Return to the ground floor of this tower
Return to the Main Courtyard
Return to Fort Freedom's home page
]]]]]]]]]]] THE HOLLOW HALLS OF ACADEME [[[[[[[[[[[[[
By Thomas Sowell
From New York Daily News, 3 January 1989, p. 25:1
[Kindly uploaded by Freeman 10602PANC]
Anyone who thinks universities exist to teach students should
read the book ``Profscam: Professors and the Demise of Higher
Education'' by Charles Sykes. It is about the scams that
professors pull on those who pay the billions of dollars that
support American universities.
Any parent who is planning to spend big bucks to send a son or
daughter to a big-name university should especially read it. And
high officials in Washington who think that what higher education
needs is more of the taxpayers' money should definitely read it.
Over the past few decades, the amount of money going to
support higher education has grown by leaps and bounds. The
theory has been that more money would mean better education.
Nothing could be more fallacious, as ``Profscam'' documents to
the hilt.
What the record inflows of money to the universities have, in
fact, bought is primarily a reduced teaching schedule for
professors, more research grants to professors, more leaves for
professors and other goodies for professors. Often this has
meant fewer classes, larger classes, and more classes taught by
graduate teaching assistants rather than faculty members.
At Harvard, for example, the number of faculty members more
than doubled between 1952 and 1974, while the number of students
rose by only 14%. If you think this meant more courses or more
contact with professors, think again. The number of
undergraduate courses at Harvard declined by 28%
A 1986 study of the University of Wisconsin showed the average
professor there teaching only six hours a week. The more senior
the professor, the less likely he is to teach even this much. In
the spring `87 term, there were four economics professors at the
University of Wisconsin with salaries over $75,000 who taught
only one course each.
Similar patterns can be found at big-name universities coast
to coast. Often top professors teach mainly postgraduate
seminars, where students present papers and other students
comment, with only an occasional remark by the professor to keep
the discussion going.
Meanwhile, back in the ordinary undergraduate classroom,
junior faculty or less prestigious professors often lecture to
huge classes of hundreds -- and sometimes more than 1,000 --
students. Smaller classes are often taught by assistants,
usually graduate students who help finance their own education by
doing this as a sideline. The senior faculty members who give a
university its reputation give very little of their time to
undergraduates.
In mathematics and the sciences, many of the teaching
assistants in universities across the country are foreign
graduate students. Their English is often so bad that complaints
by undergraduates that they cannot understand what is being said
are widespread -- and widely ignored.
Ironically, all the problems the universities are used by
professors and academic administrators to argue that they need
still more billions of dollars. But it has been precisely the
massive inflow of money that has led to less and less teaching by
professors. The fallacy that more money buys more or better
teaching is at the heart of the scam.
More money means more competition by universities for big-name
professors, who bring prestige that enables them to get still
more money. This heightened competition not only means higher
professional salaries -- in six figures for the stars -- but also
reduced teaching schedules, bigger research grants, more and
bigger travel allowances and more free time to earn outside money
as consultants, expert witnesses and in other ways.
If ``Profscam'' is as widely read as it deserves to be, the
big names in academia can be expected to defend their big bucks
by attacking it, disparaging its author, confusing the issues,
denying what they can get away with denying and evading what they
can't deny.
For those faced with the practical problems of trying to get a
decent education, there are still many small liberal arts
colleges where teaching remains the central purpose. Not all
these colleges have escaped the moral dry rot of the leading
universities, but there are still some good ones around, if you
look long and hard to find them.
________________
[Sysop's Note: I have read the book and was going to bring a
review of it in the Jan 89 issue, but did not have enough space.
I highly recommend it, though it fails to point out the
professoriat's outrageous leftist activism -- see the Sirkins'
articles on floors 10, 11 & 12 of this Rathole.]
* * *
Return to the ground floor of this tower
Return to the Main Courtyard
Return to Fort Freedom's home page