Higher education – colleges and universities – migrated here from Europe.  They were, traditionally a mentor/tutor/apprentice program.  One studied under some professor that you worked very hard to get to accept you and he gave you his wisdom as well as encouraged you to expand humanity’s knowledge generally.  It was not all that different from apprenticing to be a blacksmith, but you learned how to work with books, not metal.  As America brought democracy to education and human knowledge expanded to the point that specialization (majors) became necessary, educational programs were developed and it was no loner a matter of simply living up to the expectations of the master.  And yet when I was in school, not all that long ago (OK 50 years, but that is not all that long) being a student carried with it a sense of sitting at the feet of a master and taking in what he (or she) had to offer.  Apparently that is no longer the case.

When I retired I looked into teaching at a local jr. college, just to stay busy and because I enjoy being around young people.  I was grossly disappointed to learn that I would have to teach a departmental syllabus and had very little room to offer anything resembling my own personal wisdom.  They, it turns out, did not want me anyway, so no harm, no foul.  But it seems I was just scratching the surface of a serious problem.

Stanford has recently expanded its basic education requirement, establishing a specific reading list/syllabus and it is far from the classics.  Yes, it’s typical left wing bilge water.  That’s old hat.  It was also around in my day.  The difference is that in my day, you knew which profs were offering the bilge water and which were offering an actual education and fought to get into the good classes if you were interested in being seriously educated.  Of course, not every student was interested in being seriously educated, so it was good they had options.  And yes an “A” from a bilge prof was about a “C” from a good prof, but then those bilge A’s quickly turned to C’s, or worse, in upper division classes, given the absence of a good foundation, and it all washed out by graduation.  But no more, now, at Stanford, every prof has to teach the bilge water.  And you wonder where grade inflation comes from.

Speaking of grade inflation, the Harvard faculty has voted to limit the number of “A’s” it can issue.  When I first encountered the story I could not tell if that was the number of A’s in a class or the number of A’s a student was permitted to receive – fortunately it is the former.  Basically, they are forcing everyone to grade on a somewhat generous curve.  Given how awful grade inflation has become this is not a bad idea, but it also has its downsides.  Every now and then, though not nearly as often as opponents to the move claim, a truly gifted student may get shafted by the policy.  But it can also serve as an incentive for those students to work harder.

These stories all reflect a serious lack of judgement on the part of university faculty.  Ask yourself, why can’t they trust profs to grade reasonably or to choose their syllabus wisely?  This reduces higher education from personal formation and learning to just another educational factory churning out students like widgets and treats the faculty little different than your average UAW guy in old Detroit.

I do not understand a professorial class that puts up with this.  I am fairly certain that one of the reasons that jr. college did not want my services was my reaction when I learned I had to use their syllabus.  I guess the new professorial class are no longer seekers of truth looking to pass truth to a new generation.  I guess they are just another schlub looking for a job.  Something important has been lost here.