In this season of austerity, I would like to humbly propose that we return to some of the foundational traditions of our colleges and universities.
No, I do not mean the values of the 1950s, when the United States believed in education as a public good—nor even the 1880s, when universities decided to become centers of research. I mean the values that emerged after the fall of the Roman Empire. Monasticism, I believe, may provide the most effective haven for higher education in the context of yet another crumbling civilization corrupted by luxuries, addicted to war, and hostile to self-examination.
Hemmed in by barbarians on every side, it's time for academe to get medieval.
There are, of course, many ways of being a monastic, and the Christian tradition is only one. But most include some variation on the basic pattern of communal living, asceticism, combined with a regime of meditation and labor.
In some modern forms, the monastic way of life need not even include adherence to a particular faith. One can easily imagine cloistered communities focused on sustainable, ecological practices. Instead of daily prayers, members of the collective might spend a prescribed number of hours reading Thoreau and Wendell Berry; in season, they might cultivate organic heirloom vegetables for their own use and for sale at the local farmer's market.
One could imagine that in the Middle Ages, choosing a monastery might have been like selecting among liberal-arts colleges, each with a different variation of mission and expression. But the major purpose, in every case, was to turn away from the vices and distractions of the world toward a higher life—often a deeply intellectual one—nurtured by the work of one's hands.
Such an option is scarcely available to many so-called traditional students, for whom the life of the mind is barely an afterthought, perhaps somewhere below the availability of enough stair-climbing machines in the gleaming, new fitness megaplex financed by ruinous tuition costs and the galley-slave wages of self-loathing adjuncts staffing a thousand sections of remedial composition.
But I digress.
As we all know, for the virtuous student, college life has become a variation on The Temptation of Saint Anthony—a never-ending assault by the demons of gluttony, envy, sloth, lust, and pride. The real question is how to build an institution of higher learning that is not an incubator of evil. One that cultivates the higher values and steers students away from self-gratification, materialism, and worldly ambition toward a purity of purpose sustained by cultivation of the intellect, discipline, and cheerful self-denial.
Let us, for a moment, consider what it might be like to join a college that has redesigned itself according to The Rule of St. Benedict, comprising guidelines for the Benedictines, an order of men and women that has survived for nearly 1,500 years.
In the sixth century, St. Benedict established one of the first monasteries at Monte Cassino, near Rome. Although he was not a supporter of scholarly pursuits, the Benedictines eventually set about preserving ancient learning that might otherwise have been lost, and they made substantial contributions of their own. As the culture of scholarship developed, spiritual devotion and the intellectual life became complementary rather than antagonistic. Everything had meaning that looked to the ultimate marriage of heaven and earth: That was explicitly Christian, of course, but the basic worldview resonates with contemporary progressivism in many ways.
"Listen carefully, my child, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart," begins St. Benedict, sounding almost like Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yes, I want to say, I want to become a Jedi, too, and fight to restore balance to the galaxy.
It all begins with a sense of purpose and destiny. A major should not be selected because of a job report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What would it be like if college students felt that they were called to a vocation rather than simply getting their tickets stamped so they can get middle-class jobs, if they are lucky?
Perhaps in the futility of undergraduate careerism lie the seeds of a new vocational outlook in higher education. It is worth remembering that monasteries were the first institutions in the West that allowed people to explore options beyond the circumstances into which they were born.
I often see proposals for such an institution. Why not bring together a core group of serious-minded but underemployed academics—who already have adopted a life of poverty, more or less—to form a college that has none of the superfluities that have made higher education the equivalent of a four-year Carnival cruise? No more millionaire vice presidents and coaches, no more gargantuan stadiums with double-Jumbotrons, no more dorms and dining centers that look like Disney World resorts, no more exploited adjuncts who fear displeasing their student-customers. Instead, this college would have full-time, resident professors, recreational athletics, and basic dormitories that the students maintained themselves. In time, a few administrators could be chosen from among the faculty.
