The latest study from the National Association of Scholars (NAS) features 100 education reforms, including Accuracy in Academia’s.
For example, Jay Bergman, Professor of History, Central Connecticut State University, recommends that “Every American should know Western civilization, of which American culture and political institutions are an integral part.
“By Western civilization I mean the constellation of ideas, political arrangements, ethical precepts, and ways of organizing society and the economy that are traceable to (1) the ethical monotheism of the Ancient Hebrews, adopted by Christianity, which implied that man, as God’s creation, has inherent worth and dignity, and (2) the tradition of rational inquiry, indispensable to science and technological progress, that began in Ancient Greece.”
Richard Bishirjian, President, Yorktown University, Denver, Colorado and Yorktown University of the Americas, Gainesville, Florida, suggests that we “decouple loans from accreditation.”
“The system of voluntary academic accreditation of colleges and universities has morphed into a quasi-governmental system by which institutions of higher learning become “accredited” to offer federal grants and loans to their students,” he avers. “The student federal loan program is the hook by which successive presidential administrations have ‘federalized’ higher education.”
Candace De Russy, a former trustee of the State University of New York, suggests that we “re-examine faculty productivity.”
“Faculty salaries comprise a large portion of campus budgets, and professors in general can reasonably be expected to carry a greater teaching load than they do at present,” she argues. “Many fully tenured professors today teach only a few hours a week, although they are paid considerably more than the median income in their local communities. The role, quality, and cost of teaching assistants in higher education classrooms also relate to this issue. Students deserve as much contact as possible with an experienced and expert professoriate.”
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.
