LIVE AND LEARNWhy we have college.
by Louis Menand
JUNE 6, 2011 More and more Americans are going to college, but how many of them are actually learning anything?PRINTE-MAIL
KEYWORDS
âAcademically Adriftâ (Chicago; $25); Richard Arum; Josipa Roksa; âIn the Basement of the Ivory Towerâ (Viking;; $25.95); Professor X; Education
My first job as a professor was at an Ivy League university. The students were happy to be taught, and we, their teachers, were happy to be teaching them. Whatever portion of their time and energy was being eaten up by social commitmentsâwhich may have been huge, but about which I was ignorantâthey seemed earnestly and unproblematically engaged with the academic experience. If I was naïve about this, they were gracious enough not to disabuse me. None of us ever questioned the importance of what we were doing.
At a certain appointed hour, the university decided to make its way in the world without me, and we parted company. I was assured that there were no hard feelings. I was fortunate to get a position in a public university system, at a college with an overworked faculty, an army of part-time instructors, and sixteen thousand students. Many of these students were the first in their families to attend college, and any distractions they had were not social. Many of them worked, and some had complicated family responsibilities.
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http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/06/06/110606crat_atlarge_menand#ixzz1O12gCMX8