Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More
Derek Bok. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005; 424 pp; ISBN: 978-0-691-12596-1, hardcover $29.95 US.
A Larger Sense of Purpose: Higher Education and Society
Harold T. Shapiro. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005; 202 pp; ISBN: 978-0-691-12363-9, hardcover $24.95 US.
By Richard Van Loon
The United States has developed a major industry which is scarcely present in Canada: the production of books written by current or, more often, past university presidents based on their experience in office. Recent examples have emanated from Duke, Yale, Michigan, Wesleyan and Emory and include, as well, the two books reviewed here. Sometimes, as in Derek Bok’s Our Underachieving Colleges, this is a highly useful enterprise. In other instances, such as Harold Shapiro’s A Larger Sense of Purpose, it is too much of a sometimes good thing.
Bok, who was president of Harvard University from 1971 to 1991 and who then stepped in again as interim president this past year after the demise of Lawrence Summers, has produced a well-researched and clearly-written analysis of the problems of and some potential solutions for undergraduate instruction in American universities and colleges.
Shapiro, who was president of the University of Michigan from 1979 to 1988 and of Princeton University from 1988 to 2001, has cobbled together a series of speeches (the 2003 Clark Kerr Lectures) with a scant integrating theme. Since Shapiro is a wise person, there are some useful insights and thoughtful passages in his work, but parts of it are irrelevant to his stated topic “higher education and society,” and overall, in contrast to Bok’s work, his is not one of either utility or scholarship.
That said, there are many common themes in the two books. Neither is much concerned with access to higher education. While there are many current books and articles on this theme in the U.S., both are more concerned with what happens to students once they arrive at university than with who gets there. Both share a deep commitment to “liberal education,” to its importance in supporting civil society and to its role in underpinning what both still refer to (perhaps surprisingly to Canadians) as American liberal democracy. Both believe the foundations of liberal education include the inculcation of civic virtue, the sharpening of critical thinking, numeracy and the need for attention to moral reasoning, but only Bok says much about how to achieve these ends.
Both recognize and criticize faculty self-interest, but only Bok recognizes and criticizes presidential and administrative self-interest and only Bok extends this analysis to take a clear look at incentives for universities to engage in effective curriculum reform or improved pedagogy.
Both have useful and complimentary brief histories of the evolution of American universities, with Shapiro reminding us they were trivial players in American life and economic advancement until well into the 20th century, and Bok reminding us there never was a golden era of liberal education and that the commitment of undergraduate students to the scholarly life has always been tenuous at best. Both note that professional schools have always been with us and often predominant and neither decries that fact. Both remind us that our students learn as much, or more, about moral behaviour by watching how we, faculty and administration, behave towards them and each other as from anything we may say. And both accept that, for undergraduates at least, universities should take responsibility for much of what some would view as the parental role of civil socialization, including teaching tolerance and civility.
Shapiro’s concerns are both broader and narrower than those of Bok. Shapiro is ostensibly concerned with all aspects of the research university in society, but he is not particularly concerned with the vast numbers of colleges which do not quite fit that category. He does, however, nicely pose the question of institutional values and ambitions in a way applicable to all colleges and universities as depending on “our understanding what we, as a university would not allow ourselves to do even if offered additional resources; what we would do with or without additional resources and what we would do only if additional resources are made available.” (p. xvi) And he does note, with at least some humility, “no university is as distinguished as it says (or believes) it is, or as distinguished as it should be.” (p. 39)
Consistent with his concern about the relationship of the research university and society he expresses well the kind of conflict that can be created for the university and its faculty by relationships with the biomedical sector: “… it creates a virtual flood of conflicts of interest within academic institutions, where it becomes less and less clear whose interests are being served by the collaboration. Certainly the new alliance undermines traditional notions of faculty and university independence, the full participation of faculty in the intellectual commons, and the role of university faculty as disinterested creators and collaborators of knowledge. It may ultimately undermine the reputation of universities for independence and openness and eventually undermine public trust in the entire university enterprise.” (p. 21) Indeed, he notes, the monetary value of research may lead to less and less inclination to share, thus threatening the underpinnings of the growth of scientific knowledge.
These concerns are not less applicable to other areas of “commercially applicable” research and they are no less a concern in Canada than in the U.S. In fact, the fixation of Canadian governments with the potential commercialization of research and with patents and commercial licenses as evidence of university performance make the danger here at least as great as south of the border.
But in spite of tantalizing insights such as these, Shapiro fails to bring his scattered pieces together to fulfil his promise. For example, his last chapter is 41 pages long. It is aptly named “Some Ethical Dimensions of Scientific Progress,” for the dimensions are discursive and based too much on his five years as chair of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. More important, they are unrelated to the stated theme of his book since very little is said about the role of universities in addressing these crucial issues.
In sharp contrast to Shapiro’s occasionally wise, sometimes pretentious and rather disconnected work intended to apply primarily to research universities, Bok has written a well-researched and clearly-expounded “how to” manual with the aim of improving the undergraduate curriculum and pedagogy, applicable to all colleges and universities. He partly succeeds, certainly enough to make the book a valuable contribution to the considerable literature on the subject. He makes many valuable proposals, but in the end he derives what would be viewed by many as an overloaded and over prescriptive curriculum. He recommends changes to both teaching assignments and methods which, however laudable in theory, are likely to be achieved only in certain types of institutions — not including Harvard and other major research universities — and only over long periods of time.
He begins by noting that, measured by what might be called “consumer satisfaction” (a term that, as an experienced university president, he wisely avoids), American universities are hugely successful. In most surveys, about 80 per cent of students and graduates are highly, or mostly, satisfied with their experience and so is the public. Results in Canada are remarkably similar.
But when the question becomes “what did you learn?”, the results are far less encouraging. Improvements in skills such as written or oral communication are small and there is actual regression for many science and engineering students. Similar results are seen for numeracy: modest improvements for some, but actual regression for many students in the humanities and social sciences. While things like moral reasoning or critical thinking are harder to measure, they progress modestly at best over the undergraduate career. And as for facts or concepts, unless they are constantly and actively used, students will have forgotten half of those covered by the time they leave the lecture hall and virtually all of them by the time they leave university.
As for pedagogy, while faculty spend on average more than 50 per cent of their time on instruction, the methodologies of teaching, familiar to us all, have scarcely changed in a century. While teaching is hard to evaluate directly and objectively, rather like poetry or architecture, its results can be evaluated and they show that the more directly active and interactive is the style of the instructor, the better the students learn. But we persist in the lecture/multiple-choice test mode, which has been demonstrated time and again to be, at best, a modestly effective method of teaching. And while a few faculty use the web to increase the effectiveness of their teaching, most use it only to amplify traditional passive learning.
To Bok, then, it is vital to review both curricula and pedagogy and to do so in the light of a careful consideration of both our objectives for undergraduate education and the substantial research available on the best ways to teach. This, he notes, is a difficult task since faculty, who are ultimately responsible for these matters and who profess allegiance to careful use of evidence-based research in their own areas of expertise, remain ignorant or skeptical of research about curricula and pedagogy and confident that largely unexamined and inchoate goals of undergraduate education are the right ones. Although he does not explicitly say so, the same criticism could certainly be applied to many academic administrators.
The difficulty is compounded due to the inherent conservatism of most faculty, the sheer effort of simultaneously changing both what is taught and how it’s taught and the vested and understandable inclination of senior faculty to avoid teaching anything resembling a service course.
This latter point is important because his views about appropriate curriculum reform would lead to many service courses. Informed by the same view as Shapiro about the vital role of universities in underpinning civil society and liberal democracy, Bok’s curriculum for professional schools as well as the humanities and social sciences would include heavy doses of critical thinking, moral reasoning and mind broadening. To some degree this would infuse all courses and would also be gained from extracurricular activities. It would also mean exposure of all undergraduates to courses in American democracy, America in world affairs (Canadian equivalents could easily be substituted), ethical reasoning, political philosophy, basic economics, numeracy (the application of mathematics to everyday problems), a foreign culture and, possibly, a foreign language, although he notes the number of hours required to achieve even low-level proficiency in the latter may make that requirement impractical.
While this may seem appealing, it also seems impractical. Many students would benefit from such courses, but many would not. Senior faculty would be, at best, reluctant to teach or supervise them. There would be little room left in the curriculum for at least one of sufficient breadth or sufficient concentration.
In the end, then, while Bok has dozens of proposals, many of which are attractive, taken together as he proposes, they are infeasible. This certainly does not negate the value of his book. In part, it is valuable as a research compendium containing much data on teaching performance and pedagogical methods. And in part, it is a reasoned list of possibilities. But its greatest value is in urging constant attention to evaluation and reform of the undergraduate teaching enterprise, and in so doing, asking ourselves constantly what is the purpose of what we are doing.
Rather than mere exhortation, he tries to tell us how it should be done. And even if we don’t agree with all his conclusions it is hard to deny that his methodology is the right one for it fits with our stated approach in universities of applying available research to intended goals. It is well worth the study of anyone interested in what and how we teach our students and it is as applicable in Canada as it is in the U.S.
Richard Van Loon, who is now enjoying post-retirement adventures, was president and vice-chancellor of Carleton University from 1996 to 2005.