Campus Reform brings us some observations from Rob Jenkins, who is a Higher Education Fellow with Campus Reform and a tenured associate professor of English at Georgia State University - Perimeter College. Dear Academe: You have done that yourself
After a bit of reminiscing about Star Wars, as it was before it was destroyed by Disney, we get to the heart of the matter.
I think about that scene every time I hear academics complaining about the current state of higher education—the fact that trust in the institution has plummeted and the value of a degree isn’t what it used to be. “It’s your own fault,” I want to tell them (perhaps a bit less stoically than ObiWan). “You have done that yourself!”
Apparently, I am not alone. A recent report from Yale University, of all places, reached much the same conclusion. According to Campus Reform, the report blames the ongoing erosion of trust in higher ed on lack of intellectual diversity and political conformity, among other things.
I would say that the lack of rigor in various studies, and the wildly increasing costs of an education relative to the salaries that graduates can command isn't helping.
I have a degree in mathematics, but I attended a Great Books college. We read Plato, and Plutarch. We studied the history of the Roman Empire, and the founding of the Soviet Union, with all of the atrocities that involved. We read Alexis de Tocqueville and Descartes. We studied both Marx and Adam Smith. I am no opposed to higher education that includes things like literature, and philosophy, and history. But the current state of higher education is almost completely worthless.
Read the whole thing.
I am a teaching professor at a STEM university in NJ, doing iyt for 24 years now and the difference is huge. Most students are not interested in anything but their narrow subject area, I.e., what they need to know to get a job. Forget well rounded they don't know anything or even have an interest in anything outside of their future job field and games. It is so scary
ReplyDeleteBeing in STEM, I'm guessing you see the best of it. STEM still has value. The son of a friend recently graduated with a degree in engineering. He had an internship lined up before graduation, and that turned into a full time job he (apparently) likes. (I hear everything 2nd and 3rd hand)
DeleteWhen I was a student it wasn't unusual for people wanting to be lawyers to study English, history, etc. because those disciplines taught how to think, write, evaluate writing and tear it apart. Today I don't know what an English or Literature degree would teach - they don't read English literature. History doesn't teach thinking; it seems to teach that America is bad, slavery only existed in America, etc. In short they have become very expensive indoctrination programs.
I am not surprised that students in STEM don't want to study English or history today. The classes are basically worthless. When I mentioned Marx and Smith, I read both of those for 1 class, because they are DIRECTLY opposed to one another. Today I imagine you would only read one.
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