Friday, January 13, 2017

Beyond "gainful employment"...

... which, of course, is a crucial component of a college education, we should not be shy about seeking to graduate engaged citizens.  That's the gist of a Chronicle story this morning.

       Americans continue to amaze with their ignorance of current affairs.  In a recent poll, according to NPR this morning, half of respondents didn't know that 20 million more Americans have health care thanks to the Affordable Care Act.  Meanwhile, the GOP Congress is teeing up to repeal it.

      Two important investigations hopefully will be moving forward in parallel in Washington: one into why the director of the FBI made his announcement about Clinton's emails on the eve of the election, the other about Trump's Russiagate.  We should be insisting that both investigations are carried to conclusion.

      An old buffalo, I'm carried back to my college days in the 1960s.  That era, which carried into the early seventies, set the benchmark for student engagement in political issues.  Echoes of that have been heard of late on some campuses, particularly on the issue of racism.

     If students are rousing from their intellectual slumbers once again, this time administrators should be prepared.  In the sixties, many administrations were taken by surprise when the SDS and Weathermen hit the campus bricks.  The downfall of some college presidents around racial issues recently suggests that we may be no better prepared today than 50 years ago.

     This time around perhaps we ought to be pointing the direction and leading from in front.  Just a thought, which the Chronicle article suggests may be gaining some currency around the country's campuses.

No comments:

Post a Comment