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The author, Ronald J. Daniels, is president of Johns Hopkins University. A key point of his article is that college is not providing the sort of well-rounded education that produces citizens who can think clearly and sort out the misinformation that is increasingly prevalent.
Interesting premise, Mr. Daniels: Students entering college are not well rounded and capable of thinking clearly and sorting through misinformation; nor are college graduates. Who does that leave, aside from Mr. Daniels himself?
Perhaps Mr. Daniels might look at his own skills and abilities. One might ask him a few questions, such as (1) What evidence is there that anything he claims is actually true? (2) What evidence is there that colleges are inherently capable of producing well rounded citizens who can think clearly (i.e., agree with Daniels's own world view, I suppose)? (3) Has Mr. Daniels examined his own faculty to see who is in fact well rounded? (4) Is he actually proposing that those who do not attend college -- or those in STEM fields -- are incapable of critical thinking, or that they are necessarily not well rounded?
Charles Murray proposed a test concerning life in a bubble. Look at the questions, and answer as you might think Mr. Daniels would. Well rounded?
I disagree. I argue just the opposite: Universities have not adapted. Far too many still operate as if it were the world of the 1920s when the nation's elite would attend an Ivy & major in the humanities and go on to a career in the public sector - say, in the State Department - or perhaps go on to Law School or on to a New York major bank. That was in an era when 60% of the US population was directly involved in agriculture. That world doesn’t exist any more.
Reliably, every decade, noted universities will appoint a blue-ribbon panel of professors in the Humanities & Liberal Arts to ask, "are we still relevant?"
Reliably, when you ask professors in the Humanities to evaluate if they should continue to exist, they say "yes, we still matter."
We are all shocked at this conclusion [/sarcasm]
At the same time, at the University of Wisconsin, you can study Elvish as a foreign language -- Elvish as in Lord of the Rings Elvish. As a foreign language. Yes, Elvish satisfies a foreign language requirement at Wisconsin.
Sadly, far too many academics in the humanities believe "vocationally-oriented" is profanity. Worse: it is a trigger word for them, as they see such programs as a threat to their jobs & livelihood.
While supposedly being capable of Thinking Great Thoughts, they somehow miss the clear changes in our country. For example, any review of the demographics of America concludes that America is aging: for the first time in history, there are now more Americans over the age of 65 than under the age of 5; in a few short decades, the number of Americans over the age of 65 will be DOUBLE the number under the age of 5.
We don’t need universities to manufacture more graduates in Philosophy or Comparative Literature or Educational Psychology or Intercultural Studies or Gender Studies.
We need universities to produce more (gasp!) physical therapists, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, licensed vocational nurses, registered nurses, nurse-practitioners, pharmacy technicians -- and yes, more physicians over every flavor, but especially geriatric specialists and gerontologists.
In other words, we need universities to produce more vocationally-oriented programs and program graduates.
Yet Universities - and in particular Professors in the Humanities - disparage such "vocationally-oriented" programs. They somehow think courses such as Elivsh at Wisconsin or – get this – “Mail Order Brides: Understanding the Philippines” at John Hopkins University (you know, the university led by the author of the Washinton Post piece) prepare students to be good citizens.
News Flash: you can’t be a good citizen if, upon graduation, you’re only qualified to ask “do you want fried with that?”
In 1950, guess what the tuition for a year at Harvard University was. Go ahead: guess. Then scroll down for the answer.
In 1950, tuition for a full academic year at Harvard was $600.
The primary explosion in University budgets -- and hence tuition and other costs of a university education -- has not been in the teaching of core classes. It has been in administrative bloat, and an “arms race” to provide students with new and luxurious dorms and all manner of not-academically-related expensive facilities.
There is much truth to the old saw that Universities exist for 3 reasons: sex for the students, football for the alumni, and parking spaces for the administration.
Universities could -- but do not -- cut administrative bloat to fund core academics. They just don't do that, any more than local school districts cut their administrative bloat to fund more in-classroom teachers and aids.
Moreover, modern Universities do not do a good job at producing people capable of rigorous analytical thought. We see this all over C-D forums - people who lack if-then-else logical thought processes.
News flash: there is no evidence that Humanities majors have better critical thinking skills than solid-state physics majors. In fact, there is plenty of evidence of the opposite.
