|
Choosing The Right College - The Whole Truth About America's
Top 100 Schools
Intercollegiate Studies Institute (1998)
Introduction by William J. Bennett
"[Thomas Aquinas College is] virtually unparalleled
for providing its students with a rigorous liberal arts
education." -- Intercollegiate Studies Institute
i. Introduction
by William J. Bennett
A question that I am often asked is what colleges I would
recommend. It is a reasonable question. But it is also
a difficult one to answer, given the vast number of colleges
and universities. It simply is not possible for most people
-- including me -- to know what is happening on all, or
even most, of America’s campuses. What parents and
students desperately need is an intellectual road map,
a commonsense guide, to help them make their way through
the academy.
Choosing a college is a tremendously important -- and
can be an extremely expensive -- undertaking. When done
intelligently and thoughtfully, it can be a great investment.
After all, a college education can provide graduates with
the kind of high-demand skills that can serve them the
rest of their lives. But college should provide much more
than information and employment skills. Indeed, the undergraduate
experience should be more than merely a job-training program.
It can also be a time when many young people refine the
convictions that will guide and mold their decisions,
conduct, and character. The essence of education is, in
the words of William James, to teach a person what deserves
to be valued -- to impart ideals as well as knowledge,
to cultivate in students the ability to distinguish the
true and good from their counterfeits, and the wisdom
to prefer the former to the latter.
Yet despite the unparalleled resources American universities
offer, there is growing evidence that many American universities
are reneging on their duty to educate. The widespread
abandonment of academic standards and moral discipline,
the politicization of all aspects of campus life, and
the deconstruction of academic disciplines have devastated
the traditional mission of the liberal arts curriculum.
In too many classrooms, professors teach their students
that Western thought is suspect, that Enlightenment ideals
are inherently oppressive, and that the basic principles
of the American founding are not "relevant"
to our time. The result is not education, but confusion
-- over the importance of knowledge, the universality
of the human experience, the transcendence of ideals and
principles. In the end, the central problem is not that
the majority of students are being indoctrinated (although
some are), but that they graduate knowing almost nothing
at all. Or worse still, they graduate thinking that they
know everything.
Fortunately, not all universities or professors have
bought into this way of thinking. Important and impressive
academic departments, professors, and universities still
exist; it is simply a matter of finding them. This is
no easy task, however -- despite the piles of promotional
information and bookstore college guides, no single publication
existed that analyzed and evaluated universities, academic
departments, and professors on the basis of principled
instruction and intellectual rigor.
ISI’s guide, Choosing the Right College,
helps to fill that void. It offers tough minded analysis
of the quality of instruction, the level of academic standards,
the campus political atmosphere, and the extent to which
the liberal arts tradition is respected and cultivated.
It is one of those rare books that cut through the information
glut to the heart of the matter. I should add that it’s
been a long time since I’ve visited many of the colleges
included in this volume -- a few of them I’ve never
visited. Nevertheless, I found this book to be authoritative,
current, and extremely well written.
The organization responsible for compiling this volume
-- the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) -- is well
qualified to speak to these issues. Founded in 1953, ISI
has worked tirelessly to further a better understanding
of the principles that sustain a free society in American
college youth. Through conferences, lectures, books, journals,
and fellowships, ISI has helped to ensure that real intellectual
debates -- rather than one-sided indoctrination -- take
place in academia. In the process of compiling this book,
the editors have drawn on many resources -- including
ISI’s network of 60,000 students and faculty members
-- to produce thoroughly up-to-date portraits of the featured
colleges.
The principle of selection in Choosing the Right College
is eminently practical: of the one hundred institutions
covered, the majority were chosen according to competitive
admissions figures. In addition, the editors sought to
represent the tremendous range of institutions available
to the American public. The guide provides balanced and
insightful reports on each of these schools.
The ISI guide illustrates and explicates the good, the
bad, and the ugly in American higher education. These
pages contain a number of real-life horror stories of
ideological intolerance, bizarre course offerings, and
absurd campus scandals. But the editors have also gone
out of their way to search out what is good and commendable,
from hard-working professors to dynamic departments and
enriching extracurricular activities. The advice you will
find in Choosing the Right College provides insights
that may save a student from several semesters’ worth
of trial and error, pointing him or her in the right direction
from the start. Best of all, the guide does not hesitate
to name names: many of the best faculty members, departments,
and special programs in each institution are specifically
identified so that students can make informed education
choices.
All too often, Americans treat colleges and universities
with a deference that prevents them from asking hard questions
and demanding real results. But if there is ever to be
genuine, long-lasting education reform, parents and students
will have to become shrewder and better-informed education
consumers. ISI’s Choosing the Right College
is a powerful tool in this effort. It is my hope that
American students will read it, learn from it, and, as
a result, demand and receive a better university education.
<
Previous: Contents | Next: ISI's
Top 100 Schools >
Reprinted by permission of Intercollegiate
Studies Institute.
|
