ACTA's Must-Reads
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Good civic engagement requires civic literacy
This morning, both The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed report on a new study by the Association of American Colleges and Universities that says colleges are doing a lousy job, as IHE puts it, of "encouraging civic engagement and promoting good citizenship." ACTA agrees, and we are grateful that the AAC&U is putting a further spotlight on this problem. With that said, there is a crucial element missing from the discussion so far: civic literacy.
Most of the solutions proposed by the various experts quoted (the report itself is not available online) revolve around behaviors. But as ACTA's college-guide website, WhatWillTheyLearn.com, makes crystal clear, there is a knowledge issue here: Only 18 of the more than 125 colleges and universities on WhatWillTheyLearn.com require their students to take a survey course in U.S. government or history. Not surprisingly, college students regularly flunk basic surveys on these topics. Is it any surprise, then, that people who can't identify the three branches of government seldom vote -- or that those who have little awareness of the history that binds their nation together often do not feel called to serve their fellow citizens?
Those of us who want our colleges and universities to prepare informed citizens need to make sure we don't put the cart before the horse. Yes, behaviors such as voting and community service are important. But they must be undergirded by knowledge -- and ensuring a solid foundation of civic knowledge is a fundamental area in which our best-known colleges are, generally speaking, letting us down.
Posted by Charles Mitchell on September 30, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
On the purpose of our universities
Our friend Kevin Carey has a fine piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education in which he takes Harvard and other elite universities to task for having strayed from their purpose of undergraduate education. The real priority, he says, has rather become "the greater glory of elite higher education and the administrators and faculty members who work there." As a result, "Undergraduates are increasingly being used as decoration, passing strangers handy for photographs in brochures."
As we noted at the launch of our WhatWillTheyLearn.com website last month, education -- not reputation -- should be the primary focus of our universities. And not just any education, but one that puts students first and is mindful of its public purpose. As former Harvard College dean Harry Lewis recently remarked during morning prayer at Harvard's Memorial Church: "We were founded for civic purposes, and we have a responsibility to the society we serve... we are all here in the service of a public good that is larger than ourselves."
If the findings of our recent survey on general education requirements are any indication, too many of our country's leading universities and colleges have abdicated this responsibility to ensure the next generation possesses the skills and knowledge they need to become informed citizens and thoughtful leaders.
Posted by David Azerrad on September 29, 2009 at 05:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Reminding Virginia Tech
Readers of our blog will remember that in April, Virginia Tech agreed to shelve a controversial set of proposed tenure guidelines for one of its colleges, responding to pressure from ACTA, FIRE and the NAS. In applauding the decision, ACTA renewed the call it made in an earlier letter to the Board of Visitors for a comprehensive review of all tenure and promotion guidelines at the university.
With this same goal in mind, our friends at FIRE have also renewed the call in a 15-page letter to the head of the board, strongly urging the trustees to review all of "Virginia Tech's diversity policies insofar as they pertain to faculty assessment." Tenure decisions should be based on rigorous academic standards and not on politicized non-academic considerations.
Posted by David Azerrad on September 24, 2009 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Controlling grade inflation at Princeton
The percentage of A-range grades awarded at Princeton classes has fallen below 40%, as an article in today's Daily Princetonian reports. This is the result of an effort begun in 2004 by the university's Faculty Committee on Grading to reduce the number of A's given out in both the humanities and engineering departments, with the goal of lowering the percentage to 35%. The ultimate objective of the policy is to restore integrity to the grading system and to ensure that the letter on a student's transcript actually says something about the quality of his or her academic work--which is difficult if nearly half of students receive grades of "A" in their classes.
While this approach has not been without criticism--some professors have pointed out that the policy can restrict the freedom of individual faculty members--the Committee deserves credit for recognizing the problem posed by ever-increasing grade-point averages and deciding to do something about it. For more ideas on how colleges and universities can tame grade inflation, see ACTA's recent trustee guide, Measuring Up: The Problem of Grade Inflation and What Trustees Can Do.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on September 23, 2009 at 11:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
ACTA on CNN
On Friday, ACTA president Anne D. Neal appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight and stressed the importance of civic literacy in a democratic republic such as ours. Check it out:
Posted by David Azerrad on September 21, 2009 at 11:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Where was the board?
Inside HigherEd reports that the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey is being sued by the state for breach of fiduciary duty. According to the story, the complaint alleges that Stevens' president along with the chair and two vice-chairs of its board of trustees spent the university's endowment contrary to donor intent and board guidelines and improperly compensated the president, all the while concealing Stevens' deteriorating financial position from the rest of the board.
Although the full picture has yet to emerge, one thing is clear. Trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to ask questions and get answers. This case is an important lesson to all trustees and donors that good governing structures and careful monitoring are essential to ensure that endowments and other gifts are not misused.