Some of the best critical thinkers I've ever met have academic backgrounds in electrical engineering, mathematics, high energy particle physics, chemical engineering, financial economics, mathematical economics, mechanical engineering, and other rigorous fields.
Some of the most fuzzy, rigor-free thinkers I've ever run across are -- surprise -- lit majors. The truly sad thing is they don't realize they exhibit fuzzy thinking and lack rigor.
As always, YMMV.
Excellent points.
I would go even farther back than the 1920s. In many cases, the humanities departments feel like they should be serving the children of "American royalty," people like the Rockefellers or Vanderbilts, especially at the "universities that matter."
The need to train and educate professionals for the "jobs of tomorrow" is being poorly met. Professional associations like the AMA can artificially constrict the supply of medical doctors. There is simply no need for someone who wants to be an RN, physical therapist, etc., to go through needless art history and similar courses. A community college or trade school would be much better equippped to train professionals like this than a typical four-year university.
I started at a regional state university back in 2004. At the time, the male and female dorms were spartan, and were built when my parents attended the same insitution in the late 1970s. By 2005-2006, the administration decided that those dorms were no longer adequate, tore them down, and by 2008, had built a new, palatial, co-ed dorm that is still nicer than any private apartment complex in the city.
A new "center for physical activity" was also being built concurrently with this dorm project. The school terminated its football program in 2003 or 2004. The gym is still by far the premiere health club in the area, but guess what, it's only open to students, faculty/staff, and immediate family of staff/faculty. The school could make a tidy sum by selling memberships, but there's no interest in doing so.
Since then, the school revived its football program, built additional administrative/dorm/athletic buildings while core academic buildings need renovations, and has generally spent money hand over fist. The bottom line is that the administration doesn't care because the property is essentially an extension of their lifestyle, while the costs are borne by others.
Meanwhile, a now deceased former professor and friend of mine, detailed in his autobiography under a pseudonym that he his salary as a full professor of psychology was about $70,000 per year. The basketball coach, while very successful, makes well over half a million dollars a year at a mid-major college.
In addition to courses such as "Elivsh" in the foreign language department at Wisconsin and "Mail Order Brides"at John Hopkins, see the following. These are actual course titles.
Getting Dressed– Princeton University. The freshman seminar looks at clothing as a ‘social force’.
The Strategy of StarCraft– UC Berkeley. Students learn strategies of the online game.
American Pro Wrestling– MIT. The course explores the history of wrestling.
The Art of Walking– Centre College.
Tree Climbing– Cornell University. A physical elective.
Underwater Basket Weaving– University of Hawaii. <== No, this is not a joke. It is a real class.
UFOs in American Society– Temple University.
The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie– Occidental College
In addition to courses such as "Elivsh" in the foreign language department at Wisconsin and "Mail Order Brides"at John Hopkins, see the following. These are actual course titles.
Getting Dressed– Princeton University. The freshman seminar looks at clothing as a ‘social force’.
The Strategy of StarCraft– UC Berkeley. Students learn strategies of the online game.
American Pro Wrestling– MIT. The course explores the history of wrestling.
The Art of Walking– Centre College.
Tree Climbing– Cornell University. A physical elective.
Underwater Basket Weaving– University of Hawaii. <== No, this is not a joke. It is a real class.
UFOs in American Society– Temple University.
The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie– Occidental College
I like to bag on these kinds of class as well. But across many schools most oddball classes are often taken for no credit or they are 1 or 2 hour fill in classes. FE - long ago I took a 1 hr. class.........think it was called intro to Fly Fishing and a wine tasting class that was 1 hr. and an analysis of Rock and Roll and drugs, that class was 80% centered Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Blue Cheer and The Grateful Dead. At Rice I took a 3 hour photography class pass/fail........the pre-agreed deal was for a P you needed to showed up, try a little and take the final.
Sadly, far too many academics in the humanities believe "vocationally-oriented" is profanity. Worse: it is a trigger word for them, as they see such programs as a threat to their jobs & livelihood.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RationalExpectations;
In 1950, tuition for a full academic year at Harvard was $600.
Thanks for contributing! I'm working my way through your dissertation in stages. .
I didn't mean to give the impression that the UW is stuck in the past. Others on C-D have told me it has a great computer tech program, and strong STEM offerings in general. It covers all the bases. What I meant was, that it hasn't had to abandon its humanities departments. Although now that you (and the OP and others) bring all this up, I wonder how its English Dept. is doing. But unexpectedly, other humanities depts. have expanded, not shrunk.
