Excellence Without a Soul Does Liberal Education Have a Future?

by Lewis, Harry

• ISBN13: 9781586485016
• ISBN10: 1586485016
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-08-14
• Publisher: PublicAffairs

Summary

In Excellence Without a Soul, Harry Lewis, a Harvard professor for more than thirty years and Dean of Harvard College for eight, draws from his experience to explain how Harvard and our other great universities have lost sight of their educational mission. Harvard is unique; it is the richest, oldest, most powerful university in America, and so it has set many standards, for better or worse. Lewis provides an intimate history of this grand institution's struggle to define its intellectual and moral purpose in an increasingly consumerist higher education marketplace. Along the way he tours hot-button issues facing all colleges, such as grade inflation, date rape, and the role of American civic values in undergraduate education. Excellence Without a Soul is a persuasive, impassioned plea for the restoration of educational common sense in our great universities. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Harry Lewis, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Harvard College professor, has been on the Harvard faculty for thirty-two years. He was Dean of Harvard College between 1995 and 2003 and chaired the College's student disciplinary and athletic policy committees. He has been a member of the undergraduate admissions and scholarship committee for more than three decades. Lewis lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Preface to the Paperback Edition	p. xi
Preface: What Universities Have Forgotten	p. xiii
Introduction: Hollow Excellence	p. 1
Choice and Direction	p. 21
Meritocracy and Citizenship	p. 45
Contact, Competition, Cooperation	p. 73
The Eternal Enigma: Advising	p. 91
Why Grades Go Up	p. 107
Evaluation Is Educational	p. 125
Independence, Responsibility, Rape	p. 147
Students and Money	p. 195
College Athletes and Money	p. 213
Conclusion	p. 253
Notes	p. 269
Index	p. 295
About the Author	p. 307
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