Today's story by The Bee's Russell Clemings lays out the tale of the California State University, Fresno, Association, the non-profit "auxiliary" that has become an economic powerhouse on the local campus. The organization's latest project is the much-debated Campus Pointe development east of Save Mart Center.
Lots of universities are going in this direction, in large part because, as in California, public support for academic institutions has fallen a great deal from the levels we saw in the 1960s and '70s. But the trend has raised the hackles of many, especially among faculties across the country. The objection is that these money-generating enterprises have little or nothing to do with education, and draw attention and resources away from the traditional academic pursuits of colleges.
And they do. We've come a long way from the now quaint notion that schools should be a place where learning takes place. Now they are regarded as job-training centers, a very different thing. In my ideal world, universities would never offer professional training -- including journalism -- at the undergraduate level. Such courses would be offered to graduate students. Undergraduates would get a broad and general education in the sciences, language, arts, music, history, economics and philosophy, with the emphasis on learning the skills of literacy and critical thinking. Let job training be done on the job.
Of course, that ideal world never existed, and never will. Too bad.
So in your ideal world, universities would exist primarily to actually educate people, rather than train them?
That is a noble concept, but I don't think it would work these days. Students need to have curious minds and inquiring spirits to be open to that sort of education. With the current emphasis on "teaching to the test" in K-8 education, plus the numbing effects of pop culture, I doubt that there is much of that anymore. People have access to a lot more information these days, but we're poorly equipped to process it.
I enjoy sports but wonder when and why universities were turned into the minor leagues for some professional sports aka.job training.As time passes the university leadership attention is directed more toward money making ventures than education.There is a lot of money being generated by sports and outside interests but is it benefiting education? Mike, how can I better equip myself to process information?
As far as real teaching goes, I can even remember when we learned things in college. Learning is gone, not just from universities but from all the way down to preschool! I suppose we will have to change our college curriculum to No College Student Left Behind. Of course they already are because they have never been taught to think. Most of them are a whiz at carefully coloring in little blue dots on the test papers. Do we really have enough jobs for millions of circle colorers?