Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education (Hardcover)

~ Harry Lewis (Author) "When an energetic student named Bill Gates showed up in my applied mathematics class during my second year teaching, I had no trouble figuring out..." (more)
Key Phrases: summa degrees, amateurism rules, curricular review, Ivy League, Harvard College, President Summers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lewis, former Dean of Harvard College, presents a biting, scattershot indictment of undergraduate education at America's flagship university. The curriculum, he contends, is a crazy quilt of courses that leaves students clueless as to what they should learn and why. Professors are ivory tower eggheads fixated on their narrow subspecialties and incapable of offering guidance about academics, career or character. And students, coddled by parents and plied by administrators with parties, pubs and concerts, remain dependent and infantilized instead of growing up. Lewis spares no one-least of all recently ousted Harvard President Lawrence Summers, a "bully" whose administration combined "arrogance" with "lack of candor" and "chaotic lurching"-and probes rarely-examined academic fundamentals (his comments on the meaninglessness of grades are especially incisive). Unfortunately, his remedies, like a sketchy proposal for general education courses, are vague at best. And while he deplores Harvard's failure to articulate "what it means to be a good person," his discussion of date rape-concluding that women should be encouraged to "move on" and "rise above severe trauma"-is an ethical muddle. Provocative and insightful, Lewis's call for an intellectually and morally coherent education does a much better job of raising important questions than answering them.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

Few universities face the negative publicity that Harvard does when recruiting students. Books and magazine articles abound with titles such as Harvard, Schmarvard and Who Needs Harvard?, urging students to resist being blinded by prestige and to find a college that better fits their own distinct social and intellectual profile.

It doesn't matter. Year after year, no other university touches Harvard's ability to lure the best students from every corner of the United States.

Similarly, Excellence Without a Soul, by Harry R. Lewis, a former dean of Harvard College (the undergraduate division of Harvard), will discourage precisely zero valedictorians and strivers from making their predestined pilgrimage to Cambridge (at least for a tour of the campus). Yet the book levels significant charges: Harvard has abdicated its core responsibility to decide what undergraduates ought to learn and has abandoned any effort to shape students' moral character. "I have almost never heard discussions among professors," writes this 30-year veteran of the computer-science department, "about making students better people."

If that language strikes you as too pious, you might still agree with Lewis's contention that Harvard fails to encourage its students to examine their social, intellectual and career choices in anything like the spirit of Ralph Waldo Emerson (class of 1821). The book's relevance is hardly limited to Cambridge, given that few colleges could pass the tests Lewis sets up for his own.

Mercifully, the overexposed Harvard ex-president and gender theorist Larry Summers plays only a minor role in this narrative. No fan, Lewis writes that Summers "will be remembered for his failures," as a man who mistook bluster for leadership. Lewis, however, is hardly in the corner of the arts and sciences faculty, which helped bring Summers down.

His chief complaint is that Harvard professors refuse to devise a coherent undergraduate curriculum. Lewis is nostalgic for the curriculum Harvard concocted in the 1940s, which forced students to take several wide-ranging courses with titles such as "Western Thought and Institutions." In the 1970s, that system was replaced by a more complex one that requires students to take specifically designed courses, outside the usual department offerings, from numerous categories, such as "Social Sciences" and "Humanities." By the time Summers arrived in 2001, the system was widely viewed as a tired hodgepodge.

Summers called for a curricular review, and Lewis, like the president, hoped the faculty would decide what literary, historical, philosophical and scientific works all students should be exposed to. But the vaunted review went nowhere. Oh, it grinds on in an attenuated way, but professors are leaning toward a simple "distribution" model, in which students could fulfill a history requirement, for example, by taking any course the history department offers. In the U.S. history subfield, that might mean "Medicine and Society in America" or "Pursuits of Happiness: Ordinary Lives in Revolutionary America" -- fine courses, perhaps, but ones that are part of no larger picture.

A lack of effective advising compounds the ill effects of the laissez-faire curriculum, in Lewis's view. Plenty of Harvard students have been gunning for the elite business-consulting firm McKinsey & Co. or Harvard Med since the ninth grade, and a few complete the journey contentedly. Yet others wake up their sophomore year realizing they've been achieving in a vacuum -- they don't want what they thought they wanted. They're lost, and, Lewis argues, Harvard professors possess neither the know-how nor the inclination to help them.

A necessary first step toward reform, Lewis thinks, would be hiring professors on the basis of empathy for young people and personal probity, not research prowess alone. As he notes, you can lose a Harvard professorship for "stealing your colleague's ideas . . . but not stealing postage or abusing your children."

But Lewis never explains how, if he were Harvard's hiring czar, he would balance research, teaching and mentoring skills. The question is trickier than he admits. He wants Harvard to be both a cozy liberal arts college and a research powerhouse. Is that possible? I, for one, might vote to grant tenure to Einstein at Harvard even if he had sticky fingers.

It's fun to argue with the ex-dean, whose knowledge of the subject vastly outstrips that of most commentators on higher education. Unfortunately, as the book progresses it starts to seem less and less a comprehensive critique than a collection of one man's cranky observations. Lewis's discussion of student "professionalism" is confused, for example: He hates it when his liberal arts colleagues sneer at students who seem mainly interested in landing high-paying jobs. (After all, he says, if you're the "best," there's nothing wrong with wanting the "best" jobs, too.) Yet Lewis himself writes, "Something is wrong with our educational system when so many graduating Harvard seniors see consulting and investment banking as their best options for productive lives."

And "unconvincing" does not begin to capture Lewis's chapter on grade inflation. He's all for it! It's no problem if most Harvard students get A's and A-minuses, he writes, because, after all, "grades have been going up for as long as there have been grades." Spot the logical error in that argument -- that would be a good question for a Harvard interview.

A "gentleman's C" used to signal that a student spent his time playing pool at his club or editing the campus newspaper. There was no shame in it and no pretense of distinction either. But a gentleman's (gentleperson's) A-minus? That seems pretty much like a fraud -- on students and graduate schools alike.

Reviewed by Christopher Shea
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; annotated edition edition (May 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586483935
• ISBN-13: 978-1586483937
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #506,796 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Common Sense Comes to the Ivory Tower, June 5, 2006

By	John McGrath "eldraque" (MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The author makes a refreshingly candid appraisal of how higher education, specifically Harvard College, has been dealing with critical issues affecting the lives and educations of undergraduates. In doing so, he exposes the hypocrisy of political correctness, the vapidity of "consumer oriented" higher education, and, above all, the smugly arrogant attitudes that are held by too many who direct today's institutions of higher learning.

Throughout, the writing is clear and often blunt. This book is especially fascinating in its explanations of the historical background that created many of today's policies and procedures at Harvard and elsewhere, and the cases examined are presented in a lively and interesting way. Lewis makes his points efficiently and effectively, provoking the reader's interest throughout.

This is a book that raises important questions about the overall purpose of higher education in a societal context. Perhaps there could have been a bit more argument as to why the production of thinking, conscientious citizens is so critical in today's world, but I suppose that goes beyond the scope of the book. Yet, if Harvard is indeed the trendsetter for academic policies in the 21st century - - as few of us would deny - - then all Americans should take time to reflect on Lewis's wisdom. There's a lot of important stuff here.

36 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars View from Inside a Cocoon, October 2, 2006

By	Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

After a twenty year career as a college professor, I continue to read books that challenge the academic world.

This time I was reminded of the time I attended an academic conference in my field. The keynote panel focused on a task force charged with investigating "how to motivate top researchers to stay active throughout their careers." I wondered why the 300 or so audience members should care about half a dozen well-paid, tenured professors at top-tier schools.

And that's how I felt as I thumbed through this book. In a televised interview, Lewis claims he received supportive comments from colleagues at all sorts of universities. But much of this book has to be about Harvard or a clone. Grade inflation makes less sense when your university accepts a wide range of students. And Lewis's claim that professors are "volunteers" who could easily get another job should draw scornful laughter from professors all over the world. After ten years in the academy, many professors are unemployable elsewhere, and only the most exceptional tenured professors can move to other schools.

