I heartily agree with the principle of fostering curiosity in education, but there is an overwhelming amount of important and complex stuff to be curious about: birds, stars, insects, crops, livestock, electricity, chemistry, human health as well as foundational literature. And just as there are difficult books to read that are considered foundational, there are difficult aspects of many other subjects that are also foundational and sometimes even of practical significance.
As a graduate and retired faculty member of Land Grant universities (LGUs), I would like to offer some defense of the LGUs, even though Glenn might consider them to be “nothing more than overpriced professional development centers.”
The LGUs attempt to blend practical arts with “higher” learning. Alongside focusing on physical science and engineering, I and many students have been able to dabble in some of the great books (e.g., Plato, Kant), but I have yet to delve into Dostoevsky. I think I have managed to maintain curiosity and appreciation for the complexity of the natural world and human thought. I am most familiar with the complexity of my own subject matter (hydrology and biogeochemistry) and, like other specialists, I think it deserves more attention and resources than it gets. But I also appreciate that students arriving on campus have the opportunity to explore a wide range of subject matter and thus follow their curiosity in the context of extensive accumulated knowledge of the faculty and in the library.
In my view, universities ought to be places where students encounter a wide range of ideas: practical, impractical, difficult, easy, dangerous, foundational, etc. But to the extent that universities depend on public finance, the public has a right and duty to question the value of their investment. Providing “professional development” is a partial and compelling answer, but it ought not be the only answer. More effective public dialog about the other values may help persuade some of the public that impractical foundational knowledge may be worth the investment. Perhaps declining public support for universities may reflect a failure to adequately communicate the significance of the impractical foundational knowledge.
In a defense of open ended inquiry in science, Nobel laureate physicist Leon Lederman once provided the following thought experiment: if scientists had limited their focus to only solving practical problems related to the health of human eyes, it is unlikely they would have ever invented the laser, which has become a valuable tool in eye care. Open ended inquiry is valuable, but unpredictable. Improved understand the world for its own sake can increase our ability to find new ways to solve practical problems.
Harvard will settle the claims of the federal government, and keep its federal money, by shedding the more egregious of its DEI policies and practices and strengthening its enforcement of antisemitism policies, without any damage to academe, or any significant impediment to university research and development.
Established federal law (Title VI, Title IX, etc.) gives the government the authority to withhold federal grants and subsidies from colleges and universities found, pursuant to investigation and a hearing, to be discriminating on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity, etc., in their policies, practices, or procedures, and to withhold funds from all university programs regardless of how limited or widespread the discriminatory practices are claimed to be.
For example, under the Carter administration, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Education, moved to withhold all federal funds from the University of North Carolina on the basis of a claim that UNC was operating a “dual system of education.” OCR based that claim upon the overwhelmingly black composition of the student bodies and staff at UNC’s five historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and that of the majority white composition of the remaining 11 institutions. To avoid loss of federal funding, OCR demanded that UNC cease offering parallel educational programs at majority white and majority black schools in the same geographical area. Accordingly, particular programs were to be offered only at the local HBCU, requiring white students to attend the HBCU in order to enter those programs. Where other programs were offered only at the local majority white school, black students seeking to enter those programs would have to attend the majority white school rather than the local HBCU. The reorganization of programs demanded by OCR, would have erased the traditionally African American character of the HBCUs. After some legal skirmishes, UNC settled the matter by agreeing to greatly reduced terms that preserved the HBCUs.
Increased government power is not a fixed weapon, but one that can be turned on its creators. Harvard and the other schools cited by the Trump administration will settle, if only to avoid a public examination of their conduct and practices regarding DEI and antisemitism, particularly in the wake of the embarrassing dramas involving Claudine Gay, Minouche Shafik, and others. Despite President Garber’s lofty public pronouncements, Harvard has already signaled its desire to settle by engaging as its chief legal counsel two Republican insiders, one from the first Trump administration, and the other from the George W. Bush administration, two “Trump Whisperers” brought on specifically to make a deal.
I went to university 50 years ago, and of course it is very different now in almost every way. The strong hard-Left ideology that seems to be part of many if not most universities now is the biggest difference, I think. I entered college as a conservative with a fairly good sense of current political trends (1973). Looking back, I remember only one professor out of many that showed any sense at all of his personal politics, and that was clearly liberal. But for all the other professors, I have no idea what their politics were, they taught the material and did not bring their ideologies into the classroom. I realize that progressive ideology is life itself to most people on that end of the political spectrum, so leaving it outside the classroom door probably doesn't even make sense to them, but progressive ideas are so counterfactual, unrealistic, and destructive, that many students leave school with less real knowledge than your average 8th grader a few decades ago. Universities could come a long ways back out of the wilderness if they returned to a non-ideological philosophy of teaching. All of the older pre-woke, pre-queer theory, pre-DEI knowledge is still there, as I learned it, and that curriculum could again produce actual educated people instead of half-literate children with no ability to think critically or participate meaningfully in adult society. I realize that there are people who get through college and get some degree of real education in certain subjects, and resist the wokism, but too many today do not and the next generation will suffer greatly because of it.
Give us a break. Conservatives are suppressing free speech, support jack booted thugs grabbing people off the streets, and threatening law firms, corporations, news media, judges, etc. There are no conservative principles. There is only a power grab
Red states have poorer health, education, and wealth outcomes.
I can see by the way you framed your comments that you most likely consume only legacy/leftist media. The way we see it on the other side, the progressive Left under Biden was running wild with no liberal principles on a mad power grab, and the Trump people are doing everything they can to stop the lawlessness, bring the perpetrators to account, and restore freedom. The "grabbing people off the streets"? Yes, criminals and gang members that no one outside the Left bubble can understand why leftists want them here at all, much less loose to carry on their criminal activities. Threatening various members of the progressive establishment? I'm sure they were doing what you wanted them to do during the last administration but that doesn't make it legal or consistent with the "norms" and "principles" that are suddenly so important now that the Left's corruption, self-dealing, illegal suppression of speech, and so much else are being exposed. Get outside the bubble and get the real facts, not the twisted version the Left is telling.
And the "red states are poor" trope is getting really tired. I don't know how you can find a worse situation for health, education, or wealth than the bluest of blue California, except for a very few wealthy elites.
California’s economy has grown to overtake yet another foreign country, putting the state at the fourth-largest in the world if it were to be considered separate from the rest of the U.S.
I live in California and the riches are concentrated in a very narrow slice of the population who are outrageously wealthy. The poverty rate and homelessness is the highest in the country, the affordability is the lowest, test scores for children are nearly the lowest, and the state is waging war against every productive industry except increasing government and the tech sector. Again, this state is no blue paradise, far from it. The state is just big, and is living off past glories, the current crazies who are in charge haven't been able to break everything yet. Not for lack of trying though.
Authoritarian? It would take far too much space here to detail the deeply corrupt authoritarian actions of the previous Democrat administrations, but we elected Trump to fix the corruption and get the country back on the right track, and so he is moving fast. Just because the ACLU can find a leftist judge somewhere to issue a restraining order without allowing the government to respond, does not make the Trump administration actions authoritarian. The executive branch has broad powers, and he is using them to uncover all the corruption, fraud, waste, and illegal activities in the federal government that the Dems would much rather no one ever knew about. You say "authoritarian", I say using legal oversight and yes, the authority vested in the executive branch to manage the administrative state and direct it to carry out the laws as they were written and within constitutional limits.
Trump is spending more than Biden. Due process is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Red states have the lowest rankings when it comes to wealth and education.
Musk is picking your pocket and you happily comply. Trump’s tariffs are a tax on citizens of the United States. Shipping goods to the United States has slowed to a crawl. An alcoholic uses social media to discuss sensitive material.
We clearly don't see the world in the same way. I have other things to do than respond any more to your conclusions based on your information that I do not believe is entirely or at all truthful. I do recognize your comments as leftist talking points that are being used to rally the faithful and try to discredit Trump, because they fear him as they have never feared a Republican before. They fear him because they know he will get things done, and is aiming to dismantle the progressive project, which has only served the white liberal elite and has been terrible for everyone else.
Great comment. This line really rang true: "I realize that progressive ideology is life itself to most people on that end of the political spectrum." Without that, their lives would be meaningless. Literally.
And completely apropos of nothing it's WSFS time and I want to say some kind words for Xiran Jay Zhao's "Heavenly Tyrant" which is a MUCH better story. This time Zetian knows that she is a flawed character and literally everything is more adult
I can only quote Farah Jasmine Griffin here who may not teach the core curriculum that "the canon was presented to me as a precious prize" in the 1970s and that was how she received it.
I am not sure which translation Columbia is using but Allan Bloom made two points in his which got lost with my first encounter with a mediocre translation--
many translations make this boring because they are too presentist and aren't paying careful attention to how Plato used Greek words
Platonic dialogues are dialogues and not a textbook. This is hard to remember with The Republic which has a LOT of exposition by Socrates but the drama and how the argument comes across through character and the contrast to heroes like the Homeric ones is very important
But even with that mediocre translation I knew that this was an important book and would reward paying close attention to how things were argued rather than just what.
I have 4 kids from 30 to 40 years old. They were all read to from a very early age until they could read on their own. They are all readers in adulthood. Yes they all have phones and do the phone things, but they all read actual books. You have to make it habit and enjoyable when they are young. It was a nightly before bed routine, which I miss dearly.
