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Reacting
to criticism that education in the United States is lacking in rigor
and too consumed with faddish courses on issues such as
ethnic diversity, a group of traditional scholars have set up a new organization
to ensure colleges and universities set demanding
standards for undergraduates.
The
American Academy for Liberal Education aims to become an official
accrediting agency approved by the US Department of Education.
Academic
luminaries such as Edward 0. Wilson, the Pulitzer prize-winner and
Harvard science professor, and Jacques Barzun, author and history
professor at Columbia University, are on its board of trustees, as
well as a well-known member of the political right, Chester Finn,
and Shelby Steele, the black professor of English at San José State
University in California who opposes affirmative action.
“The
United States has recently experienced a well documented decline in
education standards at all levels of instruction, including
undergraduate liberal arts,” the academy said in a pre-pared
statement
“This
trend threatens to deprive students of the habits of reflective
learning and of the body of useful and important knowledge,
characteristic of a liberal education.”
The
academy, which is run by Jeffrey Wallin, is concerned about the
dearth of rigorous courses American undergraduates are required to
take.
Colleges
and universities do specify requirements for students to study
humanities and other areas, but they allow such requirements to
include, for example, Introduction to Circus Arts.
The group
is proposing l7 standards for institutions wanting to pursue a good
liberal education. Neither ethnic diversity nor multiculturalism are
mentioned, though Mr. Wallin said he had nothing against such
subjects. Instead students are required to study Western
civilization and the foundations of American society, as well as the
classics so as to become acquainted with important ideas, works and
authors.
On the
list are mandatory courses in mathematics and the physical and
biological sciences, including laboratory work. Students should be
required to have intermediate knowledge of more than one foreign
language.
This kind
of basic and core curriculum is advocated because American high
school students do not have to master the bodies of knowledge which
are required at GCSE and A levels in Britain.
What
worries people such as Mr. Wallin is that college students are not
receiving such learning either.
“We
have people leaving university who don’t know their numbers, who
don’t know anything about science and have read few, if any,
serious books,” he said. “Social
concerns, like teaching students about ethnic groups, are given more
weight than academic ones.”
To some
extent concerns about quality are inevitable in a system which gives
as much access to higher education as the US does, and Mr. Wallin
recognizes this. “But it has been demonstrated that students from
all walks of life can benefit from a high quality education.”
The
academy hopes to become a recognized accrediting agency by the end
of this year when it will have to recruit members.
Copyright
1994, The London Times
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