Dear Readers,
If you have read the biographical information on my site, you may recall that I earned my B.A. in French and German Comparative Literature from Columbia University, which I attended from 1982-1986. Columbia has always stood out because of its particularly rigorous and robust core curriculum. From my understanding that the Great Books reading project requires lifelong engagement, to my desire to know the traditions of other major civilizations as well as my own, to my love of languages and literatures converging ultimately in the conception of polyliteracy—all the seeds of the scholar I would become were clearly planted there and then. I have always been aware of the quality of the education I received, and I have always been grateful for it—all the more so because the generous scholarship that the university provided me meant that I did not have to take out any loans to get this learning.
That gratitude was doubled, and then doubled again, when both of my sons matriculated at my alma mater, both with the same kind of generous financial aid package that means they will be able to graduate debt-free. As a father encountering empty nest syndrome, I find great comfort in knowing that my boys can be together in a locale that I can vividly picture in my mind. Of course, I also avidly hope that they are getting the same kind of education that I got there four decades ago, though given the current stage of higher education in general, I have had worries about this. The Ivy League schools in general are reputed to have become bastions of wokeness—would my normal looking and acting boys come home with florescent hair, body-piercings, and wearing political slogans? Would they, having been homeschooled abroad, be overwhelmed by currently corrosive and divisive American social trends, whose existence they probably could not even have imagined?
No. I need not have worried. For one thing, the values and beliefs and the character formation that my wife and I did our best to impart to them seem to have made them strong enough to resist forcible efforts to divert them in other directions. For another, despite the overt trickle down from the top imposition of ideology that indubitably occurs, the core of the institution remains solid. Over the past few years, my sons have received a vibrant undergraduate education, with interesting and challenging courses from classics through theoretical physics, many study abroad opportunities, and the ability to participate in extra-curricular activities from sport clubs to debate societies and Christian unions where they have made like-minded friends. I have kept my ears perhaps all too anxiously eager to hear of egregious and outrageous incidents from them, but they have yet to report these.
Still, in recent months when, upon close scrutiny, a number of similar institutions have shown such corrosion, I worried anew when reading news item about protests disrupting campus life. Two weeks ago, however, for the first time in years, I got the opportunity to visit the campus when school was in session. As I walked around, reliving memories, I particularly enjoyed revisiting Butler Library, spending a few hours perusing texts that caught my eye as I browsed through both the stacks and the specialized reading rooms for South Asian, Islamic, Ancient & Medieval Studies, Egyptology, and so forth. It really struck me that when your core is one of the world’s largest library systems, and when that core goes back to 1754, such that you have spent more than two centuries actually inculcating In Lumine Tuo Videbimus Lumen, you should be able to return to doing this relatively easily even if you have started to stray from it.
Cogitating what is wrong with higher education today, I made a video with this title not long ago. Towards the end of the video, I suggest that one thing that can be done to correct course would for those of us who are alumni of institutions that used to stand 100% for academic excellence, who imbibed those values from such institutions, to remind them that we are grateful for getting this from them, and stress that we hope that they continue to uphold the same standards for coming generations that they upheld for past ones.
How has academic excellence, even in an environment like this, been compromised by ideology in a fashion that I believe ought to leave everyone dissatisfied? Let us use the single and concrete example of the freshman composition course. An expository, academic writing class is still required of all students during their first semester. This is a composition course where students learn how to structure the argument of an essay, how to format a paper according to various style guides, how to cite sources to avoid plagiarism, and how to practice fine points of style, punctuation, and grammar.
However, there are important differences between the way this class is taught now compared to the way it was taught 40 years ago. Back then, the first step in the process was to write a sample essay. Based on this essay, you would probably place into a “normal” (average, typical, representative of the way most highly intelligent, well-educated 18-year-old students wrote) section, though there were also remedial sections for those who needed more practice and guidance in developing their writing skills, as well as a few smaller and more advanced sections where those who already wrote in a more sophisticated fashion were given the opportunity to hone and refine those skills even further.
Today, there is no more placement essay, and no more instruction and practice based upon existing level and skill. Writers of all levels are placed in a single section, and instead of remedial, normal, and advanced sections, there are now themed sections. Whence do these themes come? From the DEI categories of race and ethnicity studies, gender and sexuality studies, etc. This means that the sample essays students read present these topics from these perspectives—not that the students are necessarily required to write about them, though clearly many if not most, eager to get a good grade and pass a class, will simply write what they think their instructor wants to read. I do not see how anyone could deny that this is indoctrination.
In other words, where there was once a skills-based entrance exam and then three levels of instruction, tailored to meet the student's current abilities and develop them from there, now all are assumed to be at the same level, and rather than focus purely on the academic writing skills to be acquired, students are instead presented with propaganda from a certain perspective. What on earth, Columbia? For the sake of the argument, let us assume that we concur with this perspective: still, is this what we would want? Contrasting the two systems, is it not clear that those who go through the older one will develop into better writers, better able to articulate arguments, than those who might be simply trained to accept arguments through the newer system? Who gains by having a generation of writers all produced at the same level, without regard to their current talent, aptitude, or inclination? Not society as a whole. Not the individual writers. Not those who want to have their points of view argued in a convincing fashion. Here is hoping that we can all regain a consensus on this.
With best regards,
Alexander Arguelles