I heartily agree with the principle of fostering curiosity in education, but there is an overwhelming amount of important and complex stuff to be curious about: birds, stars, insects, crops, livestock, electricity, chemistry, human health as well as foundational literature. And just as there are difficult books to read that are considered foundational, there are difficult aspects of many other subjects that are also foundational and sometimes even of practical significance.
As a graduate and retired faculty member of Land Grant universities (LGUs), I would like to offer some defense of the LGUs, even though Glenn might consider them to be “nothing more than overpriced professional development centers.”
The LGUs attempt to blend practical arts with “higher” learning. Alongside focusing on physical science and engineering, I and many students have been able to dabble in some of the great books (e.g., Plato, Kant), but I have yet to delve into Dostoevsky. I think I have managed to maintain curiosity and appreciation for the complexity of the natural world and human thought. I am most familiar with the complexity of my own subject matter (hydrology and biogeochemistry) and, like other specialists, I think it deserves more attention and resources than it gets. But I also appreciate that students arriving on campus have the opportunity to explore a wide range of subject matter and thus follow their curiosity in the context of extensive accumulated knowledge of the faculty and in the library.
In my view, universities ought to be places where students encounter a wide range of ideas: practical, impractical, difficult, easy, dangerous, foundational, etc. But to the extent that universities depend on public finance, the public has a right and duty to question the value of their investment. Providing “professional development” is a partial and compelling answer, but it ought not be the only answer. More effective public dialog about the other values may help persuade some of the public that impractical foundational knowledge may be worth the investment. Perhaps declining public support for universities may reflect a failure to adequately communicate the significance of the impractical foundational knowledge.
In a defense of open ended inquiry in science, Nobel laureate physicist Leon Lederman once provided the following thought experiment: if scientists had limited their focus to only solving practical problems related to the health of human eyes, it is unlikely they would have ever invented the laser, which has become a valuable tool in eye care. Open ended inquiry is valuable, but unpredictable. Improved understand the world for its own sake can increase our ability to find new ways to solve practical problems.
Harvard will settle the claims of the federal government, and keep its federal money, by shedding the more egregious of its DEI policies and practices and strengthening its enforcement of antisemitism policies, without any damage to academe, or any significant impediment to university research and development.
Established federal law (Title VI, Title IX, etc.) gives the government the authority to withhold federal grants and subsidies from colleges and universities found, pursuant to investigation and a hearing, to be discriminating on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity, etc., in their policies, practices, or procedures, and to withhold funds from all university programs regardless of how limited or widespread the discriminatory practices are claimed to be.
For example, under the Carter administration, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Education, moved to withhold all federal funds from the University of North Carolina on the basis of a claim that UNC was operating a “dual system of education.” OCR based that claim upon the overwhelmingly black composition of the student bodies and staff at UNC’s five historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and that of the majority white composition of the remaining 11 institutions. To avoid loss of federal funding, OCR demanded that UNC cease offering parallel educational programs at majority white and majority black schools in the same geographical area. Accordingly, particular programs were to be offered only at the local HBCU, requiring white students to attend the HBCU in order to enter those programs. Where other programs were offered only at the local majority white school, black students seeking to enter those programs would have to attend the majority white school rather than the local HBCU. The reorganization of programs demanded by OCR, would have erased the traditionally African American character of the HBCUs. After some legal skirmishes, UNC settled the matter by agreeing to greatly reduced terms that preserved the HBCUs.
Increased government power is not a fixed weapon, but one that can be turned on its creators. Harvard and the other schools cited by the Trump administration will settle, if only to avoid a public examination of their conduct and practices regarding DEI and antisemitism, particularly in the wake of the embarrassing dramas involving Claudine Gay, Minouche Shafik, and others. Despite President Garber’s lofty public pronouncements, Harvard has already signaled its desire to settle by engaging as its chief legal counsel two Republican insiders, one from the first Trump administration, and the other from the George W. Bush administration, two “Trump Whisperers” brought on specifically to make a deal.
I went to university 50 years ago, and of course it is very different now in almost every way. The strong hard-Left ideology that seems to be part of many if not most universities now is the biggest difference, I think. I entered college as a conservative with a fairly good sense of current political trends (1973). Looking back, I remember only one professor out of many that showed any sense at all of his personal politics, and that was clearly liberal. But for all the other professors, I have no idea what their politics were, they taught the material and did not bring their ideologies into the classroom. I realize that progressive ideology is life itself to most people on that end of the political spectrum, so leaving it outside the classroom door probably doesn't even make sense to them, but progressive ideas are so counterfactual, unrealistic, and destructive, that many students leave school with less real knowledge than your average 8th grader a few decades ago. Universities could come a long ways back out of the wilderness if they returned to a non-ideological philosophy of teaching. All of the older pre-woke, pre-queer theory, pre-DEI knowledge is still there, as I learned it, and that curriculum could again produce actual educated people instead of half-literate children with no ability to think critically or participate meaningfully in adult society. I realize that there are people who get through college and get some degree of real education in certain subjects, and resist the wokism, but too many today do not and the next generation will suffer greatly because of it.