Somehow, Romance Languages got so popular (?! Go figure), that it split into two separate departments. Native American Studies is no longer a small program in the Anthropology Dept; it's its own independent department, and has increased its faculty. Slavic Langs. has also managed to expand, now offering Georgian and Ukrainian. Scandinavian Langs. has expanded, now offering Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, and Finnish, has added a Baltic Studies program and a Scandinavian Area Studies program (it's no longer purely a languages and literature department), and offers internships to students who major in what some might regard as these marginal languages, for career preparation. What used to be Russian & East European Studies expanded over 20 years ago to include Central Asian Studies (the ex-Soviet "stans"), which has a popular summer intensive language program in Trukic languages that the NSA and State Department send their staff to, to pick up those strategic languages.
So I suppose you could say, that in a way, the UW has adapted, it has "risen to the challenge", but not in the direction some on this thread are talking about. They've adapted in part by not only re-tooling in response to world events (the crash of USSR & subsequent emergence of "new" countries, for ex.), but also by developing ancillary programs and internships that make them relevant to voc-ed, you might say, and do a much better job of preparing their humanities graduates for jobs in the real world. Where the money came from to hire all those new faculty, I have no idea, but as I noted before, some departments slated for elimination defended themselves by becoming very effective at fundraising.
(Yes, I know my examples are heavy on languages and Area Studies, leaving out a lot of other humanities examples, but it's because that's what I'm interested in, so growth in those subjects is what I've been following.)
I can only imagine that "Elvish" at the U of Wisc. is an elective, not an actual program of study. I have a friend teaching at a private university in PA, who dreams up all kinds of imaginative titles for her Chinese literature courses: "Sex and Drinking in the Tang Dynasty", or some such. It doesn't mean the students are studying sex and drinking. It gets them interested in Chinese literature and also attracts non-language majors as a literature (humanities) general education course credit option. (For that, she won a teaching award from an organization in NY that supports innovative and creative teaching on the university level, btw, and someone from Columbia U. at the award ceremony tried to hire her away, offering her a job at Columbia on the spot.)
So we could sit here and pick apart what sound like nutty course offerings at different universities, to show how frivolous the humanities have become, but all that would achieve, would be to make us sound like old fuddy-duddies, who don't have an understanding of what's really going on in those courses or programs.
OTOH, I think you do have a point about some small universities being stuck in the past. Small, private universities around the country are closing their doors for the very reasons you mention. Some of those originally started as religious schools, then adapted in the 60's and 70's by going secular and trying to modernize. Some still are religious-affiliated schools. They're not surviving.
RE: Harvard tuition in 1950-- $600 was a lot of money back then. It was the equivalent of a couple months' pay (or more) for junior faculty. There's been enormous inflation since then, so naturally tuition has increased to keep pace. And I wouldn't know specifically, but perhaps Harvard has also grown since 1950, adding departments and programs (along with a few admins to oversee that). Also, back in the 90's, universities had to hire an Ombudsman on Sexual Harassment (this is a very real concern; too many faculty behaving in a predatory manner toward women students), and other specialized administrators.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 12-31-2019 at 11:12 AM..
I would go even farther back than the 1920s. In many cases, the humanities departments feel like they should be serving the children of "American royalty," people like the Rockefellers or Vanderbilts, especially at the "universities that matter."
The need to train and educate professionals for the "jobs of tomorrow" is being poorly met. Professional associations like the AMA can artificially constrict the supply of medical doctors. There is simply no need for someone who wants to be an RN, physical therapist, etc., to go through needless art history and similar courses. A community college or trade school would be much better equippped to train professionals like this than a typical four-year university.
I started at a regional state university back in 2004. At the time, the male and female dorms were spartan, and were built when my parents attended the same insitution in the late 1970s. By 2005-2006, the administration decided that those dorms were no longer adequate, tore them down, and by 2008, had built a new, palatial, co-ed dorm that is still nicer than any private apartment complex in the city.
A new "center for physical activity" was also being built concurrently with this dorm project. The school terminated its football program in 2003 or 2004. The gym is still by far the premiere health club in the area, but guess what, it's only open to students, faculty/staff, and immediate family of staff/faculty. The school could make a tidy sum by selling memberships, but there's no interest in doing so.
