In earlier days, American colleges were beneficial institutions. Once we imported the German model of the research university, trouble began.
In today’s Martin Center article, Scott Yenor looks at the pitfalls of the research university model:
Conservatives interested in higher-education reform often ask themselves where things went wrong. Answers usually range from the radicalism of the 1960s to the rise of social media or the triumph of critical theories in various departments and then the university as a whole. True, but the problem lies deeper, as well.
Few are willing to trace today’s ills to the rise of the Progressive University or, what is the same thing, the making of higher education in the image of the modern research university.
This change ushered in specialized departments, credentialism (the Ph.D. requirement for teaching), and the notion that faculty members were mainly there to produce new knowledge through their research. That did have some positive features, but also negative ones.
Where classical colleges were strong, the Progressive University is weak. Universities trade depth and specialization for breadth and wisdom. . . . Under the classical model[,] faculty were intelligent generalists hired for their ability to teach and inspire, not for their ability to conduct research. Faculty often grasped the wider swath of Western Civilization, being knowers of philosophy, history, literature, and theology. . . . The backward-looking understanding of our civilizational roots was front and center, while the progressive and technical branches were to be learned elsewhere.
Yenor argues that we need to rethink the university and do a lot of scaling back.