Rethinking College Education

by George Allan

Overview

In an era when most colleges and universities have become vocational schools, their improvement measured in terms of cost reduction or instructional efficiency, the essential values of higher education are too often overlooked. Students are being filled with knowledge, but are not learning how to use it wisely, nor even understanding that it's important to do so.

According to philosopher and educator George Allan, what is most important about a college education is not what students are taught but whether they learn the moral practices that determine how they may best conduct their lives and how they can become responsible individuals-practices that cannot be taught but can only be learned in an environment that encourages imaginative play and open-ended dialogue. The most important thing colleges can offer young people, claims Allan, is a place to converse: to learn the skills of cultured intercourse and not just a trade.

Allan argues that the current goal-orientation of America's colleges and universities has undermined the very nature of higher education. He shows that while colleges historically may have been based on a religious sense of mission or on the Enlightenment's commitment to rational inquiry, today's universities have become resource centers organized to serve the needs of a diverse customer base of students. In its commitment to giving students what they want, this model of higher education not only neglects the broadening and deepening of minds, it encourages students to recognize the validity of numerous points of view without ever learning to interact creatively with them.

Writing with the same inventive openness he encourages for our colleges, Allan explores the essential nature of education and seeks to refocus the debate concerning its future. Rethinking College Education engages readers in fundamental issues rarely broached by the current educational literature, and it challenges American colleges and universities to reconsider their priorities before they lose completely the spirit and style that have been the sources of their importance to the nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700608423
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	10/06/1997
Series:	Studies in Government and Public
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The College as Faithful Community

2. The College as Guild of Inquisitors

3. The College as Resource Center

4. The Essence of a College

5. The Playfulness of a College

6. The Standards of a College

Index

Editorial Reviews

"A very clever book."—Philosophy in Review

"Not the usual book on higher education reform, this is a thoughtful philosophical discussion of the nature of American collegiate education. An original and at times stimulating discussion of philosophical approaches to liberal education. Allan is very much a traditionalist, and his book is a good argument for liberal education."—Choice

"Allan tackles the malaise of higher education and offers a surprising diagnosis. In an open, accessible, even conversational style, he lays bare an ancient though thoroughly relevant view of the essence of higher education. The ideal he presents is shimmeringly clear and permanently attractive. His book is likely to create a stir and to refocus the debate about the purpose of higher education."—John Lachs, author of The Relevance of Philosophy to Life

"Allan is a well-published and senior philosopher, experienced in educating, and a puckish prose writer. This book, head-and-shoulders above the typical academic administrator’s writing, sets new standards."—D. Bob Gowin, author of Learning How to Learn

From the Publisher

"Within the university you may search, just for the sake of searching, and try for the sake of trying. So there is a possibility of what I would call playing." This quote from the French literary theorist Jacques Derrida is the essence of the message of this latest book by Allan (philosophy, Dickinson Coll.). In fact, his best chapter is devoted to the "playfulness of college." Unfortunately, Allan leads the reader on a long, prosaic journey before reaching his central theme. He elucidates three models of the university in a vein similar to Robert Paul Wolff's The Ideal of the University (Beacon, 1969), without acknowledging or expanding on this classic. While Wolff presents a less circuitous and more specific critique of the university, Allan has few recommendations; he does, however, reaffirm some ideals for universities that save the book from irrelevancy. For academic and public libraries.Mary Logan, Univ. of South Carolina Coll., West Columbia

Library Journal

Not a method of turning your degree back in and having your loans forgiven, but an argument that by becoming vocational schools measured by reduced cost and efficient production, colleges and universities are neglecting their essential purpose. The reason for college education, says Allan, is to provide an environment within which students can absorb the moral practices that determine how they can acquire and evaluate knowledge, best conduct their lives, and become responsible adults. He maintains that such learning requires imagination, dialogue, conversation, and cultured intercourse. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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