What if, instead of preparing students to leave the institution, we encouraged some of them to stay, joining us in work and reflection for as long as they continued to benefit from the experience? One of the major corrupting elements of higher education—the fear of unemployment—would be reduced, and students could focus, once again, on learning for its own sake.
Another corrupting influence—anxiety over college costs—could be removed entirely by making our institutions self-sustaining through productive labor. Depending on their interests and capabilities, students—let us call them "novices"—could be put to work growing food, tending beehives, crafting furniture, building digital archives, and doing their part in cleaning and maintenance, thereby providing—through a system of communal sharing—the resources, infrastructure, and maintenance needed to sustain the institution in perpetuity, with minimal external support.
Many aspects of the monastic life could be fruitfully adopted. The Rule of St. Benedict is a kind of constitution; it includes guidelines for provosts, deans, and dormitories. More important, it requires, among other things, that everyone be treated equally, and that all work together for the good of the community, deeming no task too lowly to be undertaken. Members should cultivate nonviolence, humility, and ungrudging obedience to just authority. Speech should be used in moderation, and only for some purpose. Instead of gossiping at meals, edifying books are read aloud. There are no private possessions, only two meals a day, and vegetarianism is the norm. Clothing is simple, utilitarian, and uniform. The day is organized around manual labor, private study, and the rituals of communal prayer.
All of those rules are supports for a way of life that is ultimately directed toward a higher meaning. For the Christian monastic, that would be one's relationship with God, but many other orientations are possible.
One component of this way of life stands out to me, in particular, as most important: solitude and silence. In every waking moment, students now are bombarded with the din of the marketplace and encouraged to join in the madness of crowds. But in an empty room—without a high-definition, widescreen TV—one stands alone and is forced to confront the truth about oneself. Nothing is more effective at bringing about personal transformation and enlightenment—whatever one's tradition—and we have made it all but impossible in the modern university.
At first glance, my proposal seemspaleo-conservative, but it may be that reviving some parts of monastic culture could make us greener and more progressive; it could nurture a culture of intellectually serious and critical self-examination; and it could slow and eventually reverse the unsustainable growth of tuition costs—rooted in the proliferation of countless distractions—that is causing us to wonder if higher education is the next major social institution to crumble.
We are, no doubt, entering a period of even greater austerity for academic programs. The message throughout higher education is no more tenure, no more small classes, and no more specialized research, unless it is paid for by external grants. Make the faculty accountable in quantifiable ways so that only quantifiable things can be taught. Essentially, everything at the core of traditional education is expendable—but the superfluities, driven by the need to attract students, are essential and must continue to grow. The outside world is inside the walls, and it's not going to leave.
What option remains for the serious-minded academic but withdrawal, reflection, and, eventually, the creation of new institutions on a stronger foundation?
The modern system of higher education has existed for little more than a century, and its present, decadent form has materialized only in the last few generations. While I would not seriously advocate the literal adoption of monastic rules, perhaps it is time to contemplate how we might regain our sense of purpose by revisiting the traditions of our oldest institutions.
Comments
1. davidperlmutter - January 24, 2011 at 06:32 am
Another excellent essay. One historical note. You write: "It is worth remembering that monasteries were the first institutions in the West that allowed people to explore options beyond the circumstances into which they were born." Well, actually there was one institution that allowed great social mobility before the monastery: The Roman Army. In the later empire you could rise from peasant recruit to be Emperor, in theory anyway. Most legionaires just made a living that was different from what they were born into. Even in the Middle Ages some men hacked their way from soldier to Duke. Perhaps not a model for academe, though.