Ironically, this book about academia does not draw on academic scholarship. As a result, Lewis, a math teacher, comes across as what another reviewer calls a "cranky old man."

For example, Lewis reminds us, at one time teachers and scholars lived together. A woman could study Classics one-on-one with a male professor, finishing with a civilized glass of sherry.

These nostalgic observations should be discussed in the framework of cultural and social change. Trends related to privacy, compartmentalization of home and work and gender roles all account for these changes. Lewis barely notices that his own privileged career at Harvard would have been difficult (if not impossible) for a woman of equal merit.

Ultimately that lack of framework can lead readers to question Lewis's most earnest proposals. Why should professors seek to develop the moral lives of their students? Who cares if they're "good" people and if some of them are characterized by Lewis as "despicable?" In fact, who judges professors' moral character at all? Students choose a secular university precisely because they want to compartmentalize. They want to learn math, science and sociology, not morals. Those who seek goodness can choose faith-based alternatives or New Age options like Maharishi University.

It's also notoriously hard to evaluate teaching. Lewis himself disparages standard, widely-used student evaluations. But professors who sit in on classes often have political agendas. Early in my career I was warned that, at teaching schools, rewards depend on how much colleagues and administrators "like" you. I've found that's an accurate observation.

Perhaps the best section of the book comes in the chapter about athletic departments. As a professor, I often received notes from coaches asking me to report students who missed class or failed tests. I couldn't help wishing all students had access to the support athletes get: tutors, mentors, schedules and more. In her books, Lady Vols Coach Pat Summitt tells us she assigns upperclass players to play big-sister to the entering freshmen.

And I agree that the NCAA places ludicrous restrictions on players' earning power. As he says, an oboist can earn money in a summer orchestra but a basketball player has to sell socks in a sporting goods store. Ridiculous.

But Lewis goes on to note that recruiting committees ask coaches (but not professors), "What would you do if a student cries in your office?"

Except for the very best and/or highly motivated, students don't seek close ties to their professors, who see them a few times a week for a few months in specialized settings. Coaches see students almost every day for their entire four years, often in close locker room settings at odd times of day.

Like Lewis, I wish students would take more responsibility for themselves and lose the helicopter parents. I once got a call from a mom who explained her son would be "absent" for the first two classes of the term. The 25-year-old son would in my MBA class after finishing his stint as an officer in the US Navy.

I also agree that both men and women need to accept more responsibility for their own social conduct. Students who attend parties with alcohol need to recognize what may happen. Although nobody would condone date drugs and rape, I've seen first-hand how false accusations can destroy a career. And even when an accusation is true and the attacker gets justly punished, nobody wins.

Finally, both as student and teacher, I've always felt that administrators placed too much emphasis on formal curricula. Should students take course A or course B? And in what order? Often decisions boil down to politics Course A adds enrollment numbers to Department A, which translates to resource allotments and faculty positions.

A "history of medicine through the ages" might seem a poor substitute for European History 1200-1750. But as we learn about one corner of a subject, we might be motivated to keep going and get the bigger picture.

Perhaps the problem isn't with Lewis but with the topic. In my opinion, the best views of academia come not from essays but from memoirs, such as those by Jill Ker Conway and Patrick Allitt, where the authors adhere to the old maxim of "show, don't tell." Alternatively, a social science framework (even the Malcolm Gladwell lite version) might give us a unified coherent commentary.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a key consideration for any library strong in liberal education analysis, February 6, 2008

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excellence Without a Soul: Does Liberal Education Have a Future? (Paperback)

The author has been a Harvard professor for over thirty years and Dean of Harvard College for eight, and uses his experience to explain how his and other universities have lost sight of their educational objectives. EXCELLENCE WITHOUT A SOUL: DOES LIBERAL EDUCATION HAVE A FUTURE examines educational standards, objectives, and new challenges to the higher education goals and marketplace, considering major issues from grade inflation to date rape and how values translate in the college environment. It's a key consideration for any library strong in liberal education analysis, and for college-level education collections.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch