Lawrence D. Bobo and Marcyliena Morgan, two professors who left Harvard University’s department of African and African-American studies during Lawrence H. Summers’s tenure as president of the university, have decided to return, John Gravois reports on The Chronicle’s News Blog. Read more.
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2 Responses to Big Names in Black Studies Return to Harvard
mnprivate - February 18, 2011 at 12:04 pm
I particularly appreciate the concession this author makes to the vocational value of education. “Critical thinking” is a valuable concept, but without practical applications for the so-called education, that piece of the puzzle is limited in scope. Being able to solve problems requires skills and knowledge that are rarely provided in higher education. With our focus on soft subjects and esteem building, we are deluding students into imagining that the world will be filled with jobs for history majors, personal studies PhD’s, economics alchemists, lawyers, and political scientists (an abuse of the word “scientist” if there ever was one).
In fact, the country can still use welders, plumbers, bricklayers, doctors, chemists, engineers, and real scientists. Wasting students’ time with skills and “knowledge” that can be gained in an afternoon’s recreational reading is nearly criminal.
sand6432 - February 19, 2011 at 12:59 pm
There has forever been a tension in this country between higher education as vocational training, which serves the interest of the economic system of capitalism, and higher education as critical thinking, which serves the interest of the political system of democracy. The former produces a good and pliable workforce, the latter a good and thoughtful citizenry. In times of stress, the tension between the two aims of education can increase, as democratic citizens become critical of the ill effects of capitalism. I suspect business leaders, for however much business might benefit from having workers who are broadly trained and can flexibly adapt to change, may be fearful of encouraging too much critical thinking as it can be turned against them.—Sandy Thatcher