2. 22228715 - January 24, 2011 at 07:54 am
I like the general idea, although I fear that some of the hyperbole takes a little away from it for serious students of higher ed (e.g. millionaire VPs, adjunct pay savings funding recreation centers, and other stretches of reality.) Aside from recruiting challenges, I think the biggest hurdles to infusing more of this into reality would be what happens when things go wrong. Much of what you've removed from the modern university exists because of what happens when it doesn't all work the way it's supposed to work for every individual, or when even the most monastic student slips in intention or output or ability. Some of what we've built to address that comes from our own sense of keeping things running, and some of it is legally wise or required. But the voluntarily monastic model probably works for a niche of students, who are all similar in profile, who know exactly what is expected of them all the time, who have maturity and wisdom and discipline, and who are very self-sufficient (umm... then why would they need to go to college?) I guess the rest of us will just have to work in the 21st century.
3. oioioi - January 24, 2011 at 08:04 am
This is fantastic! I couldn't agree more.
There goes study abroad, though.
4. texas2step - January 24, 2011 at 08:11 am
Check out Berea College in Kentucky and Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.
5. tpul2014 - January 24, 2011 at 08:37 am
I like the idea of the robe, in university colors, of course.
6. henry_adams - January 24, 2011 at 09:37 am
I enjoyed Professor Pannapacker's essay very much, and I hope that people shape institutions of higher learning that do what he suggests, rather than imitating resorts. I note that his vision doesn't doesn't deal directly with graduate school, but I suspect the omission is necessary. The learning community he proposes would work if grad students and their mentors would be content, like Chaucer's scholar, to gladly learn and gladly teach. Graduate school is all too often about feeding one's own ego and crushing others, which doesn't quite match Benedict's plan for a community.
7. henry_adams - January 24, 2011 at 09:52 am
Oops. Sorry about the repetition of "doesn't."
8. onlineasllou - January 24, 2011 at 10:15 am
I loved this essay. It reminded me of something about my PhD program. There were 3 groups of students: (a) those who lived locally, kept their full time jobs, and just took 1 or 2 classes at a time, (b) those who didn't live locally and came for summer classes only plus some online stuff in the winter, and (c) those of us who quit our jobs, moved to the school, studied full time, and worked a little part-time (usually for the school). I was in Group C, working as a research assistant and studying full time.
This was a nursing program and all of were over 30 and had been out in the work world before returning to school. While we had a lot in common with each other, there was a division between those of us who were full time students and those who just "dropped in" on a part time basis. We full timers were very focused on our studies and got most of the best grades, awards, etc. We thought of ourselves as superior studetns. The part timers seemed less committed and often did not perform as well in class -- yet they seemed to do more publishing and be engaged in more fruitful projects that applied their new knowledge.
I am not sure which group is better off in the long run. I need to do more thinking on this.
9. dyspeptic - January 24, 2011 at 10:16 am
As unlikely as this proposal is to be adopted, especially at any appreciable scale by larger institutions, the author is spot-on. This is a radical thought experiment that deserves a much wider readership than CHE. His admonition that students seek solitude and silence (which should begin with unplugging themselves from all the electronic and social media that impinge on them) is at the core of this exhortation.
Bravo!, I say.
10. avalongod - January 24, 2011 at 10:23 am
I usually like Benton's essays, and this one is certainly well-written and amusing. However it contains an elements of finger-wagging sanctimony about youth, modern culture, etc., which seem to routinely function as nostrums for fragile faculty feelings of superiority. It's easy to take a moral high road knowing the majority of people just can't possibly follow it (I was left curious whether Dr. Benton/Pannapacker has a flat screen TV). Life of the mind without worrying about job prospects...obviously not going to happen for the majority of students. Nor should it.
Put another way I wasn't left thinking there was any serious belief any of the essay's themes would be taken seriously by higher education (even removed from their satirical bent). More an "If I were king..." nostrum to play to faculty feelings of superiority over students, administrators and the general culture (goodness forbid that it should be driven by the marketplace).
So I'm a big fan, Dr. Benton/Pannapacker, but respectfully this one was a "miss" for me.
11. dyspeptic - January 24, 2011 at 10:35 am
Sometimes a little finger-wagging sanctimony is called for, especially in light of the appalling red flag hoisted by Academically Adrift.
