As in my “intro”, this book should be required reading for ALL faculty and administrators on US campuses. I literally read it in one sitting - a rarity for me to do with a non-fiction book. A cliché most certainly but I have an interest in this sector for several reasons. One is as part of a past multi-career life, I served as a tenured professor at a large US SE university. Second I just revisited my own effete New England campus for my 50th reunion that was prefaced with my letters to fund raisers “why” my donations have and will remain minimal citing many of the author’s themes along with attending alumni lectures that attempted to justify so much of what is examined in this book.
Ms Mac Donald adroitly puts “facts” to the fiction, failures and misdirection of so much of the nonsense now occurring on campuses (and very expensive failures too) instead of the actual work of education. Included are data driven critiques of the never ending quest for diversity (and THE big business of this venture), the often destructive nature of these policies, the extrapolations to society at large of this non-stop emphasis, examining the “rape culture” that is said to be pervasive and so forth. And sadly in many ways it is a poignant eulogy for higher education in our country with nostalgic remembrances and allusions to the loss of what is now discarded from curricula given its centuries of formulations of bodies of academic work by a “ patriarchy of white heteronormative males ( I think I got the nomenclature right ?). The writer certainly has a strong base for this comparative lament given her own personal education pedigree of elite universities - Yale, Cambridge and Stanford.
I have a friend who is now a trustee at my old college and I will recommend that he do just this - ask the faculty and administrators that he meets in those lofty interactions. But the predictable reaction ? I say they’ll recoil with crossed fingers and garlic cloves around their necks with a silver spike ready to go In fact I would expect THE same type of reaction to this book “on campus” as Ms Macdonald received in her attempts to speak in the University of California system as she describes. She too will be “Amy Wax-ed” or whacked ( read the book ) but this time with book burnings of her work on campus. It would be so consistent of current campus times and the hypocritical respect for diversity of thought and tolerance supposedly resident in these environments.
PS - Heck I bet I get “censored” by the Amazon reviewers frankly for this review. That too is a manifestation of the carry overs from current education directions on campus creeping outside the ivy walls. I would imagine I have “micro aggressive” words and thought so push the “delete” button.
- Amazon Business : For business-only pricing, quantity discounts and FREE Shipping. Register a free business account
