@loukydAd I think they are okay. I would prefer to see the secular kids read the Bible assignments and the Christian kids read the secular works. Something more new, challenging and eye opening is better for learning and discussion.
Loukydad - those are also good choices. Not “better.” Just different. Lots of stuff to learn in this world.
In my opinion, virtually all of those would be poor choices to ask all incoming freshmen to read and then plan to discuss.
T26E4- I was referring to this quote
“If a college decides to admit people of faith, it has a duty to respect their beliefs”
NON religious based Colleges do not have a “duty” to respect a religious belief.
Any student who does not want to run the risk of being exposed to new ideas that may challenge their beliefs should not choose a college such as Duke.
“If a college decides to admit people of faith, it has a duty to respect their beliefs”
I don’t agree. I think that when people apply to the school, they have to decide whether they are comfortable at that school. applicants are free to choose any school they prefer.
Menloparkmom, you may not be aware that Duke admits a certain percentage of its incoming class from North Carolina. http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2006/09/duke-has-carolina-its-mind
North Carolina and South Carolina are each more than 70% Protestant by population: http://www.gallup.com/poll/12091/tracking-religious-affiliation-state-state.aspx.
Duke is bound to admit students from the two states. Duke does care. When one draws bright young people from highly religious communities, one will accept people who are more committed to their faith than the norm. Over time, they may become more worldly in their views.
As many of the most elite colleges in the country were founded (way back when) to educate ministers, it is more than a bit ironic to read posters proclaiming that anyone who attempts to follow the precepts of his faith–as he understands it–should not seek education.
I am not myself religious. I do not, though, think that this book was the best thing to choose. How about the Bible? The Koran?
Well, I think everybody has a moral duty to respect the beliefs of others, up to a point. I suspect we may all have different ideas of what that point is.
And, @menloparkmom, as I research further, it may surprise you that Duke was founded by Methodists and Quakers. To quote Wikipedia (as I’m lazy),
.
So, in origin, Duke was a religious college at its founding. “Knowledge and Religion” is clear cut.
I’ve read the book. It’s about 200 pages long. There is one graphic drawing as far as I am concerned. It takes up about 1/3 of one page. It is of a dead male as seen while Bechdel’s dad is getting him ready for his funeral (they run a funeral home). You see his penis. She saw his penis. She was like 12 at the time and it made an impact. Probably like it was a big deal when most of us first saw an adult of the opposite sex naked. It’s directly relevant to the story. Big whoop.
Perwinkle
Duke does NOT select students based on their religious believes NOR even ask students what their religion is on their application. You are trying to draw a connection between 2 factors - one that Duke DOES care about and one that Duke does not take into consideration- religion and region. .
LOTS of colleges admit local students because LOTS of students [ and their parents] dont what their children to be far away from home when they go to college.
60% of college students end up going to colleges within 600 miles of their homes.
"So, in origin, Duke was a religious college at its founding. “Knowledge and Religion” is clear cut. "
So what??
Regardless of why a college was originally founded or who its students used to be, what matters NOW is a colleges CURRENT mandate.
Or do you think that HYP should still discriminate against women applicants because they were not allowed when those institutions were originally founded??
I would expect a summer reading assignment to be more contemporary than the suggestions from a “Great Books” list. So, I disagree @LOUKYDAD.
Loukydad: I am a huge supporter of great books programs. My own kids had exposure to most of these writings as homeschoolers. When they got to college, they were ready for classes that challenged the great books cannon. ( I count only three women writers on that list.) I would have been pretty ticked off if they hadn’t been able to find a college where they could read really different kinds of writings from what they had studied previously.
Of course, I have friends teaching a variety of the books on your list from all different sorts of perspectives. My kids took classes where they took a standard work and interpreted it using various theoretical frameworks. This seemed to me an incredibly useful exercise.
I suspect most Duke students would have read most of those in high school. My kids (and I) did.
From what I’ve seen of college summer reading from my kids’ colleges, fairly current books are chosen, not classics.
119: "Any of the attached would be more worthwhile choices. Agree or disagree?" (A list of books from Hillsdale's "great books" program followed.)
Disagree. If you’d said “equally worthwhile choices”, well, I might have have agreed with you for some of them, but more worthwhile, though? Nope, not at all.
(And this from someone who wishes his kids would consider a great-books-based college.)
“How about the Bible? The Koran?”
Oh good grief. Given the kerfluffle about the call to prayer being sounded on the campus (remember? Franklin Graham making a big stink? Donations threatened to be pulled? Blah blah blah) they’re not about to have the Koran be required reading for all freshmen.
Nearly every older major private university in this country was religiously-based at the time of its founding; that has nothing to do with anything nowadays. That is not a promise that nothing will ever be done, ever, to offend anyone.
“So, in origin, Duke was a religious college at its founding. “Knowledge and Religion” is clear cut.”
Yawn. It’s completely immaterial. You should know that. It’s hard to take you seriously when this is your argument.
Yes, asking them to read the Koran would have caused a much bigger freak-out than this.
*The Rape of the Lock* would draw some objections.
*Death in Venice * also.
Can you imagine asking all incoming freshmen to read the Odyssey, or the Divine Comedy, on their own, and then discuss? I suppose you could do the Kafka or the Solzenitsyn (Densovitch is relatively short), or maybe one of the short stories there. But I don’t think the point of this is for everybody to share a mini literature class.
For very obvious reasons. There aren’t any huge current political movements to normalize, approve as morally right, and incorporate into everyday life concentration camp atrocities, warlike survivalist behavior, or upper class debauchery (or the rest).
Not to mention the whole comic book visual depiction aspect that is absent in the other works.