Cole R. Milliard is an intern at ACTA and a third-year law student at The Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law.
Posted by Anne D. Neal on September 18, 2009 at 06:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In Memoriam
It is with sadness that we note the passing today of Irving Kristol, a founding member of ACTA's National Council and Donors Working Group. Mr. Kristol died in Washington DC, at the age of 89. He, his wife Gertrude Himmelfarb and son Bill have, all three, set remarkable standards of intellectual accomplishment, civic engagement and the life of the mind.
Irving and his family constitute what ACTA National Council Member Marty Peretz has called "a familial intellectual aristocracy. And no mean aristocracy it is." We will remember fondly Irving's lively engagement with ideas and the superlative example he set of vigorous participation in our democratic republic.
Posted by Anne D. Neal on September 18, 2009 at 05:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Civic illiteracy and our universities
Today is Constitution Day and as we all know from watching Leno's Jaywalking interviews, Americans are celebrating the ratification of a document whose basic principles few of them understand. While the evidence showing widespread civic illiteracy continues to mount, one question remains: What do we do about it?
Congress's solution was to implement Constitution Day, which requires "[e]ach educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year [to] hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17." But what about the other 364 days of the year?
Our latest report card on higher education reveals that universities must to do a much better job of educating the next generation of citizens. In What Will They Learn? we found that:
* None of the top 20 national universities, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, require their students to take a broad course in American history or government.
* Nationally, only 11 out of 100 leading universities ensure their students graduate having taken at least one broad course in American history or government.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free," said Thomas Jefferson, "it expects what never was and never will be."
Posted by David Azerrad on September 17, 2009 at 05:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
CUNY touts KC Johnson's Merrill Award
The City University of New York sent out a press release today announcing that Brooklyn College Professor KC Johnson had won ACTA's fifth annual Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education. Johnson will receive the award during a gala dinner at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., on November 6.
Posted by David Azerrad on September 14, 2009 at 06:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Why so low?
If you're interested in graduation rates, boy, was this your week. Yesterday, for instance, The Chronicle of Higher Education featured a "Special Report" on "Making College Graduation the Priority" and USA Today's Mary Beth Marklein published an attention-grabbing piece on a new book by William Bowen and others. Today, ACTA friend Rich Vedder has a characteristically interesting take on the issue over at Minding the Campus. Here's a snippet:
Let's look at a single university, the University of Texas (UT). At the UT flagship campus in Austin, they are proud of their 78 percent graduation rate after six years. What that does not reveal, however, is that fewer than half the students graduate in four years. Down the road at UT in San Antonio, the six-year graduation rate is a miserable 30 percent -while the four-year rate is in the single digits -7 percent. And it is even lower at UT El Paso. Looking at all public universities, whereas the six-year rate is around 55 percent, the four-year rate is under 30 percent -for every entering freshman who graduates in four years, there are more than two others that do not.Another reason why the already low graduation rates are perhaps an overstatement of the academic attainment of students is grade inflation. Very few persons flunk out of school these days. When I entered college over a half century ago, the average grade point average at American universities was around 2.5 -implying as many "C" grades were given as "B" grades. By the early 1990s, that average had risen to above 2.9, and today it is over 3.1 -more grades above "B" than below (according to gradeinflation.com) . Therefore, relatively few students today fail to meet minimal grade-point standards (usually around a 2.0 average).
Graduation rates are, by the way, one of the pieces of information supplied on ACTA's new college-guide website, WhatWillTheyLearn.com.
Posted by Charles Mitchell on September 10, 2009 at 09:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Applauding Stanley Fish
Over at Minding the Campus, ACTA friend Mark Bauerlein has a must-read column on famed academic Stanley Fish, who had some kind words for ACTA's What Will They Learn? project on his New York Times blog. If you agree with Mark that Professor Fish deserves some applause, you'll have the chance to give him some at our upcoming ATHENA Roundtable, where he will participate in a colloquy with Princeton professor Robert P. George.
Posted by Charles Mitchell on September 09, 2009 at 03:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Restoring a Core
In light of the findings in our recent What Will They Learn? report that many of our leading universities have a diffuse and impoverished curriculum, we unveiled today Restoring a Core, a short guide to help trustees strengthen the general education requirements at their institutions.
Restoring a Core succinctly explains the importance and continuing relevance of a core and lays out eight steps to implementing a coherent and rigorous curriculum that will prepare students to become informed citizens, productive workers and lifelong learners.
Whereas the companion website WhatWillTheyLearn.com aims to provide students and parents with the information that will allow them to vote with their feet and wallets, this trustee guide, which is being sent to the individual board members of nearly 600 institutions responsible for the education of more than six million students, aims to help universities themselves address the problem. As the guide reminds trustees, they "have a fiduciary obligation to ensure that students receive the kind of solid, coherent education they need to succeed."
Posted by David Azerrad on September 01, 2009 at 05:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack