To the Editor:
Finally, someone dared to say what every college professor knows in her heart: half the students in her classroom shouldn’t be there and don’t want to be there.
We have created this B.A.-B.S. grail for millions of students who would be far better educated if they could focus on something that they want to learn.
For 12 years, I was a professor of English at the flagship campus of a big state university. My students were majoring in computers, nursing, landscape design and kinesiology. They didn’t care about “Beowulf” or John Milton. The university wanted them there, however, because more four-year graduates meant more money from the legislature. Now we can no longer tolerate such waste.
We should redesign college curriculums so that students can study something useful, get a job and help redevelop the economy.
Rather than dumbing down “hard” courses, so that everyone picks up a smattering of knowledge they will never use, universities should offer challenging courses in students’ majors. If that major takes three instead of four years to complete, that’s fine. The goal is to become productive without wasting time or money.
Sandra Sherman
New York, Dec. 28, 2008
The writer is assistant director of the Intellectual Property Law Institute, Fordham Law School.
Note from KBJ: Murray's proposal will go nowhere. College and university campuses in this country are sites of progressive indoctrination. The more people who pass through these sites, the more progressives there are, which is what those who run colleges and universities want. Why do you think there is such opposition to vouchers and to home-schooling?
