Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More

President Bok obviously understands colleges and what ails them. Though no polemic, this book takes to task both the prevailing wisdom about higher education (Liberal professors are undermining student thinking) and the myth that students just want to use a college education to get to a great graduate school. There is much wisdom here for all sectors of education. Thank you, President Bok.

Derek Bok is one of the most thoughtful observers (and participants) in higher education today. As president of Harvard for 20 years (1971 - 1991) he had many opportunities to see first hand how an elite university works--or doesn't. Many years ago I read his book "The State of the Nation", which I found to be a reasonable analysis of many of the difficult issues facing the country. In "Our Underacheiving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More", Bok is able to focus on issues that he has a unique perspetive on. The begins with the basic question: "What is the purpose of higher education?" His response is given in a series of wonderfully insightful chapters focusing on critical thinking, diversity, and character. Unlike many commentators, he takes a measured response towards such divisive topics as preprofessionalism and the degree of faculty commitment to undergraduate education. Bok presents a powerful argument that the modern university has largely abdicated its responsibility to teach a strong core curriculum, as compared to a random hodgepodge of courses that students and faculty can agree will be "fun". This book deserves to be a classic treatise on higher education, alongside books such as Clark Kerr's "The Uses of the University".

Unless you are a glutton for punishment, chances are that you'll never read all of the major critiques of undergraduate education in the United States. It would take a true masochist to follow up all of that reading with a look into the latest research on how and when undergraduates can learn more at college. But only someone with a true love for the subject would also consider what colleges should be trying to accomplish for students, professors, and society. Meet Derek Bok, veteran of two decades as president of Harvard University, who recently served another year as interim president after Larry Summers resigned last year. He's a man with a mission: Make undergraduate education as good as it can be. That zeal won't be evident to the casual reader. The material is presented in such an even-handed way that it's easy to conclude that President Bok has no strong opinions. That would be a mistake. You need a hint: President Bok started out as a professor interested in labor law where strict adherence to standards is critical to effectiveness. He later served as dean of Harvard Law School at a time when the students (my class) barricaded him all night in the library where he amiably chatted with all comers. President Bok's often turgid prose also makes his words seem less powerful than they might be. But read between the lines. Ignore what the conservative flame-throwers have to say about too much sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll and not enough great books. American four-year colleges can do a lot better in their main missions: 1. With greater emphasis, more resources, and a pervasive role throughout the curriculum, student can learn to write and speak much more effectively. 2. By focusing more on encouraging critical thinking, emphasizing greater student participation in class, and providing more challenging assignments that require applied thought, the 95 percent of students who cannot apply any of the disciplines they were exposed to in college can make an applied contribution to the world. 3. Academic leaders need to consider that they can build character by exposing students to more ethical questions and involving students in public service community activities. Students themselves seem to want more guidance in this area. 4. Colleges should encourage knowledgeable participation in the political process. Otherwise, our form of government may atrophy due to disinterest by its best educated citizens. 5. Colleges need to move beyond integrating a diverse student body into helping each student develop greater abilities to relate to other people. 6. Expanding student perspectives beyond the domestic American views to see global issues and opportunities. 7. Creating a greater awareness of disciplines outside of one's own area of interest, especially for those with a scientific and vocational focus. 8. Better balancing student desires to get a job after college with faculty desires to ignore vocational perspectives. 9.

In this book, Derek Bok does an incredible job of laying out the shortcomings in undergraduate education. However, he does this without failing to acknowledge the good being achieved. As a former college president Dr. Bok speaks from a position of authority on the subject. The problems he identifies he backs up with thorough, thought provoking research. He does not just leave the problems as they stand but offers helpful, realistic suggestions for improvement. The greatest strenght of Dr. Bok's book is that he appreciates the complexity of the problem. The issues he raises as well as the solutions he proposes are not simplistic answers to superficial issues. This book is a must read for anyone involved in education. On top of all that, it is well written and thus a pleasure to read. In fact, I recommend it for anyone who enjoys reading a well written book.

This critique of higher education is written by Derek Bok, once and future president of Harvard University (he's taken over from Larry Summers as interim leader). But Bok's experience at Harvard - while it certainly informs his analysis - does not make him an elitist. Far from it, his suggested reforms, as he explains, may work best at schools not so hide-bound as Harvard with tradition and defensiveness: "which may help to explain why so many of the most interesting teaching innovations do not begin in the best-known universities but in colleges with less prominent reputations" (337). Bok's analysis marks out a welcome middle path between knee-jerk defenders of the American university and its detractors. While relatively speaking, our system of higher education remains the envy of the rest of the world, it still fails undergraduate students in a million small ways, chiefly connected with its lack of attention to how students learn best in and out of the classroom. Bok's complaint is not that colleges have lost their way - he's very clear that there was no Golden Age of American higher education - but that we could be doing much better. In a series of chapters devoted to the skills that he believes students should work at during their four college years, Bok slays a number of sacred cows and offers concrete suggestions for how to make substantial improvements. For example, he is refreshingly skeptical of the value of "concentrations" (probably known as "majors" to most of us); their requirements grow larger and larger, but what are they really accomplishing? Similarly, he expresses skepticism about distribution requirements, making the point that they often amount to a hodge-podge of unrelated courses chosen by students because they are easy or will help them get a job (though elsewhere Bok is very sympathetic to the student's need to prepare for a career during college). Even when students choose their general education courses from genuine curiosity, the courses (for example, large introductory science courses) have often been designed as "foundations for students intending to major in the field and perhaps go on to obtain a Ph.D." (261). Such courses won't really help the student who wants a basic holistic introduction to the field. Bok always wants to move us back to a firmer understanding of educational purposes. Perhaps Bok's most serious and repeated criticism concerns pedagogy. As he observes, there is just not enough attention to it. Important introductory courses are too often taught by graduate students and adjuncts to save money for the institution and time for tenured faculty research. The courses that the regular faculty do teach are usually presented in a lecture format that does not involve students actively in their learning. Bok, however, is not a defeatist, and he does generally respect the American faculty, repeatedly noting that most college teachers are "conscientious," "thoughtful," and concerned with student learning.