These are some questions that we thought of while doing the reading last week. We added some from the Perpetual Dream. Feel free to respond or bring up some of the points in discussion.
- Ariel and Mary
Can you find community at larger schools or does the presence of various sub-communities make it impossible to create a cohesive university culture?
Do small schools inherently have a sense of community because you know everyone?
Is it justifiable for smaller schools to have specific sub-communities that aren’t inclusive?
In order to guide students towards their ultimate course of study, do you need to require certain subjects?
Should higher education be focused on preparing/giving students a degree centered on making them a more valuable and competitive job applicant?
Is a Johnston education as valuable without the living learning, community aspect of the overall education? (What about people who live off complex or aren’t involved in the community at all- how did their experiences compare?)
If a Johnston style of education was required of students would the program still thrive as it does?
Exclusivity vs. intentionality
“Perhaps both groups [of educational reform] do share one common failing, again characteristically American: namely, to overestimate what education itself can do. Their hope was either to change the general culture….or, a bit more modestly, to produce a new generation of self-motivated, deeply interested students, not only in the selective colleges but also in the exploding institutions of near-universal higher education….” (The Perpetual Dream, 7).
What are the potential repercussions of the above statement? If education cannot spark change in the general culture (or individuals who can shape the general culture), what force can? Does the authors’ perception of what an education is play into this statement?
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