{"id":3176,"date":"2013-09-20T14:02:40","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T18:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bsuenglish.wordpress.com\/?p=3176"},"modified":"2018-11-12T13:06:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T18:06:51","slug":"dr-paul-ranieri-recommends-college-what-it-was-is-and-should-be-by-andrew-delbanco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/english\/blog\/2013\/09\/20\/dr-paul-ranieri-recommends-college-what-it-was-is-and-should-be-by-andrew-delbanco\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Paul Ranieri Recommends “College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be” by Andrew Delbanco"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the latest installment of our Recommended Reads series, Dr. Paul Ranieri recommends<\/em> College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be<\/a> by Andrew Delbanco.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Andrew Delbanco does not want College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be<\/i> (Princeton UP, 2012) to be seen as another one of those \u201cjeremiads\u201d about contemporary higher education, liberal education, and the humanities: \u201cI have been reluctant . . . to join the hue and cry that the condition of our colleges is dire\u201d (4), he notes early in his \u201cIntroduction.\u201d\u00a0 Writing from the perspective of three decades as a college teacher, most recently at Columbia University, Delbanco draws a sharp historical distinction between the \u201ccollege\u201d (\u201cabout transmitting knowledge of and from the past to undergraduate students so they may draw upon it as a living resource in the future\u201d) and the \u201cuniversity\u201d (\u201cmainly an array of research activities conducted by faculty and graduate students with the aim of creating new knowledge in order to supersede the past\u201d) (2), lamenting the effect of the latter on the former, as one by one colleges have been \u201cbitten by the bug of university aspiration\u201d (81).<\/p>\n

Delbanco reviews in three chapters the history of such changes on the traditional colleges and the parallel changes in the student population over the same period.\u00a0 However, his heart clearly lies in his analysis of what college used to and should be for, and his discussion of what the experience of higher education has become and what our response now might be.<\/p>\n

His argument centers on this sentence: \u201c\u201dMissing from both tellings [i.e., whether changes from \u201ccollege\u201d to \u201cuniversity\u201d should be characterized as \u201cmodernization\u201d or \u201cdisintegration\u201d] is the fact that relatively little of this story has been driven by reflective consideration of what\u2019s best for college students\u201d (85).\u00a0 The contemporary university, he feels, must strive for both \u201cspecialized expert training\u201d (102) and the \u201cqualities of mind and heart requisite for reflective citizenship\u201d (3), though American higher education has \u201cstruggled to maintain this dialectic\u201d (103).<\/p>\n

Delbanco acknowledges that the era of spiritual authority belonging to colleges is long gone, but that does not absolve contemporary higher education from showing students \u201chow to think and how to choose\u201d (15).\u00a0 College should be \u201can aid to reflection, a place and process whereby young people take stock of their talents and passions and begin to sort out their lives in a way that is true to themselves and responsible to others\u201d (15-16).\u00a0 Such learning, however, now runs counter to the \u201cprogressive power of science . . . one of the astonishing achievements of human civilization\u201d (94).\u00a0 Unfortunately, because science values knowledge that is incremental and accretive, it can \u201cdemonstrate progress\u2014an ability of inestimable value in a culture that has always been more forward-looking than retrospective\u201d (94).\u00a0 And, demonstrating progress means that it competes better for resources, can show a connection to technological advances, and thus exhibit a \u201c\u2019return\u2019 on public and private investment in higher education\u201d (95).\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThis way of evaluating the worth of knowledge . . . poses a severe challenge to the humanities\u2014at least to the extent that humanists remain concerned with preserving truth by rearticulating it rather than advancing truth by discarding the old in favor of the new\u201d (94-95).<\/p>\n

On a deeper level, Delbanco regrets the unintended effect, what he calls the \u201cdark side,\u201d of meritocracy (139).\u00a0 Contemporary leadership no longer counts \u201cself-doubt and self-criticism among the virtues of a genuinely educated person\u201d (134).\u00a0 That loss of humility and the rise in a sense of their own importance leads educated leaders today to a loss of \u201csympathy with the people they govern\u201d (134).<\/p>\n

These two factors\u2014the expansive power of scientific thinking and the loss of self-doubt and humility among leaders\u2014combined with problems of scale and the \u201cexplosion of specialized knowledge\u2019 (89) severely strain any dialectic between the competing demands of the \u201cuniversity\u201d and the \u201ccollege.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Delbanco, \u201cIf good things are going to happen to students, faculty must care, not only because this is the precondition of good teaching, but because, with a few minor exceptions such as teaching awards or, occasionally, supplementary pay for teaching certain required courses, the proffered rewards of academic life\u2014promotions, raises, leaves\u2014have nothing to do with demonstrated concern for students\u201d (166).<\/p>\n

I wish Delbanco had pursued specifically how this teaching of caring and questioning, of thinking and choosing, runs counter to a \u201cuniversity\u201d culture of accumulating knowledge, science, and demonstrable progress.<\/p>\n

For me, such teaching begins with a student\u2019s mind confronting the world, a confrontation teachers cannot \u201cteach,\u201d \u201clecture,\u201d or \u201cassess\u201d into existence.\u00a0 Teachers can model, mentor, and guide, usually by discussing with, listening to, and reading what their students express, but ultimately such learning can only be known in the way students live their lives. \u00a0Institutions of higher education do little to support, seek to understand, or even elicit respect for such learning.\u00a0 Delbanco\u2019s \u201cdialectic\u201d can be revived only by acknowledging that sober fact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the latest installment of our Recommended Reads series, Dr. Paul Ranieri recommends College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be by Andrew Delbanco. Andrew Delbanco does not want College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be (Princeton UP, 2012) to be seen as another one of those \u201cjeremiads\u201d about contemporary higher education, liberal education, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[100,331,439],"class_list":["post-3176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommendation-station","tag-andrew-delbanco","tag-college-what-it-was-is-and-should-be","tag-dr-ranieri"],"yoast_head":"\nDr. Paul Ranieri Recommends "College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be" by Andrew Delbanco - Ball State English Department<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/english\/blog\/2013\/09\/20\/dr-paul-ranieri-recommends-college-what-it-was-is-and-should-be-by-andrew-delbanco\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dr. Paul Ranieri Recommends "College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be" by Andrew Delbanco - Ball State English Department\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the latest installment of our Recommended Reads series, Dr. Paul Ranieri recommends College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be by Andrew Delbanco. 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