12. jimislew - January 24, 2011 at 10:45 am
Enjoyable.
13. procrustes - January 24, 2011 at 10:46 am
#10 I have three words for you: panem et circenses. These appear to be the defining values of the "general culture" (just as in the Roman Empire). And as for "driven by the marketplace," see Mt. 21:12-13.
14. mrbridgeii - January 24, 2011 at 11:29 am
I enjoyed contemplating this as an ideal, but I'm not even sure we can equate seriousness and silence any longer. We live in a noisy culture, much of it superficial but some of it serious noise.
Even though I'm "poor" by the standards I see advertised on television, I think I'll keep my house off campus, my 24/7 cable and internet access, my electric garage door opener and my dishwasher--along with the joy of playing noisy video games with my kids. Sure, the middle-class is not what it used to be, but even that "barely" middle-class job isn't all that bad. Do we really have to encase ourselves in silence to be "serious" thinkers? I've done some serious thinking on those stair-climbing machines, and I can just as easily imagine some pretty superficial thoughts going through my mind while hoeing a garden.
15. dwhidden - January 24, 2011 at 11:43 am
Wyoming Catholic College has implemented a lot of this. All of their students are required to live in the dorms, which have no internet access and no television. The students are not allowed to have cell phones. They teach a great books curriculum. There is an outdoors curriculum through the National Outdoor Leadership School. Here's an article about their policy: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_6731b5fc-ce0c-59c0-a4b5-5e992239eb61.html
Also, the classic text on this is Jean Leclercq's "The Love of Learning and the Desire for God." There is always a risk of idealizing Benedictine life, but it is always worth looking back at what worked that we can apply now.
16. bdavi52 - January 24, 2011 at 11:47 am
Amusing and well-written, certainly. But equally irrelevant: A history so heavily glossed as to make it irradiant cast as "the good old days" when Johnny really wanted to learn and Masters really wanted to teach and all served to celebrate the glory of Higher Ed. As they say on ESPN, watched in HiDef on WideScreen TV, "C'mon man!"
We all make choices (and lucky we are to be able to make choices when much of the world and much of our own history is and has been characterized by a nasty, brutish struggle for food, shelter, and survival) and the 'galley-slaves' who are adjunct professors have indeed chosen to labor in those dimly lit recesses of "Composition 101" and "Science for Non-Science Majors". Such a fate, I'm sure, was not their dream as they finished their dissertation, long since dust-gathering on some shelf chockfull of equally forgotten lore. But why? If the academic life is so cruel...and colleges so full of Anthony's Temptations, why subject one's self to such pain? The answer, of course, is and always has been a matter of preference. We choose what we think best, for ourselves, our families, our futures. The adjunct who despises the ornery task of teaching grammar to 18 yr. olds, 3 classes per week, 9 months of the year, for entry-level compensation is always free to pursue more lucrative paths. Assembly line work can pay quite well as does plumbing. Laboring in the cubicle-vineyards of Grey Corporations can be both challenging and rewarding. Clearly the adjunct prefers the ivied corridors (which connect, by the way, to the Sports Megaplex and the Disney World Dining facilities, both heavily used by faculty and staff) which offer the possibility of tenure, a 2-2 teaching load, summers free, and the promise of regular sabbaticals. Oh, the horror, the horror!
All this, of course, is not to say we can't be better...that our standards (where they do still exist) cannot be improved, tightened, made more stringent (for both student and staff). But let us not wear the hair shirt as we bemoan the decadent present (which history tells us is always decadent, regardless of era). Let us not point to the Academic, clothe him in monastic dun, and celebrate with great hosannahs his saint-like devotion to the life of the mind (as he forsakes the big-screen TV's, the indoor track, the smartphone, the streaming video, the research trip to Paris). Let us, instead, say with all our heart, that yes, there is much to learn -- yes, we need great teachers -- yes, we need eager students and hungry minds and quiet, sacred places whose shelves sag under the weight of centuries of exploration. Yes, we, as a society and a civilization, need all that...but at the same time we must always understand and recognize as our Brother Economists would tell us: there is no free lunch. We need to find our home in the Marketplace, as we always have, and make, as we always have, our value apparent...as apparent now as it was in those Golden (and not so Golden) Days of Yore.
17. drj50 - January 24, 2011 at 12:52 pm
"The modern system of higher education has existed for little more than a century, and its present, decadent form has materialized only in the last few generations." Well, perhaps the in its present decadent form. But I recall reading millenium-old complaints that university students were more interested in drinking and whoring than studying. Perhaps that is the reason Prof. Pennapacker appeals to the monastery rather than the medieval university. But then, there were complaints about monks in some locations, as well.
One minor quibble: at most schools of my acquaintance, the "new fitness megaplex" is not "financed by ruinous tuition costs" but by separate student fees, often approved by students themselves. I wish we could put this fable to rest.
18. maxwellaustin - January 24, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Deep Springs College in California is very close to this ideal in several ways, particularly in its emphasis on student labor in the upkeep of the community. Plus, its location is about as remote as that of a Trappist monastery.
19. medievalmaniac - January 24, 2011 at 01:20 pm
Josiah Bunting, _An Education For Our Time_ (2000) tackles this idea in pretty nifty fashion. It was depressing to realize I was reading a work of fiction, but it profoundly shifted my ideas as to what is possible versus what is real in academia. I recommend it to anyone who enjoyed this essay.
20. ellenhunt - January 24, 2011 at 01:38 pm
Heavens. An idealist with an ahistorical sense of monastacism. Monastic life has been a haven for homosexuals and priesthoods for pedophiles for millenia. One of the few that hasn't succumbed to this characterization has been the Tibetans who established monastic life primarily as a temporary period and allowed yearly drinking parties for monks and nuns.
And before I get my flying fingers chewed off by the digerati, let me opine that stating facts is not a judgment one way or another.
21. avalongod - January 24, 2011 at 01:49 pm
Some of the other posters have a valid point here in noting that, historically, monastic life seldom lived up to the "ideals" at least in the Western tradition. Lets not forget to mention the brutality under which many monks lived (I've seen a report or two in the last years to suggest many nunneries remain psychologically if not physically abusive).
22. dyspeptic - January 24, 2011 at 02:08 pm
#20: Jeez, Ellen. Re-read the essay.
And for God's sake, lighten up.
23. jsandr1 - January 24, 2011 at 06:27 pm
An updating of Dorothy L. Sayers' classic, The Lost Tools of Learning, perhaps? http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html
24. 11161452 - January 24, 2011 at 10:24 pm
The problem is, many people are afraid to be alone, viewing the desire for solitude as a pathological condition. They complain about the unrelenting noise of our civilization, but in reality they wouldn't know what do to with silence and introspection. See the great article of a couple of years ago, "The End of Solitude", by W. Deresiewicz:
http://chronicle.com/article/The-End-of-Solitude/3708/
25. mothergrogan - January 24, 2011 at 10:32 pm
Yes, Wyoming Catholic College has many of these aspects, as well as more established institutions in Appalachia such as Berea, Berry, and Warren Wilson. The fact remains that higher ed is really a for-profit enterprise, and few of us tenured professors would be willing to take the sort of pay cuts that would be entailed by teaching at such an institution. Still, an admirable sentiment.
26. duffybjp - January 25, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Readers may enjoy Sir Francis Bacon's The New Atlantis. Bensalem takes the kind of secular community Prof. Pennypacker is contemplating to a level the monastic model would shun. Of course, Swift has probably saved us from embracing any such approach in his description of the Isle of Laputa.
27. trillo - January 25, 2011 at 01:04 pm
The Oleana Foundation is in the process of creating an institution very much like this. It will be a private, 4-year, faculty-residential Liberal Arts College that will deliver a superior private education for less than the cost of a public education.
