See From ‘Hamlet’ to Hillary – NYTimes.com for Bruni’s article.
My comment:
“As a former professor – and observer of higher education – I think that in 2015 you would be hard put to find the type of courses that your examples took, not in 2015.
I recently posted (on my blog inside-higher-ed) a syllabus from a 1972 (required) political science course from the Univ. of Houston, mainly a commuter school at the time. For comparison, there is a link to today’s requirements for political science courses at Wash. U. in St. Louis and Princeton. Times have changed.
There is also a link to an eye-opening, and frightening, publication about today’s teaching of the liberal arts. It is by Jonathan Jacobs (Presidential Scholar, and Chair of Philosophy, John Jay College, CUNY).
I also recommend reading “College, Poetry and Purpose”. There, Frank Bruni, describes a discussion with one of his former professors. She also describes how, even at U. of Penn, the courses are, shall we say, not so deep.
The problem is not that there aren’t liberal arts courses. The problem is that they don’t have much content. That’s why, as described in Arum and Roksa’s “Academically Adrift”, students only have to study about 13 hours a week, whereas in Joel Benenson’s day that number was somewhere between 20 and 25.
We don’t need to worry so much about what courses students are taking, as we do about what courses are being taught.
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