RALEIGH – It’s nearly August, and university classes will begin soon. Meanwhile, both within and without the halls, those who love academe are voicing concerns over the content of those courses. It’s fluff, it’s biased, it should have been taught in high school, it shouldn’t be taught at all, it certainly shouldn’t be taught by other students, the same stuff is on public-access TV, it’s being taught only so the professor can have a set of “research assistants” helping him with his book, well if it’s going to be taught, how about grading the students on what they’ve learned, &c. It’s enough to make true scholars despair.
All is not lost, however. While it is true that the weeds are flourishing in the sprawling gardens of academe, its famous flowers have not been completely choked out. They are still there if you look for them.
That necessarily entails looking for them, however, which requires wanting to look for them. The dandelions are for those who, like the student columnist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, are “in search of the perfect “candy” class to add to [their] schedule[s].” They’re light, pretty, engaging to small minds, and happily vanish with the first puff of wind. The hardy perennials, harder to find, offer experiences far more sublime.
Nevertheless, those good courses are still available. The professors who inspire and challenge, later to be recalled as your touchstones and catalysts, are still there. The classes that test your endurance, your abilities, and your patience and in which you learn you have such things, those classes that teach you life skills and self-confidence as well as subject matter – they are still there. The kinds of courses one imagines for the ideal universities can be found among the others populating ours.
For example, “The Best of Carolina” is a nice biannual series published in The Carolina Review by conservative students at UNC-Chapel Hill. It is one way for the seekers to find the good courses, as it provides a list of courses recommended by students, along with the students’ comments about the courses. CR explains the series’ purpose as “to provide our readers with a valuable resource to turn to as they go through the often frustrating process of choosing the best schedule among the numerous classes offered” and “to provide the campus with the most academically stimulating, not easiest, courses, so students may obtain a true ‘liberal arts’ education.”
Granted, that is for only one university, but the same could be done for any university and for every curriculum as students plot out their schedules. One must learn, however, the markers of good professors. CR gives a hint with its acknowledgment that the courses it highlights are “the most academically stimulating, not easiest, courses.”
If you’re a seeker, you can winnow out the best at your college the way CR did at UNC-CH, by talking with other students. Often the names of the best professors will come to you by way of warning. Don’t sign up for Dr. Strict’s class; he’s very demanding. It’s hard to get an A in Dr. Exactness’s class; you should take Dr. Lightness instead. I heard Dr. Rumor is very picky and hard to please. Oh, my friend had Dr. Load, and he was always doing too much homework!
By the same token, the names of some of the worst will usually come by way of recommendation. Take Jeff’s course — sorry, Dr. Pal. He likes to be called by his first name. He’s so cool, it’s like he one of us! Dr. Drone is kind of boring, but his assignments are really easy and besides, he never changes his tests. Dr. Reel plays a movie every Friday! He says it helps with attendance, and besides, no one pays attention on Fridays anyway because we’re still hung over from Thursday night.
If you seek the best at your university rather than the best of your university’s “candy classes,” you will find the work much harder. Not to mention, far more rewarding. One might even say, collegiate.
Jon Sanders (jsanders@popecenter.org) is a policy analyst with the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh.