Straight From The Source

A College Professor Speaks Out About College Failures

Here at Collegeplus! you would expect us to speak out of the downsides of college. You would expect to hear about how college is not the best environment to learn or to be taught and can in fact be a negative experience on almost all levels.

But what if you heard the same things from a college professor?

"John Smith" (actual name withheld) came out and wrote a deep and serious article on why he was leaving his post as professor for a liberal arts college. His concerns were very well thought through and eloquently presented. He presents the argument that colleges are actually degrading into centers of ease and recreation. He states that "Intellectual sparring (dare I use the term) about ideas – among students and faculty – has been replaced by one-sided, partisan drivel" and that colleges have "become a puffy sofa nestled with down pillows. For a few bucks and in a few hours, students can take a test and learn that they are language disabled, or mathematically disabled, or for a few bucks more, both. Students increasingly ask me during advising sessions if a class is tough or hard, or if the professor assigns a lot of reading, because they need to 'lighten their load.'"

Mr. Smith challenges not only the academic challenge of the students but also the attitude of his fellow professors. "Professors and administrators seek to 'nurture' and 'engage' and they are doing so at the expense of teaching." He confesses that he loves his job, but is tired of the way that college campuses have become an alternate reality where work ethic and other standard character qualities are trampled by relativity and a doctrine of ease. Smith says he will miss his good students, but,

"In fact I think I am doing a genuine service to the better students by leaving. I cannot in good conscience dumb down a lecture, knowing full well that the gifted and talented have read four chapters beyond the syllabus, and that they are not being sufficiently challenged."

Read the whole article here on Inside Higher Ed, a daily news feed that covers the latest in the higher education world.

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Posted by Shawn Cohen