Book review: The Abandoned Generation: Rethinking Higher Education
The Abandoned Generation: Rethinking Higher Education by William H Willmon and Thomas H Naylor (Eerdmans, 1995)
This book defines the problems of the secular (public and private) liberal arts colleges and universities, and, at the end, proposes solutions. This book is something of a think tank report on the subject. Albeit produced by Eerdmans, it reflects a Christian world view between the lines, as it is aimed at academics. Basicly, if you are not an educational administrator, you probably wouldn't read this book, and the authors weren't expecting you
to. For the non-acedemic, the synopsis below is the most important ideas to extract from this work. There are a few obscenities in the form of quotes from students reflecting points of view about the problems discussed.
How is this book applicable to the average Christian? I have heard a phrase, to be a Christian is to pursue what it is to be truly human. The secular university campus is one of the weaker links in the church's mission to be salt and light in a lost and dying world, in that, to a degree greater than in much of this culture, the campus is geared towards facing questions head-on, at least in theory.
According to the authors, the problems of the secular liberal arts colleges and universities are:
1. Students, since the 1960's, in the authors opinion, have been left to their own devices in making moral decisions in regard to the information they are taught, which in itself is a cynically moral decision. This is most greatly reflected in the treatment of alcohol, drugs, and sexuality.
2. Professors at many institutions are more interested in pay and status, which come from getting more time to spend on research and less (with the ultimate being zero) time spent on teaching. Teaching is devalued by professors and administrators.
3. From the above, this bizarrely generates an anti-intellectual attitude among students.
4. Many colleges and universities are too big. Education was originally envisioned as a community of learning, but in large institutions, students are housed in huge dormatories (somewhat like inner city housing projects), faculty don't get to know students as people and vice versa, and faculty of different departments don't know each other.
5. The above factors raise educational costs faster than the rate of inflation, giving both students and parents the consumer attitude of "I want my money's worth," making education merely a means to higher paychecks in the future.
6. The athletic program absorbs a huge amount of money, rarely breaking even or making a profit, bringing an ego massage to the university president, some faculty, some alumni (particularly those in that given state's legislature), but also fostering the anti-intellectual attitude by bringing on campus "students" who don't care about studying and causing more crime (particularly sexual assault) than the average student.
7. Many Greek organizations have turned into party organizations, serving no purpose other than a small sense of community, which could be done in other, more positive ways.
8. Universities are training people in expertises without regard to whether society needs more people of that type or not. This is another decision of negative morality.
9. Small class loads produce more free time, more than most students need.
10. Universities have evolved into what, in the realm of publicly traded corporations and stocks, would be considered a bad conglomerate. They do basic and applied research, run apartments, own (not so) minor league sports teams, do professional training, to undergraduate training (with both of these treated as separate items), and oversee an endowment in financial markets. There is a huge duplication of services (example: from what I could find on the net, there are more than 30 schools that teach some form of culinary arts in the state of Florida alone), sometimes supported by the market, but more often supported by large organizational inertia against real change.
The authors finish with suggestions to the academics, which they openly doubt will be heeded, but for those of us around teens, how do we the church help our kids and those around us differentiate between what is beneficial for them, what is morally right, versus the big name?
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Author: tevyebird
Location: Courtland Virginia USA
Gender: Male
Age: 56
Blog Entries: 10 (archive)
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i grew up near grand rapids mi, received jesus as lord in 1968, received bachelor's degree in 1976, spent most of the last 30 years doing all kinds of things, none of which i would describe as a career, but have had plenty of time to examine the good and...
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