Nisbet, Robert - Richard Ohmann (essay date 17 July 1971)

Richard Ohmann (essay date 17 July 1971)

SOURCE: “To Reform the Academy,” in Saturday Review, Vol. 54, July 17, 1971, pp. 54-55.

[In the following essay, Ohmann faults Degradation of the Academic Dogma for blaming the politicization of American universities on post-World War II political developments rather than late-nineteenth-century educational reforms.]

How should colleges and universities deal with student unrest and the other stresses that afflict them?

A: “They must restore legitimate authority, mainly that of the faculty, and enforce traditional, and proper, standards of intellectual achievement.”

B: “Nonsense. That's what got us in trouble in the first place. Colleges must put aside rigidities of course, credit, test, grade, and the whole repressive machinery. Listen to students. Give them a voice in policy and control over their own education.”

C: “You're both addressing...

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