ProfScam : professors and the demise of higher education by Sykes Charles J. 1954-

Author:Sykes, Charles J., 1954- [Sykes, Charles J., 1954-]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Education, Higher, College teachers, Enseignement supérieur, Professeurs (Enseignement supérieur), Hochschullehrer, Berufsethik, Bildungsniveau
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Regnery Gateway ; New York, NY : Distributed to the trade by Kampmann & Co.
Published: 1988-02-18T05:00:00+00:00

Berkeley

The Revolution that Failed

On a warm early spring day, Sproul Plaza still blossoms with booths representing political causes. Itinerant Maoists and pro-Palestinian groups are scattered among other miscellaneous out-croppings of campus radical chic. But the changes at Berkeley are obvious. They are outnumbered by displays for Bible studies, groups like the Asian Business Club, a vision screening program, and an outfit advertising "California Adventures." A man with a microphone singing "Ain't She Sweet"—off-key—entertains a group of students near the student union.

At the height of the Berkeley Free Speech uprising in 1964, angry demonstrators had seized Sproul Hall and were removed by police; throughout the attempted revolution Sproul retained a symbolic importance.

Twenty years later, it remains one of the main administration buildings on campus. Typical of university buildings frequented mainly by students, it seems modeled on the principles of Eastern European architecture: giganticism married with squalor.

Now, more than 20 years later, it is easy to see who was the real winner in the struggle for Berkeley.

The student revolution that began at Berkeley with the Free Speech Movement spread across the country, afflicting the great and the meek alike (although many of the great turned out to be rather meek when their turn came). Beneath the turmoil at Berkeley, the great higher education debate of the 1960s began to take shape. Under Clark Kerr's leadership, Berkeley had quickly emerged as one of the nation's first great research universities. Its professors were held in international esteem for their work in the laboratories and libraries but not in the classroom. When they did venture into the classroom, classes of 1,000 or more were not uncommon. Contact with faculty was rare and superficial. The vast majority of classes were taught not by professors, but by graduate students. Two-thirds of the school's small classes were

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.