How UT-Austin Administrators Destroyed an Intellectual Diversity Initiative
"Universities no longer even maintain the pretense of dispassionate rational and free inquiry, focusing instead on a particularly toxic and frankly absurd form of 'social-justice' activism, increasingly even in the hard sciences. Why does this situation persist? Here, I can contribute to our understanding, having had a front-row seat to perhaps the most spectacular failure of a higher-education reform effort in recent memory: the 'Liberty Institute' at the University of Texas at Austin." - The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, 7/1/22
GW defends Thomas appointment amid calls for removal from law school
"George Washington University rejected calls to remove Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas from its law school faculty by students and others frustratedover the judge’s vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and his urging to reconsider other landmark civil rights cases. In a message to the campus this week, officials defended Thomas, who has lectured at the law school since 2011." - Washington Post, 7/1/22
Va. Community College System Board Pressured by Governor
"The board of the Virginia Community College System agreed Wednesday to add a representative of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration to the search committee for a new chancellor. The move came after Youngkin told board members to include his administration in the search process or resign, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Youngkin has been pushing to be involved in the search for several months." - Inside Higher Ed, 7/1/22
Mills Becomes a Part of Northeastern
"Mills College officially becomes part of Northeastern University today. The merger was first announced last June, and it was opposed by some students and faculty at Mills. Current Mills students can graduate from Mills or transfer to Northeastern at no expense. Mills, historically a women’s college, will become 'gender inclusive.'" - Inside Higher Ed, 7/1/22
Repairing the Road for Returning Students
"To stabilize enrollment and ensure their long-term viability going forward, institutions of higher education must look beyond the declining pool of first-time, full-time learners and place their focus on the estimated 36 million students in the U.S. with some college credit but no degree. This is also a social and economic justice imperative at a time when an increasing number of new jobs require education or training beyond high school—yet individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately represented in low-wage career paths." - Inside Higher Ed, 7/1/22
Abortion Is a Higher-Ed Issue
"Let’s be clear: Abortion is a higher-ed issue. Most abortions in the U.S. are provided to women in their 20s, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Women aged 20 to 24 accounted for 28 percent of abortions, while those aged 25 to 29 accounted for 29 percent. ... Abortion makes it possible for students to pursue, and complete, higher education. Research has shown that the 'most common reason' young people drop out of college is unplanned pregnancy." - Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/30/22
Montgomery Co. schools revise history curriculum in 4th, 5th grades
"Montgomery County Public Schools’ new social studies framework will expose fourth- and fifth-graders to more American history — particularly Black history — at a younger age. The new curriculum will incorporate anti-bias and anti-racist content and local history about Montgomery County, according to Tracy Oliver-Gary, the district’s social studies supervisor. It was presented to the county school board this week and received unanimous approval." - Washington Post, 6/30/22
Learning From Asian-American Success
"Americans can learn from Asian-American success. Parents should expect more, not less, from their children. Of course, such expectations can go too far. But they need not be overdone to improve academic achievement. Canceling honors classes, moving unprepared students ahead, and implying that Indian-American students should 'play small' is certainly not the answer. Life is not a zero-sum game. The successes of some should inspire others to do better, not fuel bitterness and envy." - City Journal, 6/30/22
Columbia U. Won’t Submit Data to ‘U.S. News’ Rankings After Professor Alleged False Information
"Columbia University will not submit data to U.S. News & World Report for the next edition of its college rankings, the provost announced on Thursday, citing an active institutional review prompted by allegations that the university had provided false data to the magazine. ... Michael Thaddeus, a professor of mathematics at Columbia, this year accused the university of submitting inaccurate information to U.S. News." - Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/30/22
Culture wars cover up economic realities on campus
"'Culture' is often the reason given for campus conflicts over issues such as free speech. But they aren’t really cultural issues; they’re economic ones. As the bad economic news keeps rolling in for U.S. colleges and universities (from the Big Quit and inflationary pressures to the demographic cliff), it’s important to keep in mind that economic realities, not cultural ones, largely underpin volatile campus political dynamics." - The Hill, 6/30/22
Thanks for all the effort that you have put in this. Very interesting information.
I agree. I didn’t really want to go to the university straight out of high school but did so under pressure from my parents … my grades were terrible!
I dropped out and did what I wanted to do at 18 … serve a hitch in the military. After I returned to the university, I was on the dean’s list every semester.
What a difference a little experience and maturity makes!
