Finley: Higher Ed Getting Lower

I entered Antioch College in 1957 in the tiny village of Yellow Springs, Ohio, which had no stoplights, one flashing light at the railroad tracks, one greasy-spoon diner, one tavern, one pizza place and spartan dormitories.

What Antioch did provide was an outstanding liberal arts education with an excellent faculty. It also prepared generations of graduates for professional and graduate schools.

All of this was before the advent of political correctness, identity politics, “social justice warriors” and “intersectionality hierarchies.”

Unsurprisingly, my suggestions for saving small colleges today are the opposite of what’s outlined in “College meltdown’: Small private schools disappear in face of changing educational landscape” ~ (January 23, 2019).

Specifically, to reduce unnecessary expenses, I would fire all administrators with the word “diversity” in their job description along with the entire sex bureaucracy, and replace them with high-quality faculty who can teach that which made small colleges thrive prior to the rise of the forces that killed them.

If small colleges are to survive, they must offer something which cannot be obtained online or in the indoctrination factories which so permeate what passes for higher education today.

In my view, a traditional liberal arts education is the antidote to what we see in Washington today.

Gordon E. Finley, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology Emeritus
Florida International University
Miami

The letter above was originally published in The Washington Times ~ January 23, 2019 and has been submitted to Metropolis Café for republication. Dr. Finley has been a long time and respected contributor to the Kettle Moraine Publications family of web-sites.

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