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List of contents
Dear Student.
Credits.
I. EDUCATION AND CULTURE.
How Selective Colleges Heighten Inequality, Robert Reich.
Learning Silence: Scenes from the Class Struggle, Peggy Orenstein.
Education: The Trouble with Single-Sex Schools, Wendy Kaminer.
The War Against Boys, Christina Hoff Sommers.
Success Against the Odds: Young Black Men Tell What It Takes, Benjamin P. Bowser and Herbert Perkins.
Something to Push Against, Ron Suskind.
Who Gets Called Queer in School?, Andi O'Conor.
Why the Americans are More Addicted to Practical than to Theoretical Science, Alexis de Toqueville.
II. BEING IN COLLEGE.
The Difference between High School and College, Jack Meiland.
On the Uses of a Liberal Education: As Lite Entertainment for Bored College Students, Mark Edmundson.
On the Uses of a Liberal Education: As a Weapon in the Hands of the Restless Poor, Earl Shorris.
The Allegory of the Cave, Plato.
Lowering the Bar, Stuart Rojstaczer.
Too Many Students are Holding Jobs for Too Many Hours, Jacqueline E. King.
Introduction to Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Are Crippling Undergraduate Education, Murray Sperber.
The University Serving the Community, Thomas Ehrlich.
A Guide to Good Teaching: Be Slow and Inefficient, Michael Randall.
III. THE PURPOSES OF COLLEGE.
The Democratic Framework, Steven Cahn.
The Liberal Arts: A Practical View, Mark Jackson.
What People Learn in College: The Major, Jacob Neusner.
Specialization: The Enriched Major, Ernest Boyer.
Hire Education: The Secretary of Labor Tells You Where the Jobs Will Be in the New Economy, Robert B. Reich.
Of Studies, Francis Bacon.
The Mission of the University, Robert Solomon and Jon Solomon.
You Make Your Own Chances: Wealth as an Educational Goal, Paul Rogat Loeb.
The $10,000 Hoop: Has Higher Education Become an Exercise in Futility for Most Americans?, Zachary Karabell.
The Practical Path, Too, Can Be High-Minded, Richard M. Freeland.
IV. EDUCATION AND ASSESSMENT.
Inventing Intelligence: The Origins of Mental Measurement, Peter Sacks.
Those Who Can't, Test, Brian Doherty.
The SAT: A New Defense, William C. Dowling.
More Testing, More Learning, Patrick O'Malley.
A Whole Lot of Cheatin' Going On, Mark Clayton.
College Students Speak about ADD, Patricia O. Quinn, M.D.
Sorting Out Which Students Have Learning Disabilities, Perry A. Zirkel.
Grading Your Professors, Jacob Neusner.
References.
Summary
For undergraduate freshman-level courses; also appropriate for an Introduction to College course.
Helping students gain a richer, clearer, and more complex sense of their own goals for being in college, this engaging anthology of “immediate relevance” explores diverse perspectives and experiences of higher education-exposing students to the opportunities and challenges it offers and how to make the most of them. Designed to enrich students' critical thinking, communication, and research skills-vital tools for any career they choose- it features reading and writing assignments that will improve their ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate arguments; help them learn to construct their own written arguments and interpretations; plus improve their ability to do research, using not only library and on-line sources but also field research techniques such as interview and observation.