There appears to be an inherent assumption that 18 cannot be an age of great intellectual development, but that is probably based on the lengthy monopoly our current factory school system has had. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Lincoln, Emerson were tutored or self-taught: they learned how to learn and became intellectually curious. Before the factory system came into place, there was no reason why a person could not accelerate through material. After the monopoly was in place fortunate individuals had parents that went outside the system, as Norbert Weiner’s did, to produce ‘child prodigies’. Home-schooling is bringing that possibility back for many families, as it did for my youngest two kids, who finished with ‘high school’ materials and moved on to Yale and MIT years before other kids. The current age step-locked cohort system is not serving us well.
Secondly, my four kids have different degrees in Mathematics/Physics, German Literature, History and Software Engineering. The point was to create critical thinking skills and intellectual curiosity, not to wallow in a pointless disparaging of recognized human endeavors: law, engineering, medicine, theology, anthropology, literature, etc. all can provide fertile fields for an active mind to till for more than one lifetime. It should be noted that ‘intellectual curiosity’ often inspires creative individuals to explore interests other than their professional tasks; and, well-thought out university programs should intertwine intellectual developments in science with philosophical and cultural developments. This failure to coherently develop the western tradition in colleges, is perhaps the lacuna that makes our Teacher’s Colleges so disastrous and result in the emphasis on pedagogy without content that further contributes to an ineffective factory school system monopoly that stiffles our kids.
Buzz is correct, but the legal hurdles to prove that the test is necessary for the job are quite difficult to clear. The risk of litigation is so great that most employers can’t justify giving such a test because one lawsuit, even if not successful, can be quite costly.
Correct me if i am wrong but isnt it illegal for an employer to insist on some form of an aptitude test before employing a new hire?
If that were true then the government itself would be guilty of breaking that law. For example, the military administers the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to all who want to join the enlisted ranks. I don’t know about the other services, but the Air Force administers the AF Officer Qualificaion Test to those who want to become officers. Likewise, I’ve read that the Post Office administers an aptitude test to aspiring letter carriers. Do people who want to become federal civilian employees still have to pass the Civil Service exam? Many local police and fire departments also have qualification tests.
Like Buzz said, the test does have to pass scrutiny to prove it isn’t biased against minorities. For private companies, the potential legal hassles might make it not worthwhile. In that case, requiring a college degree even if the job doesn’t really need it is a screening tool.
Vic
No, it’s not illegal for an employer to administer an aptitude test so long as he can demonstrate that it tests skills deemed necessary for the job and so long as the exact same test is administered to all being considered for the job.
I agree with most of this, including a stint in the military before college, which is what I did. (My Vietnam-era GI Bill paid a hell of a lot more toward my education than today’s pale version, too.) But I take issue with your assertion that only mathematicians, engineers, and their ilk are the only ones who know how to “deal with complexity and adapt to changing job requirements.” In fact, I find it quite the opposite.
I majored in philosophy, which immediately brings snorts from most who hear it. Yet I’m the one who waded through the world of ideas and concepts for four years, and I’m the one who has learned to think both concretely and conceptually. Most important, I’m the one, thanks to such wide reading in many challenging ideas, who has the Grade-A bullshit detector.
I find the technocrats the least imaginative and usually the first to fall for the baloney so readily shoveled our way by Hollywood, Madison Ave. and Washington. It’s the technocrats who know how to do something but not whether we should do it.
I’m disappointed you sell the liberal arts (at least the concept of it) so short.
Correct me if i am wrong but isnt it illegal for an employer to insist on some form of an aptitude test before employing a new hire?
This fact may be the genesis of a lot of the college education requirement in many jobs.
Imagining me as a potential employer (i am one though, I am looking for someone who is smart hard working capable and doesnt piss off everyone he/she works with.
No matter what you do, a new hire is a gamble. The odds might work out better if i was able to administer a battery of IQ and psychological tests prior to hiring. As i cannot, i use a college degree as a proxy for smarts. This may not be very smart on my part as education undergoes a ongoing dumbing down process. Skills and knowledge that one would expect would be required for a GE, are now pushed into college, and perhaps beyond.
By insisting on a college degree for all but the most menial of jobs, we are a. letting public schools get away with abrogating thier responsibility. and b. dumbing down colleges too.
The overwhelning majority of kids in party schools are NEVER going to be capable of analytical reasoning and abstract thought, that college ed should first and foremeost inculcate. My impression is that when we send a kid who is tempramentally and intellectually unsuited for the rigor of academic life, he spends 150,000 of his parents money learning to play beer pong.
