Resources
Concerning a Good College Education
As part of your definition, I would like you to include the comments (quoted or paraphrased) of at least two of the seven authors whose articles we will read (including Frye and Olmstead). Inclusion of an outside voice or comment may be done to counter-argue what one says, or simply as a way to illustrate or reinforce your definition. Our discussions will help you decide.
While I will want you to provide a minimal citation within your paper, you do not need to include a Works Cited page with your final draft (since we all have access to the same material).
Articles to consider for additional "voices" in your definition:
Dr. Jacob Neusner, Professor of Judaic Studies at Bard College in New York, and his article: "The Speech the Graduates Didn't Hear"
Dr. Northrup Frye, Professor of English at the University of Toronto, and his article, "Don't You Think It's Time to Start Thinking?"
Dr. Janet Stemwedel, Professor of Philosophy at San Jose State University, and her article: "What's the Point of a College Education?"
Ellen Olmstead, Professor of English at Bristol Community College in Fall River, MA, and her article, "It's the Community College Life for Me."
Dr. Kurt Wiesenfeld, Professor in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech University, and his article: "Making the Grade"
Dr. Jerry Farber, Professor of English at San Diego State University, and his article: "The Student and the Screen."
Frank Bruni, columnist
for the New York Times, and his article:
"Demanding More from College"
This is a quick overview of the articles I am
calling primary for our paper assignment. And here is the
sample reading passage to demonstrate reading comprehension.
Here are some additional resources to consider as you think about your definition. We will not discuss these in class, but you still may find them valuable:
Regarding the community college experience, Jennifer LeClaire, journalist and business communication expert, wrote an article entitled, "Five Myths about the Community College" about the misconceptions of community colleges. William D. Green, the CEO of Accenture, testified what the community college did for him in "Why Not Community College?" found in the August 2008 issue of Forbes magazine. Finally, the New York Times has a short documentary that illustrates the challenges community college students face: do you recognize any of these obstacles?
Writer Louis Menand in the New Yorker wrote this article in May of 2007 wondering exactly what graduates should be able to do with their degrees. It's entitled "The Graduates." Frank Bruni, the New York Times columnist who wrote the essay "Demanding More from College" that we will read together, recently explored the purpose of college in two additional essays: one from February 11, 2015 called "College's Priceless Value" and another from a week later called "College, Poetry, and Purpose."
A recent unflattering discussion about student performance was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education (the same publication for Ellen Olmstead's essay) entitled, "The 7 Seven Deadly Sins of Students" by Prof. Thomas Benton, who--because he does criticize his students pretty severely--uses a pseudonym for this essay. Tough reading but perhaps important reading. Do you recognize these qualities in yourself or your fellow students? Benton is professional enough to admit both sides of the desk have issues. A month later (May of 2019), he wrote "The 7 Deadly Sins of Professors": see if you have witnessed these!
Catherine Rampell, economics writer for the New York Times, and her recent piece from February 19, 2013 in the New York Times called "It Takes a B.A. to Find a Job as a File Clerk." In general, the "Education" page in the online version of the Times is a good source for articles that discuss controversies in education at all levels. In 2005, PBS broadcast a program about four different college students at four different kinds of colleges (including a community college). The New York Times published an article with interviews with those students.
Likewise, a website called "What Will They Learn" shows assessment results from across the nation about how colleges and universities are teaching the core curriculum. Some of the material, unfortunately, can only be obtained for a cost, but the general information might still prove useful. And this website gives a nice overview of the trends of grades, aptly called "grade inflation."
This website used to be free, but they have since made many of their useful publications available only for purchase. But the work this group does--the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA--offers fascinating data. Some of the data includes results asking first-year students about college expectations. The New York Times has a subset of the most recent results here.
And finally, two essays that attest to the challenges that Ellen Olmstead sees, but don't feel quite as optimistic about the outcomes in teaching at community colleges: "Last Year, I Flunked Myself" and "My Hard Lessons Teaching Community College."
You may want to consider an essay by art critic Marya Mannes, who used her subject of art to ask: How do you know it's good?
Examining student papers may help you see how others have approached this assignment:
What Makes a Good College Education?
As part of our discussion of revision, I will want you to work on smooth quotation integration, and on building substantive paragraphs.