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Mansfield and Meaning in College
Philip Merrill Award winner (and Harvard Professor) Harvey Mansfield recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal about "Sociology and Other Meathead Majors" He writes about the problematic "fact-value distinction": "Now the belief that there can be no knowledge of values means that all values are equally unsupported, which means that in the university all departments are equal. All courses are also equal; no requirements can be justified as fundamental or more important."
ACTA, of course, begs to differ with the status quo. We've proudly claimed that all college graduates worthy of the name should have taken a survey of literature and U.S. History, college level science, math, and foreign language, and a course dedicated to English composition.
Mansfield continues:
"Choice is king, except that there can be no king.It's no wonder, then, that students make poor choices, avoiding difficult courses, stumbling into easy ones, embracing counterfeit majors. One might hope that with common sense they could learn from experience, but according to the fact-value distinction, experience cannot be shown to give one better judgment. There is no 'better' judgment. That's what colleges teach their students these days."
We here at ACTA are glad to fight to turn around higher ed towards better judgment. But we're not alone. 18 colleges have grade A core curricula: is yours one?
Posted by Michael Pomeranz on June 03, 2011 at June 3, 2011 04:47 PM
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