Key to delivering lower costs is that faculty housing is part of compensation. But if someone was giving you and your family a free place to live, shared use of automobiles that the institution pays for and insures, and standard benefits, would you really think you are underpaid at $45,000 per annum?
The other key aspects of the plan are to:
- Procuring the campus and physical plant without cost as part of the economic development of defunct state institutions, military bases, or distressed mill complexes.
-Drastically streamlining the administration and the staffing of the college, with a goal of capping these numbers at 1/3 the size of the faculty.
-Reducing and reforming academic disciplinarity to deliver critical education developmentally, coherently, and more efficiently.
-Creating collaborative relationships with the local municipality and the community as a means of creating economies of scale in day-to-day operations.
- Eliminating nonessential services and amenities that are peripheral to the mission of the college, such as multi-million dollar spa-styled sports facilities, high-rise style and apartment-type housing, and inter-Varsity athletic teams.
-Instituting sustainability in the rehabilitation process for energy, water resources, food consumption and waste management.
-Establishing an Academic-Village style senior housing community as part of the campus as a means of creating a tax base for the local municipality, and a footprint for renewable energy technologies like solar.
In general though, the vision is to create an academic community that is free of the CEO model of academia.
If you are interested in joining a new enterprise that will be of the facutly, by the faculty, and for the students, feel free to email me at: trillo@oleana-edu.org
28. clarity_please - January 25, 2011 at 02:35 pm
#20: See #22 -- I couldn't agree more. And while you're at it, let's be a bit more serious in our study of the history of Western monasticism, rather than offering banal stereotypes born of -- what? reading _The Name of the Rose_ and today's headlines, combined with an Orientalism-inspired enthusiasm for the superiority of Tibet in all things?
As for medieval monasteries being a "haven for homosexuals": well, thank God somebody was.
29. tktsunami - January 25, 2011 at 09:15 pm
It may be of interest to the reader that such an institution does exist, albeit lacking the worldwide notice of the University of Paris. Thomas Aquinas College, in Santa Paula, CA, is a Catholic liberal arts college where the textbooks are the Great Books, the classes are all conducted in seminar format, the campus is dry, the students willingly (albeit at times with some small grumbling) to a not-terribly-onerous dress code, and every class begins with an invocation of the Holy Spirit.
While vegetarianism is not the norm, there is no meat served on Fridays. A majority of the students are in a work study program, which I have been told by many of those students makes tuition more than reasonable, and the work, for all its laboriousness, is rewarding; one has a share in the maintenance of the campus. But do not think that those off work study do not appreciate it. The average student spends about 70 percent of their free time in study. While relationships abound (the school is quite small, and has about 500 students at a time all told) the students are encouraged by the experienced to avoid dating until the second half of their Junior years, as the studies are THAT onerous. But they are very fruitful!
The model of the monastic intellectual life, Thomas Aquinas, is the father and saintly patron of the school; this reflects itself at every turn in the respect the students have for his work, even those that disagree with his conclusions. In the same spirit of the life he espoused, the tutors (they are not called professors by the students, but rather vary between in-class traffic controllers for conversation and sparks for the same discussion to go further, following the medieval conception in Aquinas' and Augustine's respective homonymous works, "On the Teacher", of that role; they are thus called tutors) live in relatively humble circumstances, at a humble and not exorbitant salary. Given the cost of living in California, what salary they receive is never begrudged them.
If the testimony of the students is any guide, moreover, (and I may count myself among them, as I graduated in 2009) the school may be rated very highly, since we are educated across the board. As a result of my study, I can sight-translate Latin, compose rudimentary classical music in Sonata form, read virtually any philosopher without difficulty (I think Hegel should be considered a coming-of-age trial) and follow even the most difficult disputation with competence, knowing I have skill in reading and thinking about what I read. I can safely say I know things, and answer those who would seek to argue that such a concept is meaningless as confidently as anything, from a rational basis. I can read Aquinas and Bonaventure with facility; I am acquainted with the development of math historically and philosophically, from Euclid to Einstein; and I can think about almost any famous work of literature one pleases with excitement and enjoyment. And this, the school assured us at the beginning of Freshman year and the end of Senior Commencement, is "only a beginning", as is proven true to me each day.
