SESSION I:
T HE
IMPACT OF HIGH SCHOOL
PREPARATION ON COLLEGE EDUCATION
Igor Webb:
Thank you very much, Edith. Good morning. I think as the
first speaker it falls to me to thank Professor Kurzweil for once again gath–
ering a fabulous group of people--not myself, of course, but everybody
else.
You
have reason to thank her for having told me that the original draft
of this paper was at least three times longer than could keep an audience
awake. This version may not be better, but it is much shorter.
It is called "One Key to School Reform is Reform of Universities." I
argue that many of the failures in the schools that we rightly complain of
can be corrected by action on the part of our colleges and universities.
There are four areas of reform in the way universities conduct their
affairs that I believe would have a profound impact on the schools. They
are: mission and scope; leadership, especially by presidents and boards; stan–
dards, especially of admission; and relations with government.
When Frank Rhodes retired as president of Cornell, the university
held a symposium in his honor that Cornell University Press recently pub–
lished under the title,
TheAmerican University: National Treasure or Endangered
Species?
The authoritative essays in this collection provide an illuminating,
and for the most part dismal, picture of what leading educators believe is
the mission of higher education today.
According to William G. Bowen, formerly president of Princeton and
now head of the Mellon Foundation, going to college is important for work,
and especially to make money. Students and.employers strongly believe this
to be so. Beyond preparation for work and wealth, these are the benefits that
Mr.
Bowen attributes to college: "Higher education provides many students
with the basis for enjoying a much more satisfying life outside the workplace
than would otherwise be possible. Such benefits may include mental
stimulation. . .; preparation for highly rewarding involvement in civic and
community activities; the development of values and personal qualities...;
and, finally, the opportunity to get to know other highly talented people."
There's not much danger, I think you'll agree, that these cool, compla–
cent words are going to supplant those of Cardinal Newman. But these are
not, allow me to stress, the words of just anybody. Speaking is the mentor of
the president of Harvard; the head of one of the nation's most important
foundations; the former president of one of the world's foremost universities.
The sitting president of Princeton, the much more thoughtful Harold
T.
Shapiro, observes that the contemporary university has "recognized and
incorporated into its curriculum the inevitability of complexity and ambi–
guity and the need for competitiveness in most of the important issues
confronting humankind and scholarship."
In the context of this unsettling recognition, the contemporary uni–
versi ty, Shapiro says, is able "to retain its coherence as an academic
