“The Disadvantages of an Elite Education”
I just finished reading through The Disadvantages of an Elite Education by William Deresiewicz in a Summer 2008 exhortation of The American Scholar. You might imagine that an elite education by sheer definition would be beneficial to you as a student and seeker of truth, beauty, and goodness, but Deresiewicz is determined to shatter your preconceptions.
“The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you.”
The problem which most have talking to strangers is that people in general have difficulty talking to people who aren’t like them. If two students went to the same University, it’s the same as two people from the same town or city transplanted elsewhere. I guarantee that if I (now in NYC) bump into someone who lived in Sexsmith, Alberta we would be able to break the ice as easily as if I run into another Cornellian.
“The second disadvantage, implicit in what I’ve been saying, is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth.”
If you want to measure “worth” objectively you will arrive at some education versus income charts and begin to understand that the marketplace places worth on your elite education. If the marketplace considers you a more valuable asset, by what other valuation can you claim that a reasonable sense of self-worth is false? Students at elite universities have the opportunity to receive the best education possible in their fields.
“The final and most damning disadvantage of an elite education: that it is profoundly anti-intellectual. [...] Being an intellectual means, first of all, being passionate about ideas.”
OK, maybe us engineers are boring as all hell, but I promise you there are students in the Arts and Sciences whose curiosity exceeds even my own. Deresiewicz probably doesn’t consider athletic pursuits to be intellectual, but athletes share a common passion, if a different object. Besides academics and jocks on campus, we also boast republicans, anarchists, musicians, dancers, poets, writers, engineers, chemists, etc. All of them passionate about their field of study and self-improvement. Whether considering passions of the mind, body, or soul, the human endeavor cannot be reduced and limited to Deresiewicz’s notion of intellectualism.
In the end, Deresiewicz’s point–that the modern student lacks the passionate imagination and curiosity to innovate or engage complex ideas–could be equitably applied to students from so-called “elite (read: ivy league) universities” or those studying at public institutions. The determination “elite education” rather than education in general needs significant improvement betrays the author’s bias. The piece, littered with unsubstantiated jabs at prestigious universities, goes down tasting of sour jealousy. And, if Deresiewicz were to be believed, as a lifelong ivy-league academic (5 degrees in 13 years from Columbia University followed by a professorship at Yale) by his own admission he must lack the faculties to introspect and condemn the elite education he himself has been a part of.
If you must read, treat the premise as an assessment of the current apathy present in all higher education. Grade inflation, student apathy, “dumbing down,” the culture of standardized testing, etc are all symptoms of an increasingly unhealthy academic culture. To the degree in which they present variously in different institutions, they are problems in all of them–Cornell included.
In Defense of Cornell Review’s Name
According to Students Want Cornell Name Out of Review Title, a number of Cornell University students are upset because of an article published by the almost defunct The Cornell Review, a conservative anti-establishment tabloid publication. The article, What to Expect: The Angry Minority, allegedly contained racially insensitive speech. It’s hard to say whether the speech was indeed racist, as the article has disappeared from the Internet, and offended parties have not produced hardcopy. Another Cornell magazine, Kitsch, has quoted some of it (via indirect citation) in one of their blog posts:
“…it’s impossible to ignore the nasty, ignorant, and bitter members of the minority community who constantly whine about the brutal oppression they suffer at the hands of whitey. Apparently, part of this oppression involves their admittance to an Ivy League institution, likely as a recipient of affirmative action and scholarships.”
Sample 1 of racist speech
“These reapers of racial rage seclude themselves inside their ethnic ghettos (be it [program houses] Ujamaa, Latino Living Center, or Akwe;kon.”
Sample 2 of racist speech
This would be just another matter of one group of students annoyed with another group of student if not for statements from the Cornell University administration, such as this juicy one from Dean of Students Kent Hubble:
“The Review’s journalism, if one dignifies it with that term, creates a climate of intimidation and alienation among the groups that it targets. Must we tolerate this behavior in order to uphold our commitment to free speech and freedom of expression? I would hope not.”
Don’t think that Cornell won’t ask them to change their name–after all, this blog received a cease and desist for including Cornell in its name after publishing unpopular, but well-reasoned (I’d like to think) articles. Unfortunately, whether you agree with it or not, the article in the Cornell Review is protected free speech. And, its use of the Cornell name is clearly within fair-use.
How To Respond To A Bomb Threat
There was an emailed bomb threat spammed to a bunch of colleges, Cornell University included, which caused the evacuation of Sage Hall. Well, now you’ve just turned a thread–some words–into an actual terrorist act by reifying it. Anytime someone wants to create a panic at Cornell, they can just email, phone, fax, or chalk a bomb threat. The next Willard Straight Hall Takeover won’t be a racial group with guns, it’ll be anybody with an email address.
The problem with responding to a bomb or other threat with a systematic policy is that it exposes you to real threat. Since you cannot determine if a bomb threat is plausible (it usually isn’t), you should not act as if it were. By evacuating Sage hall or bringing in police, you both cause actual terror and expose your game plan to someone really planning an attack. From a security point of view, the best thing to do would be either completely ignore the bomb threat and turn it over to the FBI or local police, or to act randomly and confuse whomever sent it.
Unfortunately, if a bomb threat lead to an actual bombing, this policy would probably be difficult to explain.
