For all eggheads and business people: battle for universities has been won by practical world

The New York Times has a fascinating column about the fight for the souls of colleges and universities: between those who believe in creating great thinkers and philosophers to save the world and the pratical application of education to a certain profession or industry to propel an economy.

The piece's author says the winner is the realist, not the idealist. Adjunct professors still working in the real world are replacing the long-time, tenured professor. Poetry is not viewed as something that can save the world, although JFK and RFK dazzled us with the breadth of their minds and ideals. And the new president is an author.

Liberal arts has given way to computer sciences.

It seems, however, at this time in American history, that President Barack Obama is seeking idealists, dreamers in bipartisan efforts and putting society and practicality second to sacrifice and selfishness at home and abroad. This a time to build leaders, not necessarily someone to only see no further than their office cubicle and bottom line.

And it was the greed of the so-called educated leadership with Harvard MBAs that led this nation to the kind of financial ruin being experienced now.

So perhaps the wrong side won. I don't know. Here is an excerpt from the column for you decide:

What is happening in traditional universities where the ethos of the liberal arts is still given lip service is the forthright policy of for-profit universities, which make no pretense of valuing what used to be called the “higher learning.” John Sperling, founder of the group that gave us Phoenix University, is refreshingly blunt: “Coming here is not a rite of passage. We are not trying to develop value systems or go in for that ‘expand their minds’” nonsense.

The for-profit university is the logical end of a shift from a model of education centered in an individual professor who delivers insight and inspiration to a model that begins and ends with the imperative to deliver the information and skills necessary to gain employment.

In this latter model , the mode of delivery – a disc, a computer screen, a video hook-up – doesn’t matter so long as delivery occurs. Insofar as there are real-life faculty in the picture, their credentials and publications (if they have any) are beside the point, for they are just “delivery people.”


I look forward to publishing your comments on this matter. There are many sides that maybe even The New York Times is not aware of.