Higher Expectations

Starred review from July 1, 2020

Former president of Harvard University Bok (The Struggle To Reform Our Colleges) ponders a profound question: What do 21st-century college students need to know? In this highly readable and engaging book, he delineates how colleges can better prepare students to gain the skills and develop the habits of mind necessary to succeed in life, especially in a fast-moving, knowledge-based society. Bok focuses on both content and instructional methods. He offers a historical overview of American college curricula and reform efforts from the 17th century onward, which should be required reading for anyone interested in how teaching and learning have evolved. The lack of civic engagement among some voters and the hyperpartisanship evident in recent elections spurred many educators including Bok to examine whether and how colleges can provide civic education in efforts to protect our democracy. Bok also delves thoughtfully into other subjects such as international interdependence, intercultural competence afforded by study abroad, foreign language requirements, ethical behavior, character building, personal responsibility, and cocurricular and extracurricular activities. Throughout, he stresses that curricular reform needs to start with learning outcomes--hence the question, what is it that our students need to know? VERDICT Highly recommended for college faculty and administrators, and anyone interested in how college students can find meaning and purpose in life.--Elizabeth Connor, Daniel Lib., The Citadel, Military Coll. of South Carolina, Charleston

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2020
Former Harvard University president Bok examines ways in which higher education can shape better citizens. The author looks back over seven decades of teaching to examine where tertiary education is and where it's going. It's now said that students retain little information from the lecture format, with better results coming from active participation rather than passive reception. Though in days past, Bok's charges at Harvard filled the halls to hear the likes of Stephen Jay Gould and Michael Sandel, such talented interpreters are rare. All the same, "at least half of college faculty continue to lecture extensively, especially in large college courses, despite persuasive evidence that active forms of problem-solving are more effective at helping students learn to think carefully and reason well." Meanwhile, writes the author, altogether too many professors resent teaching, and the more renowned the school, the stronger the dislike for it: "Their rewards from the outside world...come almost entirely from their research." If universities are to weather the coming financial and cultural storms, Bok suggests, they'll need to retool to offer answers to real exigencies, such as the fact that employers (and donors) complain that students emerging with diplomas lack "soft" or "noncognitive" skills such as a willingness to work as a member of a team and observe basic social niceties. More to the point, Bok also argues that institutions must do more to teach beyond mere rubrics, touching especially on questions of ethics and civic engagement, and point the way to how students might acquire "wisdom enough to decide how to live purposeful, fulfilling lives" and prepare themselves for lifelong learning. Whether faculties will want to take the time to produce "active and informed citizens" remains to be seen, notes the author, and such faculties tend to serve their own interests. A useful though eminently debatable case for reform in the interest of teaching to today's needs.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.