ACTA's Must-Reads

Heather MacDonald may be right that colleges are short-changing their students in not telling them more about what they should study. However, the disintegration of the curriculum has been mostly a reaction to demands of students and others, especially since the 1960's, but starting much earlier. I don't think things are likely to change again without pressure from outside the faculties or administrations (the latter of which are almost slavishly following student whims). But I don't see much demand for a more coherent curriculum coming from the students. Perhaps this will change?

In response to Mike's comment, above, my institution is bleeding students at an incredible rate, and a substantial number of these kids are leaving because they realize the "education" they are receiving is a joke. The stay for the first semester or maybe the whole first year, realize that we have moved almost entirely to a teach-yourself model (save when we're politically indoctrinating, of course) and that we have substituted core general education courses with fluff, in which we talk about "feelings" and such in lieu of actual intellectual work. When they compare what they are receiving here with the experiences of friends at other universities, they take off.

My best and brightest freshman students are generally gone by their sophomore year, if not sooner.

The university's answer to this has been to further capitulate to the demands of the lazier students.

I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't exist in a decade or so.

So there is, indeed, some backlash from students.

Winston, interesting observations you make. You're an adjunct, right? Didn't you say you were going to escape the adjunct rat track?

I would be interested to know what kind of school. A "good" school or something else?

Your observation about the administration is interesting too. They think they can keep the dough coming in by catering to the lowest class of students, even at the expense of losing the good ones. But maybe it will come back to bite them.

I don't see things as being like this where I teach, but I don't teach in the hum/socsci areas, so maybe I don't see what is going on.

In the natural sciences where I teach, I don't see much unhappiness about the courses being too easy, either the "regular" courses for science types, or the "rocks and stars science" that passes for general education.

Perhaps the best students leave, or at least perceive that they're having it too easy. If so, they keep pretty quiet about it.

Yeah, still an adjunct, though I have hopes of escaping that status--and this institution--soon.

I think that the general perception of this university is that it is a good university. I know that it regularly ranks quite high in U.S. News and World Report, though frankly, I can't see why. Yes, there are some departments that are doing a good job, but for the most part, the university is dropping the ball left and right in most areas, and we are suffering from both lowered standards and massive grade inflation.

The reason I am aware of why students leave is because they perceive me as someone who (1) maintains high standards in the classroom and (2) is as disenchanted as they are with the direction in which the university is moving. Those who are interested in working hard and trying to learn see me as someone who will gladly provide them with that opportunity. I will also teach them, something many of my colleagues have more or less abandoned. I actually lecture, and receive grief from my superiors for doing so.

So I hear things from my students they might not feel comfortable telling some of their other professors. I've also had to provide departing students with letters describing the content and expectations of my courses, when the universities they are trying to transfer to balk at transferring the units based on the official course descriptions.

I realize I'm being a little vague here, but I'm trying to avoid details that will make my institution identifiable and my employment precarious.

Winston, thanks for the info. You are wise to be discreet. Good luck in getting out of the adjunct cycled. As I've said before, there's life outside of academia.

Also contributing to the general collapse of academic standards at US institutions of "hire-earning" are the metastasizing number of egregiously non-academic (bogus) "disciplines", e.g., ethnic and "gender" studies (i.e., thinly-disguised social and political advocacy clubs), "peace studies" (i.e., anti-military, anti-patriotic propaganda mills), all "disciplines" with "sports", "leisure" or "recreation" in departmental titles, fizz-ed (an oxymoron), most "sike" and sosh", "edjuckashun" (hollow to the "Core"), comp-rhetoric (except for those trained in Latin and/or Greek), marketing (AKA hawking, pitching or sales), "hospitality" studies, "disability" studies, journalism, etc.