way underachieving in these areas. How do I know? The administration there talked about it before and after. I also talked with faculty friends there, both pro and anti the changes. They all acknowledged the problem.

I didn't say a core was impossible, what I would say is that experience of the past 40 years has shown that most students don't want it, including the best (or "best") students.

I do believe some kind of general education is desirable, necessary. Whether a University of Chicago style core is the best or only way to do general education, I'm far less sure. I think it depends. I think it was good that Chicago had what it had, even if in the end it wasn't working for them. I don't think a "core" would be the right thing at Caltech, even though they have a pretty good general education program.

When I was a grad student at Chicago, I was very impressed with the undergraduate program. Looking back, the glasses are less rosy.

Art D: I didn't make any such presupposition as you, well, suppose. But I would take issue with the notion that MIT is a whorehouse.

It was a simile.

Better students: better SAT's, class rank. If you know of better ways to measure "better", I'd be interested. And more students. Chicago was way underachieving in these areas. How do I know? The administration there talked about it before and after. I also talked with faculty friends there, both pro and anti the changes. They all acknowledged the problem.

I do not know a better way, other than the administration of entrance examinations. I was asking you how you were using the phrase. You do not say how this improvement can be attributed to changes in the curriculum. If the University of Chicago is like the institution I know best, quantitative analysis of data on admissions of the sort that would be necessary is done infrequently and/or seldom distributed to the faculty at large. At that same institution, the faculty chat had it that the quality of the student body improved after some amendments to the manner in which financial aid packages were assembled. They may have told you that as well. Statistics on the quality of the incoming student body are not difficult to come by and are often published in summary form (tho' one lecturer insists to me that the books are cooked). As to what to attribute that, faculty impressions are unreliable.

By the way, when I was looking at colleges a generation ago, the University of Chicago was not underperforming at all as regards their recruitment. A guidebook of that era rank-ordered all institutions into nine-categories as to the rigor of their admissions process. IIRC, the University of Chicago was of the second category, parallel to UC Berkeley, among others.

For what that is worth. Institutional performance is ideally assessed by what the institution's efforts contribute to the student's intellectual development. Critics of the Ivy League et al. (among them Thos. Sowell) have contended that this factor varies little accross the range of institutional selectivity: Harvard ain't much better than SUNY Binghamton with students of a given aptitude going in. They have their studies, though how many and of what validity I cannot tell you.

Of course, recruiting more preternaturally intelligent students may make the faculty's job more enjoyable.

I didn't say a core was impossible, what I would say is that experience of the past 40 years has shown that most students don't want it, including the best (or "best") students.

Somehow, I suspect that there are limits to the degrees to which institutions and the professors within them are willing to make their offers demand-driven. That institution I made reference to above maintains quite a portfolio of inter-disciplinary programs that lack for aught but a body of students willing to declare a major in them (and some of these programs are of dubious quality). They also invest considerable real estate, capital equipment, and manpower in chemistry. Alas, there are but two upperclass majors for each instructor on their payroll. (The mean for that institution is six). If you all are overworked at the University of Oregon, you might consider taking some of these redundant professors off their hands.

That aside, if an allergy to a core curriculum were a fully demand-driven phenomenon, I would have to interpret 'most' to mean 'almost all' students. An authentic core curriculum, as opposed to distribution requirements or the sort of synthetic courses which are very effective at providing the faculty opportunities to teach their avocations, is highly unusual.

Do you think the students are pleased with the distribution requirements or with having to take "Man and Nature" (I was not)? They are coughing up an awful lot of dough to be compelled to take a haphazard assemblage of courses called 'general education'. Two years or three years studying economics, or chemistry, or literature should do. Do your British colleagues tell you this does not work?

I do believe some kind of general education is desirable, necessary. Whether a University of Chicago style core is the best or only way to do general education, I'm far less sure. I think it depends. I think it was good that Chicago had what it had, even if in the end it wasn't working for them. I don't think a "core" would be the right thing at Caltech, even though they have a pretty good general education program.

I suspect general and liberal education useful for a certain sort of student to find their niche and for a certain sort of student to be trained to use well their leisure. I would prefer a serious effort to reconstruct and revivify secondary education in this country, liberal and vocational alike, as the proper locus for such. I have looked at samples entrance examinations for common-and-garden colleges administered ca. 1930, and I am embarrassed for myself.

*It was a simile.

A metaphor? But it doesn�t matter. The fact is, the former president of MIT is going to have a lot of credibility. So are the corporate types who apparently didn�t get along with the head of the commission�s little band of consultants.

*By the way, when I was looking at colleges a generation ago, the University of Chicago was not underperforming at all as regards their recruitment. A guidebook of that era rank-ordered all institutions into nine-categories as to the rigor of their admissions process. IIRC, the University of Chicago was of the second category, parallel to UC Berkeley, among others.

*This actually demonstrates my point! Especially a generation ago, Chicago was one of the very best universities in the country, the world. But the undergraduate students they were getting were "second category", as you very aptly put it. In the same category as Berkeley, a huge state university, distinguished as its faculty undoubtedly was, especially at that time.

*Harvard ain't much better than SUNY Binghamton with students of a given aptitude going in.

*Maybe, maybe not. The study I know was by people at Princeton. Interpreting their study is a long task for another time. But the fact is, the best students prefer Harvard over SUNY, overwhelmingly. Maybe they're just dumb, maybe they're being outfoxed by the even smarter Harvard faculty. I'll tell you this, though. I know a lot of faculty at the University of Oregon. When they're kids get into Harvard, generally with a great financial package, very few of them choose Oregon instead. That�s not knocking Oregon. I'll bet it's the same elsewhere.

Of course, recruiting more preternaturally intelligent students may make the faculty's job more enjoyable.

Of course! The smartest students want to be with the smartest faculty.

I couldn't make sense of the next part of your post. If you're saying that Oregon should hire surplus Harvard chemistry professors, if you know any that would be interested in moving here, have them give me a call.

An authentic core curriculum, as opposed to distribution requirements or the sort of synthetic courses which are very effective at providing the faculty opportunities to teach their avocations, is highly unusual.

That's sort of my point, it's a kind of hot-house item nowadays. If anyone thinks the federal government is going to get the country's colleges to adopt them, they're just dreaming.

Do you think the students are pleased with the distribution requirements or with having to take "Man and Nature" (I was not)?

Most of them would probably be all too happy to dispense with them. Just as the sociology majors would prefer not to take any math or science. That doesn't mean they should be allowed to. They take little enough as it is. Now I'm beginning to sound like Anne Neal, aren't I!

Two years or three years studying economics, or chemistry, or literature should do.

Four years is barely enough to do chemistry nowadays, with the distribution requirements (which I'm told are not that onerous, given the astonishing ease of the liberal arts courses). I doubt that economics is much different.

Do your British colleagues tell you this does not work?

Actually, yes, a lot of them think things are very badly broken over there.

I suspect general and liberal education useful for a certain sort of student to find their niche and for a certain sort of student to be trained to use well their leisure.

Well, for better or worse, American science and engineering programs universally desire some general education for their students. Perhaps they are deluded, but that's how it is.

I have looked at samples entrance examinations for common-and-garden colleges administered ca. 1930, and I am embarrassed for myself.

I don't know how seriously to take those entrance exams. What did it take to pass? I don't know! But one thing I'll tell you, look at the chemistry or physics or engineering texts from 1930 compared to now. There's no comparison.