<p>barrons, she's talking about self-knowledge, not storming the barricades (I pursued both back then, but most people were either navel-gazers or revolutionaries).</p>
<p>robin, hear hear!</p>
<p>Robin1627, doesn't sound like you are accepting of the other to me.
Barrons, my wife was in a discussion about lacs vs universities this weekend and said the same thing you did, except she included Kent State.</p>
<p>Yes, well, unfortunately--or perhaps, fortunately, depending upon whether we are speaking the same language--your day is over. Even Robert Zimmerman has noticed that "things have changed." Nevertheless, what you witnessed on university campuses in the late 60's was a series of reactions to just that embodiment of the university as I drew it in my former post. In fact, the universities themselves rightly came under attack for being but an extension, and a disingenuous one at that, of the government to which they were beholding. One could make the claim that perceptive students began to recognize that the university as an alternative to entrenched power structures did not, in fact, exist. But one need not go that far back. It seems to me that the last real gasp of social awarness on college campuses took place during the struggle to extinguish South African apartheid. If memory serves me correctly, the president of Boston University at that time had some rather telling remarks to make from the enfranchised pulpit of higher education in America on the nature of the university as an institution.</p>
<pre><code> But all of this may sidestep your concerns. I think if you investigate the history of the university as an institution you will find that it has undergone significant change from its initial mission. This is not necessarily bad--probably more inevitable than any thing else--but it is nonetheless a fact. And the profile today that most clearly harkens back to the humanist roots at the foundation of university training is, in fact, that of the LAC. This is not to say that a worthy education can not be had in a university setting, just that it is a different sort of education, by and large, if only because at its base is a different set of assumptions.
And, even now, you will find LAC's that are moving further and further away from the model I have attempted to clarify here, and this change will probably continue to accelerate as we move forward unless our society itself changes to a remarkable degree.
</code></pre>
<p>Robin1627, I only have a university degree so you lost me in your last paragraph. Where are lacs moving to?</p>
<p>Further . . .</p>
<p>and further</p>
<p>. . . away. But don't worry, they'll be back!</p>
<p>I got the further and further away the first time.</p>
<p>No doubt. And when I see your torchlight coming around the bend I'll give you a shout.</p>
<p>just a note that i'm available for any questions you may have about wesleyan (I'm a current sophomore), so if there's anything specific you would life to know, don't hesitate to ask!</p>
<p>-Annie</p>
<p>Robin:
I somewhat agree with your appraisal of LACs vs universities, but I think you are approaching it albeit slantingly. You are looking at financial motivations of institutions and students, and assuming that they have some effect on the possibility of receiving an education. I somewhat agree with your appraisal of LACs vs. universities, but I think you are approaching it albeit slantingly. In many ways both of our assessments are similar, but with key differences. It appears that you are looking at financial motivations of institutions and students, and assuming that they have some significant effect on the possibility of receiving an education. I highly doubt that the possibility is eliminated. You attributed the blame to society, but it was such that society was the oppressor of students seeking a full education. I doubt this as well. I also blame society, but differently. Both LACs and universities have changed, but it is still possible to have an experience fundamentally identical to their original educational ideals. </p>
<pre><code>Their changes are relatively minor responses to a changing world. There is more competition, more integration, disintegration (I love this paradox), and communication of knowledge, greater technology, larger populations, and new social views. These do not depreciate the potential of education necessarily. People nowadays often want that job as a rocket-building doctor; they care less about finding any sort of philosophical value to life. The world is continuing its perpetual descent into avarice and sipping the sweet nectar of ignorance.
The universities, especially the better ones, and LACs as well offer more than enough resources to provide the knowledge that one needs. Between the internet and public libraries alone, there is more than enough for that. At the schools, scholars exist in populations such that a person can attain the environment they need if they only would seek it. It is all too often convenient to blame an institution. I am not saying the universities and LACs are completely innocent in this worldwide intellectual degradation (and the simultaneous flooding sea of information), but at the same time, I look at some of the people within and behind the universities, their own false motivations, and the ethical fiber that guides our lives.
An ethos of materialism and self-worship with a corresponding tendency to scapegoat and retreat dominates our world, especially in America. Reflective thought, careful analysis, and meditation ironically can support a capitalist state as it exists now, but as people begin to accept it without mentally questioning it, they run from it and end up living only to satisfy animal desires. What is the value of the humanist tradition born from the Renaissance that many older US universities were endowed with? It celebrates the potential beauty and power of humanity, through the study of that beauty. But the beauty can only come from power, and power only from beauty.
Right now, society is geared towards power. Through global-scale threats such as nuclear devices, power is more important than ever. Power, without reflection and self-control, leads only to chaos. I fear that America may be on the same track as the Roman Empire. However, the power of modern civilization also gives it great potential for beauty. There are two paths. We will either destroy ourselves, or experience another Renaissance. Sadly, I think that grim dualism is the course of the world right now. The reason for our modern dearth of intellectualism is the disunity of it all. Before around the nineteenth century, stable and fixed factors such as religion and classical thinkers formed a basis that allowed innovation, stability, and cooperation in education, by providing individuals with a common foundation. The incomplete decline of those factors, beginning possibly with the French Revolution, continuing with the introduction of nineteenth century deterministic thought and twentieth century fragmentation, and overwhelming and discombobulating spread of knowledge in an information age, combined with wealth sufficient enough to enable ignorance (or unparalleled growth) are the reasons for the decline in universities and LACs, not some internal conspiracy on their part. The valuable part of humanism has largely degenerated into what is really a willful combination of arrogance and ignorance, disguised as some sort of egalitarianism or modernism.