I am certain that other TAC students are reading this; some will think these compliments tacky or sappy; but all will agree that they are not entirely untoward, and those who know me know I mean them wholeheartedly.
You want the good of monasticism? Try Thomas Aquinas College.
30. bprnrao - January 26, 2011 at 12:41 am
I liked the article. THere is always much debate on reforms in higher education in India. There is much India need to learn from its ancient culture in the field of higher education. THe worlds first university Nalanda and Takshashila where people from all over the world used to come were almost based on the principles what Professor Pannapacker's essay highlights.
As we can observe the history one thing is always obvious - Change. What we see today must change in any way. SO how we proceed with the change determines our future. There may be lot of difference between what medieval and monastic kind of model to what the present day massification of education model. As was shown in the comments from many there are people who are following this kind of model in some way or other (may be with some of the things the article discusses). I can also see similar attempts in India. However, all these we need to see whehter will suffice the present day society or we need to integrate them with some of the present day requirements and tools.
We may also have to take into consideration the recent developments in the field of higher education in response to the present day demands and see how the principles of monastic order can be incorporated. I also refer to Mahatma Gandhi's Nai Talim where he proposes about how everyone is to be educated at their own level. This we may say in one way equal to the midievel education in India where education including vocational education was imparted as per the profession and intellectual level.
Dr. B.P.R. Narasmiharao
31. jungianscholar - January 26, 2011 at 08:29 am
This is a well written, and very reflective article. Texas2step rightly cites Berea College, in Berea, Kentucky, as a college that follows much in the model that Benton proposes. Any student accepted by Berea, will get a high quality education, even if they have no financial aid, through working for the school, something strongly encouraged. The school was found on Christian principles, and from its inception, has been known for the superb arts and crafts made by the students, including beautiful furniture. There are not streets of bars in Berea, Ky., nor monolithic sports stadia built to the American's worship of team sports in schools, and within the public, professional arena!
Berea is also a beautiful, small community with many artistic and craft sources. It is an ideal area for meditation, and reflection. In its own way, Berea exemplifies much of what Benton writes.
I earned my B.A. and Ph.D. through Antioch University, in another idealistic little town, albeit different from Berea, Kentucky. Antioch is located in Yellow Springs, Ohio, found by Horace Mann, considered by many to be the originator of American education. The school was seriously revitalized, with a radical new mission, in the 1920's, when Arthur E. Morgan, self-taught engineer under his father's tutelage, became president, and initially wanted to create a microcosm of society in Yellow Springs, creating a foundry, factory, retail establishments, a press, and other businesses that would provide the Antioch students with alternating work study opportunities for a more "whole life" experience so that the students could develop an integrated approach to learning, vis-a-vis scholarly learning and reflection, followed by a semester of actual work. Morgan realized the economics would preclude doing everything in Yellow Springs, so, he created around the same time that the University of Cincinnati developed, the first two cooperative study programs in the United States.
Antioch has a beautiful, glaciated 1,000 acre nature preserve adjacent to the campus, Glen Helen, that has natural trails, deep woods, through which a small river runs. It provides students with wonderful opportunities for reflection, and the only "action" of night clubs, or sports, can be found in Dayton, or Columbus, Ohio.
Closed a few years ago as a cost saver by Antioch University, the Antioch College of Yellow Springs will be accepting students and reopening with a vastly improved physical campus, this coming Fall!
Antioch was also one of the first schools to create a fully inclusive governance body, including administrators, faculty, workers, and students.
32. partlydave - January 26, 2011 at 11:21 am
What a lot of sarcastic hogwash. The strength of the University system is that it has always been able to change and adapt. The best idea would be to go forward, not to revert. I don't find anything attractive about medieval thinking.
