Draft of a Working Paper for Education at Brown University

DRAFT OF A WORKING PAPER FOR EDUCATION AT BROWN UNIVERSITY by Ira Magaziner with Elliot Maxwell and Eleanor Saunders Jane Beckett Cathy Johnson Harlan Hurwitz Kenneth Ribet Arthur Grossman Laurel Overby Kathryn Au William Salganik George Lee Elwood Carter Laura Geller Cynthia Breitberg Bruce Blodgett H Theodore Cohen Susan Jamieson Ross Mcelwee Susan Boyd Bowman We would like to express our thanks to Mark Augenblick for his helpful suggestions and his much needed prodding on the many occasions that we failed to meet our deadlines, and to Chris Sweck, Sharron Swol, and Joyce Reback for their help in preparing the report. We would like to give special thanks to Dean Robert O. Schulze whose inspiration and advice have guided the writing of this report and whose financial support made much of the research and writing possible; and to Mrs. Winifred Sampson who braved illegible copy and almost impossible deadlines to type a manuscript of over four hundred pages. Finally, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to Mrs. Celia Lottridge without whose editorial help and comment, this report could never have been completed. It has been both intellectually rewarding and a great pleasure to work with her. Copyright, 1968, by Ira Magaziner, Elliot Maxwell, et.al. About this Copy of the Manuscript This copy of the manuscript was re-typed into a digital format by Thom Hastings while attending Eugene Lang College the New School for Liberal Arts, from the book of reference number LD632 -M33 cop. 2, which was taken out from The Library of Brown University by his cousin Edgar Woznica on November 13th, 2007, and due back on January 31st, 2008. It was actually returned about a month later. A bar-code on the inside back cover reads: 3 1236 00021 6245. This copy of the manuscript was originally typed in the .txt format on a computer running Ubuntu Linux. It is encoded in Unicode for the use of superscript in citations. This version has been converted to the .doc format, leaving superscript 1-3 in Unicode and formatting 4-9 and 0 into superscript by changing font, etc. (Test to see if you can view the characters: ¹²³4567890) This copy of the manuscript has been changed from the original format in the following ways: 1.) Any observed typo-graphical errors and misspellings have been rectified. This copy of the manuscript is to be distributed under the Creative Commons License 3.0 Unported with Attribution for Non-commercial use. Permission obtained from Elliot Maxwell. Preface We are assuming that the purpose of a preface is to allow the authors the opportunity to apologize to the reader for at least some of the mistakes which the reader will encounter, and to express the hopes which the authors harbor for their work. There are many things for which we must ask the reader's indulgence: the superficial treatment of many subjects and the omission of countless others; the omission of footnotes and a bibliography which will be remedied shortly; the inadequacy of the reproduction which, because of limited finances, had to be done on our vastly overworked mimeography machine; the typo-graphical errors and the duplication of page numbers 46 and 117 which were overlooked in our haste; and the lack of unity and coherence which is the result of attempting a work which confronts a large and complex subject and which necessarily was prepared in sections. Finally, we would like to apologize for the delay in time between when we first proposed to release the report and when it is finally reaching the public: this was the result of our efforts to prepare a working paper worthy of both the subject matter and the institution. Some of the previous problems are due to the nature of this work; it is and should be viewed as a draft of a working paper. For all of the problems however, we apologize. We have worked too long on this report for it not to be an expression of many of our hopes. The most fundamental one is our desire to help initiate an informed discussion about higher education in general and about education at Brown in particular. We believe that the report may help both to clarify some of the problems involved in such a discussion, and to bring out others which have not previously been considered. But we would be less than honest if we did not assert that a major goal of this work is to achieve significant reforms at Brown. If it merely starts a dialogue it has not failed, but it must lead to major changes if it is to be considered a total success. Introduction In the introduction to the mammoth work, The American College, Nevitt Stanford says, "One does not need any fixed conceptions of educational Goals in order to be convinced that American Colleges are failing badly. They fail to achieve their own stated purposes; and they fail by other reasonable standards of accomplishment." These sentiments, in one form or another, are shared by almost all of the people with whom we have come into contact through reading and discussion in the course of this study. These people have ranged from college presidents and deans, professors from a wide variety of disciplines and institutions, and students from all across the country, to philosophers, psychologists, and politicians. Their criticisms have ranged from the belief that the university is not only useless but even harmful, to the charge that it is at best adequate as an institution. Most of the critics however, agree that the university is not doing as good a job as it should. After a year of study of the educational Process at universities, we have reached a similar conclusion. Unlike those who see the university as useless, we feel very strongly that universities can be sources of valuable educational Experiences for students. We are committed, in this report, to the realization of that possibility. This report has been written to serve as a working paper for discussion, study and change at Brown University. As a working paper it is designed to provide an orderly framework for the pursuit of answers to the questions that are being raised about education at Brown, and about higher education in general. It will also propose solutions which will serve as starting points for discussion. These solutions are only approximations, and do not even represent the main concerns of this report. Our main concerns are to express the need for a comprehensive study of the educational Process in the American university today, and to initiate this type of study at Brown. After a great deal of study, talking, listening, reading, and thinking, we are convinced that the greatest problem facing administrators, faculty members, and students today is a lack of understanding of how to cope with the problems of the university. This lack of understanding springs from the failure to carefully consider the aims of the university, and the consequences of actions taking place within it. While a great deal of study is taking place at the university, focusing on almost all aspects of the universe, there is little study of the purposes of the university itself, of the aims of the education which it provides, and of the effectiveness, in practice, of these aims. Moreover, conversations and written materials about education are steeped in meaningless rhetoric, issues are only partly presented, not enough time is spend in considering basic questions, remedies are forced into an incoherent, patchwork pattern--all while the university continues to operate and grow without a fundamental knowledge of where, why, and how it is going. If we can begin this process of study, if we can attempt to gain this fundamental knowledge, and if we can watch the attempt progress in a meaningful manner, we will feel that we have succeeded. We do not intend to enter into a discussion of student power or the differing attitudes of today's students, from which it seems to flow, in this paper. While the issue of student power is one of enormous importance to the university, and should be examined critically by all members of the university community--especially the student body--considerations of power of any type are not relevant to this paper. What is most relevant and most important is the undertaking of a comprehensive study of education, and the proposal of solutions, resulting from such study, which will improve the quality of education at Brown, and perhaps elsewhere. We hope that the ideas in this report will be judged on their own merits--not degraded because students wrote them, or elevated for the same reason. The report begins with a brief history of our efforts. It continues with an analysis of some of the fallacies involved in, and weaknesses of, discussions of education which now take place, and which must be eliminated if there is to be valuable exchange on the subject. Before defining what we feel are the purposes of the university, we attempt to describe the context of the American university in American society. This is begun with a brief history of the American university, which is followed by a discussion of the contemporary American university and the various trends which are affecting it. This ends the first part of the report. The next part of the report consists of a theoretical examination of what we believe are the purposes of the university in American society--acquisition of knowledge, service to society, and the education of the Young. Though we will focus on the educational Function, we feel that the other Purposes should be examined at length, by others.

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