The Abandoned Generation [Paperback]

Mr. William H. Willimon (Author), Mr. Thomas H. Naylor (Co-editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 1995

Convinced that America's institutions of higher learning now face a crisis - that they are not meeting the educational needs of their students, that faculty members can do better - William H. Willimon and Thomas H. Naylor here propose bold changes in the nation-s undergraduate educational system. By looking at academic life from the students' point of view - the text is filled with real-life situations, reflections from students, and poignant illustrations - The Abandoned Generation evaluates American colleges and universities on the basis of the quality of the lives that they are now producing. Willimon and Naylor take an honest look at three realities of student life - substance abuse, indolence, and excessive careerism. They then evaluate the underlying causes - the sense of meaninglessness in student life and the absence of community. Finally, they build a provocative four-tier strategy for change - restructuring the academy, teachers who actually teach, curriculum reform, and the creation of learning communities.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Decades at Duke University, where Willimon is dean of the chapel and Naylor is professor emeritus of economics, provide the experience and motivation for this powerful plea to reorganize colleges and universities. The authors begin with an examination of the symptoms of decline: grade inflation; unmotivated, alienated students; a careerist approach to education; and, most centrally, alcohol abuse. These symptoms, they claim, point to problems stemming from the late-20th-century move away from liberal education. Students today accumulate data without being taught how to apply it. Like Plato in his Phaedrus, the authors worry about students who "will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant." Troubled by an increasingly anti-intellectual atmosphere on college campuses, Willimon and Naylor end with several radical proposals: form separate institutions for graduates and undergraduates, dedicating the latter to a stringent liberal-arts curriculum; reward faculty for teaching rather than for researching and writing; and eliminate tenure. They rely heavily on anecdotal evidence from students, data from various universities, and both ancient and contemporary literature, usually managing to strike a balance between professionalism and humanism. The authors provide compelling arguments for saving the abandoned generation of college students.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 182 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (July 17, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802841198
• ISBN-13: 978-0802841193
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,032,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important, not faddish, book on university reform, October 6, 2000

By 

R. J. O'Hara - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Abandoned Generation (Paperback)

Along with Kors and Silverglate's The Shadow University, this is one of the most important higher education books published in many years. Based on their studies of the Duke University campus, Willimon and Naylor correctly identify the real problem in American higher education as the poverty of student life, not the politicization of the curriculum.

For more than a generation, student life has been under the control of a vacuous bureaucracy of "student affairs" and "residence life" workers who exist in a state of co-dependency with underprepared and delinquent students. Out-of-control dormitories, alcohol abuse and vandalism, institutionally-promoted segregation, and a complete disconnection between the classroom and life outside the classroom -- all these problems have been endemic for a generation in institutions that advertise themselves as "caring" and "student-centered."

The solution to these problems, Willimon and Naylor show, is not left politics, nor right politics, nor politics of any kind: it is sustained, personal contact between students and faculty throughout the institution.

It is unlikely that this book will have much effect on university administrators who profit from the existing problems, but it should be read by all students, parents, and (especially) legislators who want to improve the quality of higher education.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not good enough, November 23, 2005

By 

John H. Hwung (Fair Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Abandoned Generation (Paperback)

Both authors wrote mainly and expensively about lack of moral education at Duke and other higher education institutions. They also touch on the purposeful abhorrence of the faculty toward the undergraduates and their neglect in teaching undergraduates. The best part of the book is in Chapter 7, where the authors recommend decoupling the undergraduate education from the university. This is one of the recommendations I have read so far in saving and improving the undergraduate education. But then, this is not a new idea, because we have it already in hundreds and hundreds of small liberal arts colleges, where there are no graduate schools of any sort or research institutes. This is why I give this book 3 stars because the solution is good, but someone else has had it for a long, long time.

For a more critical look at American higher education and better recommendations for improvement, read "The Great Rip-off in American Education."