</code></pre>
<p>Hanna,
Great post! I wish I had read it sooner!</p>
<p>From what I know, liberal arts colleges have a core cirriculum, which means that you actually have to take many courses outside of your major. I know most of the ivies do this except Brown. Liberal Arts Colleges want each student to be competent in basically every field, and not just a boring guy specialized in one area. A core cirriculum usually consists of a variety of subjects and courses, which means you are introduced to a lot of new things, which would challenge an exceptional math student or english student because they would have to take a course in their weak field. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>FAKEOUT</p>
<p>Most large schools have similar breadth requirements if you take a liberal arts degree..</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the information I've read in general. I've
been accepted to GWU's Elliott School of Int'l Relations and
their honors program and rec'd a half tuition scholarship.
I've also been accepted to Kenyon and received a great scholarship
there. Like the rest of the world this year, I'm waitlisted at Wash U.,
which is somewhat of a compromise between the extremes of the other
two and would actually be my first choice.
Can anyone talk to me about GWU? Hannah is giving a perfect description,
even just as regards accepted student's visits. Kenyon gives me the feeling that everyone there wants nothing more than for me to grow & succeed and
will do everything possible to help me achieve my goals.
Re GWU, I can't find any person to talk to or answer a question, much
less cheerfully offer assistance.
Kenyon is on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere and GWU is in the
most exciting city imaginable.
There is more grass in my front yard than on GWU's entire Foggy Bottom
Campus! Is the Mt. Vernon campus a good compromise? Is the honors
program at GWU good enough to provide the qualities of a LAC within this
larger university?
That envelope must be postmarked by May 1!!!</p>
<p>Hey everyone... I'm deciding between Swarthmore and the University of Michigan! Any thoughts? (Money is NOT a factor, plus I'm out-of-state for UMich)</p>
<p>Most revolutionaries I knew spent a lot of time studying social, economic and political theory. That's why people sat in the aisles to hear Goldberg talk about the French peasants and their social struggle.It was a lot deeper than just getting out into the streets for a fight--although that part was fun too.</p>
<p>Who was Harvey Goldberg you ask??From the UW </p>
<p>Harvey Goldberg began his career at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the early 1940s, when he enrolled as an undergraduate. He stayed on afterwards to pursue a Ph.D. in French history. He began his teaching career at Oberlin College and Ohio State University, but he returned to Madison in 1963. Harvey Goldberg quickly outgrew the moderately sized lecture hall he had been assigned and moved to a massive auditorium in the Agriculture Building. So great was his popularity, students snuck into his lectures to audit them for no credit. After listening with rapt attention to lectures that often went well over their allotted time, Harvey Goldberg's audience ended each session with a round of applause.</p>
<p>Harvey Goldberg's lectures were meticulously crafted performances. While they were based on the kind of extensive research many scholars reserve for their published work, Professor Goldberg delivered them with an actor's sense of timing and emphasis. For all the drama of his performances, we should not overlook the message Professor Goldberg offered in these lectures. Above all, Harvey Goldberg wanted to instill in his students an awareness of historical struggles of the weakest for justice and for autonomy. He inspired his students to engage actively in the social issues of the day</p>
<p>Even the knuckleheads at OSU appreciated him:</p>
<p>"Harvey Goldberg came to The Ohio State University in 1950 as an instructor in the Department of History. He rose through the ranks to that of Professor and remained at OSU until the autumn of 1962, when he returned to teach at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin. His years at Ohio State were marked by extraordinary achievements in both scholarship and teaching. He published widely in many journals ranging from The Nation to The International Review of Social History. His many books include a monumental biography of the greatest of modern French democratic socialists, The Life of Jean Jaures, which the New York Times referred to as "The definitive biography, as dense with life, character and events as a Balzac novel." </p>
<p>Near the end of his book on Jaures, Goldberg wrote, "He had the integrity to be partisan, the courage to be revolutionary, the humanism to be tolerant." His students recognized and honored those same traits in Goldberg himself as evidenced by his award as Professor of the Year by the Arts College Student Council in 1959 when he was just 36 years old. His classes were frequently standing room only; several of them, including one on the death of Louis XVI and another on the fall of the Bastille, were Ohio State public events, not to be missed even by students not then enrolled in his courses. Harvey taught in front of the lectern with out the aid of notes. "I like to think" he said, "that the students and I melt to nothingness before the significance of the materials." He believed that a teacher must "undertake to convey a kind of courage. If he's any good, he must live a life that is true and not hypocritical. He can teach the same kind of courage by example." It is clear, through the reverence in which so many of his former OSU students still hold him more that three decades later, that Harvey's example was not, indeed, lost on them. "</p>
<p>I'll see your revolutionary and raise you an anarchist (there's a double meaning in that)--a not very funny, I guess, and not very historical joke, if that's what it is; most things turn in different directions. I believe there is a natural law at work here, but I can't say for sure.</p>
<p>Sounds like a great teacher. Courage is indeed something we could all use a little more of; but could we stand to live with it, I wonder? At any rate, I say "hear, hear!" to Mr. Goldberg. Do you think he was ever asked to speak at any sleepy lacs? Hmm, . . . probably not, . . . but just think of what the seminars would have been like!</p>
<p>Gee, I hate to ressurrect this beast but you might consider checking out the transcript of DFW's commencement speech to the graduating class of Kenyon College last May. It's a bit more wordy than my brief capsule but well worth mulling over. He strikes me as a rather considerate young man.</p>