A friend of mine pointed me to an article in the NY Times. It in turn references a "report" from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/what-should-colleges-teach/
My response:
First of all, I want to note that the American Council of Trustees and
Alumni (ACTA) is a very conservative group that advocates for
"academic freedom" in the same way that David Horowitz of Academic
Bill of Rights fame does. (Their premise is American colleges and
universities are controlled by the liberal elite who are brainwashing
our children and stifling any other type of discussion. In addition,
these liberals have crushed the Western tradition of education and
doomed our children to be ignorant yoyos who will all be working for
Indian and Chinese immigrants.) The president of the ACTA has written
extensively on the demise of American higher ed and the Board of the
ACTA includes Ed Meese (yes, that Ed Meese), and guys from the conservative
Hudson Institute think tank and the equally conservative National
Association of Scholars. (Ya gotta love these names. ;^)
So take the "What Will They Learn?" report with the normal ton or two
of salt.
That being said, I'm certainly in sympathy with a good general
education curriculum. Unfortunately, I think their report is looking
for ways to place lots of very good schools in a very bad light.
Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Cornell, Haverford, Grinnell, Oberlin, Smith,
Wash U, Williams all get an F on their scale??? Give me a major break.
What happens in their report is that they present a seemingly
reasonable set of gen ed requirements (a math course, an econ course,
a foreign language requirement, a composition course, etc) and then
apply the standard so rigidly that practically none of the schools can
pass.
For example (quoted from the report itself):
Bowdoin College: No credit given for Composition because the First-Year
Seminars do not focus exclusively on writing.
University of California-Berkeley: No credit given for Foreign
Language because only second-semester competency is required.
Carleton College: No credit given for Mathematics or Natural or Physical
Science because the two subjects are folded into the Mathematics and
Natural Sciences requirement.
University of Chicago: No credit given for Foreign Language because only
one year at the college level is required. No credit given for U.S.
Government or History because the Civilization Studies sequences are not necessarily
focused on American history.
It goes on. These folks were actively looking for ways to say "fail!"
So, moving on. I'll work with some categories a friend of mine came up with and tell you about Knox.
First of all my friend was talking about a public university with an open
admission policy. Knox is private and calls itself "highly selective".
So there's likely a big difference in the pool of students we're
looking at. At Knox our average ACT score for entering classes the
last few years has been either 27 or 28, depending on the year (take
ACT scores with a pound of salt as well.) About 25% of our students
are first-generation college students, and more than 85% of our
students get some form of financial aid. We have 11% international
students (mostly South and East Asian) and are about 25% students of
color. About 45% of our students come from Illinois.
Literacy and numeracy: I'd say our students generally have decent
writing skills. All our first-year students take a Preceptorial course
which is writing intensive. It includes several weeks of writing
instruction, but isn't really a composition course. It's taught by
faculty from all across campus - I've taught it once. Faculty are
given some instruction in teaching writing, but mostly we're on our
own. Our students also must take two more writing-intensive courses
during their tenure at Knox, one of which must be in their major. Most
take more. My CS majors learn technical writing mostly from me in an
upper-level course that's required of all majors. I'd say they end up
definitely on a bell curve there in terms of quality of writing.
Numeracy quite a different story. Our students are supposed to show
Quantitative proficiency (usually through their ACT score) and
Quantitative Literacy (QL) by taking a course labeled QL. All Math
courses are labeled QL, as are a few other courses - one CS course, a
general Stats course, Chemistry I, 3 Econ courses, and most Physics
courses. Our students try to avoid the Math courses like the plague
and when forced to take one, will generally take the lowest possible
Math course (our two biggest majors are Engish Lit and Creative
Writing - mostly they don't see the use). The Stats course is very
popular as long as one of the Math profs isn't teaching it.
We have one Math course considered to be remediary and our Center for
Teaching and Learning (aka the Writing center) also offers a remedial
math course.
Logic and rhetoric: Can't say that our students are particularly
strong on logic, but for rhetoric, the writing requirement in the
major helps.
Travel experiences: About 1/2 of our students have some sort of
overseas experience. Many of them for one, two, or three terms (three
terms is one academic year for us), some for as short as a week or
two. We have three overseas centers (France, Spain, & Argentina) and
except for the plane fare, the overseas terms at our centers cost just
what a term on campus does.
Critical thinking: Ah well, learning to distinguish between belief
and fact, having informed opinions. Well, these are 18 - 22 year olds
after all. Lots of things are still very black and white to them, and
they have ideas I consider strange. In several of my CS classes we
talk about topics considered to be "computer ethics", "professional
practice", "impact of technology on society", privacy, etc. These are
all very interesting discussions. They don't tend to believe in
copyright or intellectual property rights at all (gee, what a
surprise), but they also can't really articulate why their belief
might be right or wrong. With ethical case studies related to the
profession, they tend to always want to do the right thing, but they
also are still pretty self-centered. They tend to be very
compassionate and righteous about discrimination, but as I said, it's
still pretty black and white for them, not much of a middle ground. I
love playing the devil's advocate in these discussions.
Oh, and the final word - they all think they know way more than they
really do, and we do a terrible job of convincing them that this
broad, general education thingie is really worthwhile.
cheers,
john