Give us a break. Conservatives are suppressing free speech, support jack booted thugs grabbing people off the streets, and threatening law firms, corporations, news media, judges, etc. There are no conservative principles. There is only a power grab
Red states have poorer health, education, and wealth outcomes.
I can see by the way you framed your comments that you most likely consume only legacy/leftist media. The way we see it on the other side, the progressive Left under Biden was running wild with no liberal principles on a mad power grab, and the Trump people are doing everything they can to stop the lawlessness, bring the perpetrators to account, and restore freedom. The "grabbing people off the streets"? Yes, criminals and gang members that no one outside the Left bubble can understand why leftists want them here at all, much less loose to carry on their criminal activities. Threatening various members of the progressive establishment? I'm sure they were doing what you wanted them to do during the last administration but that doesn't make it legal or consistent with the "norms" and "principles" that are suddenly so important now that the Left's corruption, self-dealing, illegal suppression of speech, and so much else are being exposed. Get outside the bubble and get the real facts, not the twisted version the Left is telling.
And the "red states are poor" trope is getting really tired. I don't know how you can find a worse situation for health, education, or wealth than the bluest of blue California, except for a very few wealthy elites.
California’s economy has grown to overtake yet another foreign country, putting the state at the fourth-largest in the world if it were to be considered separate from the rest of the U.S.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/california-economy-overtakes-another-country-170700218.html
You avoided discussing the authoritarian actions taken by Trump and his minions.
I live in California and the riches are concentrated in a very narrow slice of the population who are outrageously wealthy. The poverty rate and homelessness is the highest in the country, the affordability is the lowest, test scores for children are nearly the lowest, and the state is waging war against every productive industry except increasing government and the tech sector. Again, this state is no blue paradise, far from it. The state is just big, and is living off past glories, the current crazies who are in charge haven't been able to break everything yet. Not for lack of trying though.
Authoritarian? It would take far too much space here to detail the deeply corrupt authoritarian actions of the previous Democrat administrations, but we elected Trump to fix the corruption and get the country back on the right track, and so he is moving fast. Just because the ACLU can find a leftist judge somewhere to issue a restraining order without allowing the government to respond, does not make the Trump administration actions authoritarian. The executive branch has broad powers, and he is using them to uncover all the corruption, fraud, waste, and illegal activities in the federal government that the Dems would much rather no one ever knew about. You say "authoritarian", I say using legal oversight and yes, the authority vested in the executive branch to manage the administrative state and direct it to carry out the laws as they were written and within constitutional limits.
Trump is spending more than Biden. Due process is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Red states have the lowest rankings when it comes to wealth and education.
Musk is picking your pocket and you happily comply. Trump’s tariffs are a tax on citizens of the United States. Shipping goods to the United States has slowed to a crawl. An alcoholic uses social media to discuss sensitive material.
We clearly don't see the world in the same way. I have other things to do than respond any more to your conclusions based on your information that I do not believe is entirely or at all truthful. I do recognize your comments as leftist talking points that are being used to rally the faithful and try to discredit Trump, because they fear him as they have never feared a Republican before. They fear him because they know he will get things done, and is aiming to dismantle the progressive project, which has only served the white liberal elite and has been terrible for everyone else.
Great comment. This line really rang true: "I realize that progressive ideology is life itself to most people on that end of the political spectrum." Without that, their lives would be meaningless. Literally.
And completely apropos of nothing it's WSFS time and I want to say some kind words for Xiran Jay Zhao's "Heavenly Tyrant" which is a MUCH better story. This time Zetian knows that she is a flawed character and literally everything is more adult
I can only quote Farah Jasmine Griffin here who may not teach the core curriculum that "the canon was presented to me as a precious prize" in the 1970s and that was how she received it.
I am not sure which translation Columbia is using but Allan Bloom made two points in his which got lost with my first encounter with a mediocre translation--
many translations make this boring because they are too presentist and aren't paying careful attention to how Plato used Greek words
Platonic dialogues are dialogues and not a textbook. This is hard to remember with The Republic which has a LOT of exposition by Socrates but the drama and how the argument comes across through character and the contrast to heroes like the Homeric ones is very important
But even with that mediocre translation I knew that this was an important book and would reward paying close attention to how things were argued rather than just what.
Generally I am terrified for the future of real education if people cannot read anything that isn't AI slop.
I have 4 kids from 30 to 40 years old. They were all read to from a very early age until they could read on their own. They are all readers in adulthood. Yes they all have phones and do the phone things, but they all read actual books. You have to make it habit and enjoyable when they are young. It was a nightly before bed routine, which I miss dearly.