An educated question:

Today’s leaders tend to be graduates of the very top creme of the top colleges, as you know.  But why should lesser colleges/universities, , especially in rural areas, not have an educated education?  Diane Ravitch quotes WVU English professor Adam Komkisaru, who also directs graduate studies in the English department, asking  the larger question: what state universities want to be.

“Is our mission as a university simply to respond to market forces and popular prejudice, and to make educational decisions based on supply and demand? Or are we committed to providing a robust and diverse exposure to modes of thought that will allow our students to become knowledgeable, responsible, ethical engaged members of society?

“If we want to run a vocational training program, fine. But you can’t pretend you are a liberal arts full institution committed not only to our land grant mission to serve the people of the state but also committed to modern ideas of liberal education and broad-based knowledge. You can’t have it both ways.”

It seems we always have to look behind the screen of what’s going on these days.  Are students just not interested any more, captives of our money-hungry top-down culture and enjoying being protected from the truth?  After all, we’re almost halfway to 2050. and we still don’t know how to   produce what some (Altman)  count on saving us: nuclear fission. Planning on being rescued  by something that doesn’t yet exist is tomfoolery.  (See a later post).

Many lesser-known public colleges nationwide have begun cutting back on the humanities, but West Virginia University is the “tip of the spear” for flagship state universities, according to its president.

Similar reductions are only expected to grow across the country, particularly in rural areas where campus budgets are lower, enrollments are more likely to be falling, and where the pressure for career-oriented majors may be greater. But critics argue that such changes in emphasis will sap states of intellectual firepower, leaving them with fewer leaders and citizens who are well-rounded.