33. ledzep - January 26, 2011 at 04:45 pm
As others have pointed out, there are actual colleges, not just proposals, that closely resemble what Pannapacker is talking about.
Just a thought: it's really hard to sustain austerity without a lot of substantive agreement on the institution's mission. Even monasteries tended to become huge palaces, victims of their own success. There is a reason that many of these places are, in fact, traditional religious institutions that many would describe as "paleoconservative." Moreover, many of them are Great Books schools with no variation in the curriculum for different students. (Someone mentioned Thomas Aquinas College in CA - faculty are all full-time and on the permanent track, the student faculty ratio is about 11:1, it ranks up there with the best in the country in percentage of students who go on to PhDs in the humanities - and with all that said, tuition and fees are around 40% lower than your typical residential liberal arts college - moreover it has an excellent financial aid program. That's what a common curriculum and "thick" agreement on purpose can do for you.)
Nonetheless, I think there is a lot of room for colleges of a different stripe that try to hew to the 'small is beautiful' line. That requires a rigorous definition of what the school will be, and more importantly what it will not be. Otherwise mission creep is inevitable; people who disagree about what students fundamentally need can coexist, but if the school has any success whatsoever, there will be increasing pressure, at the margin, to add more and more things to the academic and non-academic life of the school. The more variety, the more coordination is required, and hence more administration. Mission creep and administrative bloat are not the results of evil minds or ignoble purposes, by and large - they come about because there is no end to things that, taken individually, yield some benefit and have a constituency behind them, but that taken together, dilute the academic life of the school, inflate its tuition, and drive the growth of administrative structure. It takes a lot of common commitment to exert effective and lasting resistance to that process.
34. kathrine9 - January 27, 2011 at 11:26 pm
some of the posts here that are critical of the article have missed the point, I think, - sure it sounds like rehab but the point is that 'more could be done for less' - in other words, what if the greatest minds on earth at the moment have no access to education at all? They, nor the world, will ever benefit from their genius. A university like this would certainly level the playing field and weed out the genuine genius from the party-techno-brat. Of course, the party-going-techno-brat would then have increased competition and the risk of exposure - this alone will provide compelling opposition to the idea, since most that support the institutional status-quo, do so to protect the interests of the brat-brigade.
35. carboniferous - January 28, 2011 at 09:55 am
Has the word of Chaucer, Rabelais, the Goliardic poets, and so on, really not reached the Chronicle?
If we can judge the medieval university by its "mission statement", why can't we judge the modern universities by theirs?
36. natividadm36 - January 30, 2011 at 02:09 pm
Wow. I love this article. Very informative and I am glad for the good news.
I am also happy to learn that 'in the sixth century, St. Benedict established one of the first monasteries at Monte Cassino, near Rome."
I didn't know that but I am proud I was able to read it. I just love St. benedict.
Thank you and more power.
37. qzxcvbnm - January 31, 2011 at 01:59 am
When I attended college in the mid-80s, I did more or less the same thing on an individual basis. I shunned all extra-curricular activities, all sporting events and football games, all alcohol, all parties, and all drugs (cocaine and XTC were very popular). I studied intensely between classes, in the evenings, usually well into the night. I worked my buttocks off. I kept my nose to the grindstone. I did not date. I did not have a girlfriend. I did, however, spend a great deal of time with my computer. Being a first-generation college student, I really didn't know any better. I thought that's what college was all about: learning.
I made it a point to take most of Saturday "off" to relax, get excercise, walk in the woods, or get off campus. And I did spend an hour or so each day on personal reading.
My monastic lifestyle paid off. I got good grades, obtained my degree (engineering physics), and most importantly, I learned a hell of a lot.
There was a downside: it was somewhat lonely, and I quickly earned a reputation as a geek. But then again, who wants drug-addicted, dumbed-down alcoholic friends? And my social skills suffered. I made up for that quickly when I entered the real world and had to preform.
My point is that individual students can choose to live a mostly monastic life. It's up to them.