9486 in the collection  

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

The idea that a university
education is for everyone is a destructive
myth. An instructor at a "college of last
resort" explains why. This is a troubling
essay.

by Professor X

. . . There seems, as is often the case in
colleges, to be a huge gulf between academia
and reality. No one is thinking about the
larger implications, let alone the morality, of
admitting so many students to classes they
cannot possibly pass. The colleges and the
students and I are bobbing up and down in a
great wave of societal forces—social optimism
on a large scale, the sense of college as both
a universal right and a need, financial
necessity on the part of the colleges and the
students alike, the desire to maintain high
academic standards while admitting marginal
students—that have coalesced into a mini-
tsunami of difficulty. No one has drawn up the
flowchart and seen that, although more-
widespread college admission is a bonanza for
the colleges and nice for the students and
makes the entire United States of America feel
rather pleased with itself, there is one point
of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and
that is the moment when the adjunct instructor,
who by the nature of his job teaches the worst
students, must ink the F on that first writing
assignment. . . .

The Atlantic denies
permission to post the whole article. You can
read it by going to the url below. This essay
raises issues few people want to talk
aabout.

Professor X teaches at a private college and
at a community college in the northeastern
United States.

— Professor X
The Atlantic
2009-01-01
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/college

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INDEX OF OUTRAGES

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