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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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I very much enjoyed reading Michiko Kakutani’s “Out of the Blue” piece (Sum.), which addresses the conspicuous absence of intellectual debate and controversy among students on today’s college campuses. Although, as the author suggests, this trend is perhaps partly traceable to the resurgence of moral relativism and intellectual pluralism, I fear a more disturbing culprit may have been overlooked. In this great “Information Age,” for-profit corporations, mass marketers, and the commercial media have been extremely successful in shaping a generation of young consumers who, despite their independent manner of dress and appearance, are not known for their independent-mindedness or their interest in the formative issues of our time. When this phenomenon is considered in conjunction with trends in secondary education that have elevated rote knowledge over intellectual development, the decline of robust intellectual debate among students—even at our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning—should not surprise us.
Warily Welcoming Change While I welcome President Levin’s initiative in establishing the Committee on Yale College Education (CYCE) (“Reviewing the College,” Apr.), and realize that all institutions have a tendency to acquire barnacles with age, I hope the committee will eschew recent educational fads. The history of U.S. education in the 20th century has been replete with doctrinal disasters. The New Math and Whole Math have left our children unable to balance a checkbook. Whole Language has left them unable to properly read a newspaper. At the university level, deconstruction has paralyzed English departments. In academe, the campaign against the ideas of dead white males and the privileged status of Western Civilization has produced a generation of amnesiacs. The committee should opt to keep Yale College a genuine liberal arts institution. Today, there are too many trade schools posing as colleges and universities. Their graduates are very clever at performing certain operations, but their minds have not been truly expanded. At my 40th reunion, President Benno Schmidt met with us. Several alumni expressed concern that their children were not acquiring computer literacy and current management techniques. They wondered if their children could compete in the modern job market. Schmidt replied that Yale’s mission was to teach young people how to think—how to apply organization and analysis to a host of problems. The subject matter was less important. With this in mind, I believe that we must be very careful when it comes to amortizing expensive facilities for graduate programs by inviting in undergraduates. Graduate schools are purveyors of technique and expertise, whereas liberal arts colleges are concerned with general thought. Any mixing of the two will require great attention. I also believe that the core studies concept has served Yale well. Too much fiddling may gut it. I was shocked to learn that a student was able to graduate without having taken a single English course. If I sound like a member of the 1828 review panel, I am not ashamed. A Yale education has too many advantages to allow it to be sacrificed to unproved novel concepts.
Admissions and Athletes Attending an Alumni Schools Committee workshop on admissions recently, I heard Dean Brodhead claim that no student is admitted to Yale solely on the basis of athletic ability. Having interviewed applicants for several years now, and having looked into the matter of athletic recruitment, I am doubtful that this is so. The situation is worse than suspected by those of you who have written letters to the Yale Alumni Magazine in response to “Ban Slots for Sports” (Apr.). There are indeed 35 varsity sports for which students are recruited (many under the contentious early decision program). Also, each coach gets a number of “picks.” We may estimate that up to 10 percent of the coveted places are being taken up by applicants whose main (if not only) claim to Yale’s consideration is that they showed athletic promise in secondary school. Two years ago, I interviewed an extremely lackluster young woman; she had been so assured by a Yale recruiter that she would be admitted to Yale that the student considered Yale her “safety school.” I do not know about her SATs or grades at her regional vocational school, but since she spent five hours a day training for track, she had no time for any other activities. (Racial or ethnic diversity was not a factor here.) I gave her the lowest rating I have ever given, but she was indeed admitted. (She did not attend Yale, though, apparently because another College offered a bigger scholarship.) I suspect that most alumni have come across cases where an apparently outstanding candidate was not admitted, and as pressure for admission increases, even “legacy” applicants stand to lose out if there is no retrenchment in athletic recruitment. I am all in favor of sports on campus, and I am sure that “scholar-athletes” do exist, but I cannot believe that Yale must lower its standards to flesh out its athletic teams before considering applicants who are outstanding in other respects. Yale should take the lead in curtailing this holdover from its jock past by diminishing the priority given to athletics. This might even improve Yale’s “yield” among applicants who are also admitted to Harvard; at the moment we are
Portraying Kagan “A Lion in Winter,” which appeared in the April Yale Alumni Magazine, was an insightful and accurate portrayal of Professor Donald Kagan’s character, his education, and his ideology. It bears remarking that this wonderfully effective man is the product of public education. I first met (and quickly came to admire) Don Kagan during the Bass affair, when a group of concerned alumni tried to counter the maneuvering of the faculty and administration that resulted in the return of the $20 million Western Civilization gift. While Kagan’s excellent pedagogy has focused on Periclean Athens, his recent writing and speeches are particularly pertinent since September 11. All those who know Don Kagan, read his works, or are taught by him cannot fail to be ennobled by the experience. He is a national treasure! In the book While America Sleeps, Donald Kagan’s argument is not one that favors war, ultimately, but one that favors a “position of strength” in the management of peace. The missing link in Kagan’s argument, however, also is suggested in your article: It’s a jungle out there—because there are no cops. “Cops and criminals,” not “war,” is the right characterization for the September 11 events. If we are to survive in a globalizing world, we need an international criminal code. If all forms of terrorism might not fit into that, certainly blowing up a building full of civilians would. In their book, Kagan and his son are concerned that we get tough because they feel that warfare is our most natural human tendency and that toughness is the only way we possibly can tame and avoid it. Kagan’s well-deserved reputation for illuminating Yale generations as to the state of warfare among the ancient Greeks may be distracting him a bit here. We no longer have defined armies and front lines behind which “the enemy” might be found. Now we need special squads, operating independently and all over the place. “War on terrorism” has become “permanent police action.” We’re not in the Peloponnesus any more.
Corrections In an October “Light & Verity” article about the recently launched online community and directory for Yale alumni, the Internet address we reported was incomplete. The correct address is http://alumniconnections.com/yale. In an October “Faces” item about Hebrew College professor Solomon Schimmel, we reported incorrectly the title of his book. It is Wounds Not Healed By Time: The Power of Repentance and Forgiveness, not The Prodigal Son.
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