The point about some time off from education is very significant. I remember returning to college in my early 30’s because I needed to learn something, something specific, in a very short time (3-6 months). I was amazed at all the slow-moving teenage drones surrounding me, every one of them convinced that it was going to take 4 or 5 years to graduate, *and that they had that much time to waste.*
I agree with you that students should spend some time in the working world before moving on to college, and not all college students have the abilities to learn at the collegiate level, although they somehow continue to end up there.
All of our children graduated a year early from HS and took some time off — doing a variety of things – community service, working fulltime, traveling, etc. My twenty year old turns 21 this September, and could benefit from another year of working/studying part time but will be returning to classes full time this fall, because my husband’s health and dental insurance plans will only continue to cover him if he is a full-time student after the age of 21. So there is also that hidden pressure to consider. His workforce job does not provide the same quality of benefits that his dad’s employer does. It is almost a maniacal synergy going on there.
Your wife is spot on – I remember some of my undergrad, however, after my four year stint with the military, I went back to graduate school full-time in another type of engineering and I remember almost everything I studied then – I wanted to be there, I was motivated based on interest in the subject and I realized how ‘easy’ the life of a full-time student was compared to my time in the active AF. I was the only one in my graduate class who had come back to school after working for awhile – most of the others had come straight out of their undergraduate studies. The joke was that I had my homework done the night or the day after it had been assigned. To this day, I attribute my success in my current field to the fact that I paid attention in graduate school and wanted to be there. Maturity does wonders for focusing one’s mind.
On your second point, I have held this view for many years after experiencing a MBA program in which most students had “real world” work experience. What a difference in the discussions and contributions between those who had worked and those fresh out of undergraduate programs.
You miss another aspect of this point, however. I contend that not only will the life-experienced students gain more from the college, but they will also demand more from the schools and faculty. One wonders if many “x studies” or other gut programs would survive with such an audience.
Actually, Aristotle was writing for eighteen year olds. Eighteen himself when he went to Athens, he became Alexander’s tutor when the latter was thirteen. Maybe we should try teaching our kids to be great-souled? That or powerpoint.
I have overall agreement, but would like to add two more points. First, “college” has subsumed the role of professional education in some areas. In those areas, hours of studying per week also tend to be quite high, but the end goal is not learning about “complexity and adapting to changing job requirements.” Music instrument performance is one example, where something similar to a conservatory apprenticeship — with six hours of practice a day not unusual — has been grafted onto a purported “liberal arts” education.
Which leads to the second point. There would be value in adding a liberal arts education to the conservatory, but universities tend to do poorly at that job, requiring a smorgasbord choice of courses in various broad category with no quality control over the content of the courses, in many of which the idea of teaching thinking skills is the last think on the instructor’s mind.
It seems to me just by eyeballing it without any empirical evidence that the difference between having a graduate degree versus an undergraduate degree today is about the same, in terms of job security and opportunity as it was to have a college degree versus a high school diploma in the 1950s. Not only have we had grade inflation but a change in the value placed on the respective degrees. We look down on someone with “only” a high school degree when, in fact, that is exactly what they need to do the job they have always wanted to do. Conversely, there are now thousands of people with advanced degrees that are out of work because of market saturation and economic downturn. It seems that this change over the last fifty-sixty years has not been a positive one.
Actually, I think Aristotle, Milton, Adam Smith, and yes even maybe Henry James to a certain extent were writing for nineteen year olds, if you take into account that when they wrote most nineteen year olds had spent their lives not going to school year after year but instead playing adult roles in society. With the imposition of universal and mandatory public schooling at the beginning of the twentieth century (which herds teenagers into youth ghettos and forces them to behave like children long past the time when it’s appropriate) then you do end up creating nineteen year olds who are not fit readers of these authors.
I think one reason few people want to put college off for more than a year is because the expectation that mom and dad will pay the tuition comes with an unstated expiration date that is generally uncertain, but perhaps just about that long.
Regarding your point about how young people are more likely to benefit from a college education if they don’t go to college straight from high school: reminds me of a cartoon I saw in “Mad” Magazine about, oh, 40 years ago. Two young college students were grousing about how the “old people” in their college classes were “ruining the class curve” because “they study”. I agree that the “college experience” is overrated. The Democrats, the “party of the people”, is pushing college enrollment on people who would be best served (and would probably make more money) in a trade. That’s one reason why the “for profit” trade colleges like DeVry and ITT are gaining popularity (another reason is one doesn’t have to waste time taking required, mind-numbing, “politically correct” humanities courses).
Henry James, Aristotle and others were writing for adults.
Not too long ago, nineteen-year-olds WERE adults.