This past Friday, Dean of the Chapel William Willimon released his report on undergraduate life at the University. I do not know why he even wasted his time. He could have gotten that information by talking to any undergraduate over coffee.
The report is filled with points that have been widely known for years. Not only did Willimon not cover any new ground, but also much of his analysis clearly misses the target. I wonder why he was chosen for such a study instead of someone with more expertise in the field. We should leave religion to the clergy and education to the educators.
One of Willimon's main points is that the University has strayed from its original purpose. He says that the founder's, "noble originating purposes of the liberal education of the young" is being corrupted by the modern research university. He is right, but this "corruption" is not a bad thing. The founder's vision (and by founder I mean James Duke, not the founders of Trinity College) is obsolete. We should not and cannot have the same concept of education as James Duke did in 1924. James Duke's vision also did not include the equal education of women or minority groups. That is just one area where the University has progressed and strayed from its "founding vision." Duke is now one of the country's leading research universities, not the small, undistinguished, mediocre pseudo-community college it was in Jimmy D's day. It would be a step backward to cling to the outdated visions of a long-dead tobacco magnate.
Willimon also derides the modern conception that we are merely, "somewhat savvy consumers.... Surely this is a perversion of the term higher education." Here, Willimon displays more outdated visions of the concept of a university. The fact is that we are consumers of education. We should view ourselves in that manner. Our $33,000 a year is buying us the opportunity to explore the academic world. We should be able to demand and obtain certain things from the University. This is not a perversion of higher education; this is being an intelligent consumer.
Increased faculty interaction is another area where Willimon finds fault with the University. He thinks this will somehow enhance our educational experience. The problem is more complicated than it seems. The Faculty-in-Residence program, which exists only on East Campus, does nothing more than help sell the University to prospective parents. The faculty member who lived with us my freshman year hated us. He did not want to interact with us, only to "put in his time" so he could get a sabbatical after his residence was over. Faculty interaction means nothing if it is forced. Only professors who want to interact with students positively contribute to their students' education. This type of interaction cannot be institutionalized.
Willimon is correct, however, in his assessment of the University's teaching. The University places absolutely no value on the quality of a professor's teaching ability. A professor's researching ability, measured by the number of papers published and the amount of grant dollars acquired, is the sole determinant of a professor's worth. Professors with higher values are granted tenure to cement their careers as academics. This system has given us a world-class research faculty but not necessarily one that has any interest in undergraduate teaching. By opposing an organized course evaluation, this faculty resists any attempt to hold it accountable for its teaching ability. I know that course evaluations are "in the works," but that has been the case all my years here at Duke. The closest we came to an honest evaluation system, DUET, was closed down after only a few months of service. I join Willimon in asking the University for policies that reward and encourage undergraduate teaching. As consumers of education, we should have proof that the education we buy is of the quality the University would like us to believe.
Willimon's report does little other than to crystallize just some of the problems we have been living with for years. Although his evaluations are sometimes off the mark, Willimon has at least formed a list of issues for the administration to address. It is from this starting point that the University can begin to fix some of the problems that have plagued it for most its recent history.
Dave Nigro is a Trinity senior.
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