Since then, the school revived its football program, built additional administrative/dorm/athletic buildings while core academic buildings need renovations, and has generally spent money hand over fist. The bottom line is that the administration doesn't care because the property is essentially an extension of their lifestyle, while the costs are borne by others.
Meanwhile, a now deceased former professor and friend of mine, detailed in his autobiography under a pseudonym that he his salary as a full professor of psychology was about $70,000 per year. The basketball coach, while very successful, makes well over half a million dollars a year at a mid-major college.
Physical therapy now requires a doctorate. Even decades ago, it required a master’s degree. I am not sure how nerds could be met in community college. Most hospitals are now requiring at least a BSN, which is also best offered in a 4-year setting.
The primary explosion in University budgets -- and hence tuition and other costs of a university education -- has not been in the teaching of core classes. It has been in administrative bloat, and an “arms race” to provide students with new and luxurious dorms and all manner of not-academically-related expensive facilities.
There is much truth to the old saw that Universities exist for 3 reasons: sex for the students, football for the alumni, and parking spaces for the administration.
Universities could -- but do not -- cut administrative bloat to fund core academics. They just don't do that, any more than local school districts cut their administrative bloat to fund more in-classroom teachers and aids.
Moreover, modern Universities do not do a good job at producing people capable of rigorous analytical thought. We see this all over C-D forums - people who lack if-then-else logical thought processes.
News flash: there is no evidence that Humanities majors have better critical thinking skills than solid-state physics majors. In fact, there is plenty of evidence of the opposite.
Some of the best critical thinkers I've ever met have academic backgrounds in electrical engineering, mathematics, high energy particle physics, chemical engineering, financial economics, mathematical economics, mechanical engineering, and other rigorous fields.
Some of the most fuzzy, rigor-free thinkers I've ever run across are -- surprise -- lit majors. The truly sad thing is they don't realize they exhibit fuzzy thinking and lack rigor.
As always, YMMV.
The issue of seemingly luxurious dorms and other perks to attract students has been acknowledged and discussed nation-wide in the media. But physical plant budgets at universities are a separate budget from academics. To some extent, they're sourced differently. Building fancy dorms doesn't take money away from academic programs and faculty pay.
How interesting, that you would assume that the people on C-D who have trouble with reading comprehension and with articulating their thoughts clearly are people who have been through 4 years of college. It should be pretty clear from some of the points they try to make, that they have not. To the contrary, they're good examples of why voters need to go to college.
Physics majors and computer-tech majors may or may not have good critical thinking skills regarding political and social issues facing society and the world at large. But "breadth" requirements aren't only about critical thinking skills.
They're about turning out well-rounded people who understand how our society and the world got to where it is today via seminal events in history, and our country's role in shaping the issues facing entire geographic regions that in turn, impact our nation. (History does come back to bite us in the present.) Breadth requirements also are aimed at fostering at least some familiarity with the arts in those STEM majors, if not an actual appreciation for music, theater, art or dance. "Who needs the arts" you might ask. Well, that's how I feel about literature altogether, but for some reason, people think literature is important. I also feel that way about advanced math, so...whatever; one person's basic skill is another person's fluff.
But universities don't want to churn out grads with tunnel vision. Being an "educated" citizen is more than learning how to code, or to use science to create new weaponry.
I live near a national science lab. One of the physicists occasionally leads meditation workshops at one of the local Buddhist centers. Some of those physicists are cool guys, and it's because they're not the all-science channel all the time. They support the local opera or symphony, are intelligently involved in the politics of the region, and are happier and more fulfilled for it. They're not going around ranting about how useless their humanities and arts requirements in college were. They're smarter than that.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 12-31-2019 at 10:39 AM..
At the same time, at the University of Wisconsin, you can study Elvish as a foreign language -- Elvish as in Lord of the Rings Elvish. As a foreign language. Yes, Elvish satisfies a foreign language requirement at Wisconsin.
This assertion sounded a little fishy, so I've done some snooping around the web, and pulled the below quote from a website on the subject:
If you love Legolas, you should seriously consider the University of Wisconsin where Tolkien scholar and linguist David Salo teaches a course on elvish, the language that Tolkien, himself a master linguist, created for Middle Earth.
In addition, there is an extensive list of articles about David Salo, who received a Masters in Linguistics from Wisconsin. Apparently Salo, from childhood, read/studied J.R.R. Tolkein and, as a young adult, had acquired such a unique and detailed knowledge of linguistics, generally, and the fictional world of Tolkien, specifically, he was actually hired as consultant by "The Lord of the Rings" filmmakers to devise screen dialogue in Elvish, Dwarvish, and other languages for the TLOTR trilogy.
