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Friday, September 28, 2007

Surprisingly Blah...

...piece by Andrew Delbanco in the New York Times magazine about American universities. He's usually a strong writer - stylish, polemical - but here he offers bland generalities in a tired voice.



One of many indicators of this weariness -- cliches abounding:

'...[P]ublic concern, if not yet an outcry, is on the rise.

For many parents, the cost of college casts a long shadow before and beyond the time their child actually spends in college. With financial aid lagging behind tuition at private institutions and state subsidies declining at public ones, it gets harder every year for low-income students to pay their way. Like hospitals, colleges have generally got the benefit of the doubt on the question of why they cost so much...

...It’s happening at every rung of the academic ladder. ...[A] review panel sharply criticized the senior administrators at Virginia Tech...

...College presidents, naturally, are armed with answers. ... [U]niversities and faculty members have been raking in royalties from technologies ...

...How are college students treated in this brave new academic world?

... [S]o why, especially in view of the immense explosion of knowledge requisite for a true education, shouldn’t the time allotted for college stretch too?

... But college should be a place that fosters open debate of the ethical issues posed by modern life ... They can be profoundly transformative experiences that bolster the motive — indeed, the need — to live a life of civic engagement.

... As our children go through the arduous process of choosing a college and trying to persuade that college to choose them, it will be a sign of improved social health if we can get to the point of asking not about the school’s ranking but whether it’s a place that helps students confront hard questions in an informed way.'



Note that no particular tossed off expression in itself is fatal -- it's the combination of Delbanco's lazy verbal gestures in a short piece that pretends to be charged up about civiization's highest concerns that does him in.

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