THE CORE CURR.ICULUM AS INTELLECTUAL MOT IVATION
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abilities, with their scores reported as though the tests were taken under
the usual conditions.
Under such circumstances, these tests tell us little about those aspects
of the student's mind about which we should care the most. If research
universities and highly selective liberal arts colleges pose their own
entrance examinations, we could begin to make the feedback loop to high
schools run in the opposite direction.
The dilemma of college admissions is that we have shaped American
higher education around the principle of broadest possible access but have
given too little thought about how such broad access would alter standards.
What we have learned in this half century is that it is relatively easy to
encourage large numbers of people to attend college. But doing so sacri–
fices academic standards at both the secondary and college levels, denies
genuine higher education to those who could truly benefit from it, and
deprives our society of the meritocracy of talent, sensibility, and disci–
plined intelligence.
Could a core curriculum thrive in a university that does not weigh
carefully whether the students it admits are intellectually prepared for that
Himalayan trek? Can a society thrive that lacks the courage and resolve to
enforce real standards? If we are unable to give up the comforting pretense
that college is for everyone, we will dream our way to disaster, failing both
the many who could achieve greater satisfaction elsewhere and the few
who could make the real ascent.
It's an established courtesy for speech makers to end on an uplifting
note. I wish I could. I'm also mindful of Edith Kurzweil's injunction this
morning that this is a conference in search of ways for us to move forward,
not to repeat the familiar lamentations. I may have lamented too much. I
see American higher education, however, ensnared in a net of political
expediency, institutional greed, curricular malfeasance, public fear, parental
ambition, and widespread misunderstanding of what college can actually
accomplish. Extracting ourselves from the net is not impossible, but it will
be profoundly difficult. Thank you.
Michael
Meyers : I have two short questions to Jerry Martin and to Dr.
Woodward. Jerry Martin, I agree that Shakespeare as art is a black woman
or whoever you want him to be, but as I recall Shakespeare was born April
12,1564, died April 12,1616, so Shakespeare as a historical figure is a ques–
tion of debate and in that regard the collision of what is in fact the past
and what is true about the past has to be factored into academic study.
Blacks then were excluded from higher education. Once they got into the
exclusionary institutions of higher education, they did not want to assim–
ilate. But they wanted to remember the past, their predecessors, their