So given this, it seems a bit of a reach and, indeed, unfair to say one can "... study Elvish as a foreign language" at Wisconsin when, in reality, one can take a course with an expert -- the guy who actually studied and devised this fictional language for one of the largest grossing film series in Hollywood history-- and learn about this mythical language, Elvish, in the context of real life linguistics, which at the level Prof. Salo learned it and is undoubtedly teaching it is, no doubt, quite complex.... call me crazy, but this actually speaks well of the University of Wisconsin, and students there are very fortunate to have a teacher and a course of this college, not to learn Elvish, per se, but to learn the mechanics of language itself.
In addition to courses such as "Elivsh" in the foreign language department at Wisconsin and "Mail Order Brides"at John Hopkins, see the following. These are actual course titles.
Getting Dressed– Princeton University. The freshman seminar looks at clothing as a ‘social force’.
The Strategy of StarCraft– UC Berkeley. Students learn strategies of the online game.
American Pro Wrestling– MIT. The course explores the history of wrestling.
The Art of Walking– Centre College.
Tree Climbing– Cornell University. A physical elective.
Underwater Basket Weaving– University of Hawaii. <== No, this is not a joke. It is a real class.
UFOs in American Society– Temple University.
The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie– Occidental College
What's wrong with Tree Climbing? It's a PE class so it would be good exercise. But seriously, technical climbing is a real skill done by arborists and researchers. So why not a class in it?
Sure, everyone loves to poke fun at course names, but all college students need a bit of expansion beyond just their major. I took golf as my PE course in college. Lots of business deals are made on the golf course. Daughter took dance while getting her degree in physics.
The military academies have classes in the social graces, wine, formal dining, and mixology. Why would they waste time on that? Probably because all those things are part of participating in polite society. It's a recognition that functioning in society as a whole is not just about engineering but being able to relate to the customers, the fund raisers, and the rest of the world, other countries and cultures. "to walk with kings nor lose the common touch."
Here's an interesting YouTube clip: If you watch it all the way through, less than half her day is spent doing hardcore technical work. The rest is spent in working with others, outreach, and a social event.
The issue of seemingly luxurious dorms and other perks to attract students has been acknowledged and discussed nation-wide in the media. But physical plant budgets at universities are a separate budget from academics. To some extent, they're sourced differently. Building fancy dorms doesn't take money away from academic programs and faculty pay.
....
I started to respond to this earlier and didn't. But since you've picked up on it as well, I'll go ahead and comment. The idea of "luxury" dorms seems prevalent out there, but the reality is far different. Sure, they probably exist somewhere, but they are far from the norm. None of the schools we visited, nor that my kids attended/attend, have anything approaching a "luxury" dorm. Unless you consider drywall, carpet, and hall baths luxury. Where my daughter attended, the university did tear down a set of barracks (yes, they were originally built just after WW 2 as barracks) and build 11 new dorms and two new dining halls. But none of them were luxury by any stretch. Daughter was an RA and helped move the furniture into them. It was all particle board and laminate. Not even any closets in the rooms, just wardrobe cabinets. Now perhaps some would consider the community bathrooms luxury because they had a door on them. But that was so they could be used by either sex and provide more flexibility in use of the space.
Why build new dorms? Oh my! Well, in 1980 there were 9000 students. In 2018 there were 25,000 so even with the new dorms there was still not enough space for even half the student body.
And while building all that, they also built a new multi purpose lab, new bio engineering, new genetics and new chemistry building. Because all those additional students need additional classroom and lab space. Because to be a first rate academic facility today, you need first rate research.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
...
I live near a national science lab. One of the physicists occasionally leads meditation workshops at one of the local Buddhist centers. Some of those physicists are cool guys, and it's because they're not the all-science channel all the time. They support the local opera or symphony, are intelligently involved in the politics of the region, and are happier and more fulfilled for it. They're not going around ranting about how useless their humanities and arts requirements in college were. They're smarter than that.
I work in a national lab and concur with everything you just said. Even among the staff there are those who are of the "just let me code" variety who are great people but will never rise up the ladder. And there are those who have a bigger picture of where science fits into the grands scheme of things. They will be the future leaders.
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