Final Exam 2003 Answer

ENGLISH 101. ACADEMIC WRITING Dr. G's Sample Answer to the 2003 Final Exam
Home Course Info Schedule	Higher ed must teach both knowledge and virtue
*Course Info* *Instructor* *Course goals* *What you will need* *Course policies* *Disabilities* Schedule (for Fall 2004) *Course Index*	TC3 explains its role in a "Vision" on its public web page: "As the community's college, we will be leaders in creating environments that produce learning for success in the global society" (Tompkins Cortland Community College). But what does the vision mean by "success"? Does it mean financial success? Happiness? What exactly does the school offer its students? Although the vision statement is mysterious, the college catalog is clear enough, with its heavily career-oriented course offerings, that TC3 is mainly in the job training business. The college sells most of its degree programs by suggesting that jobs await those who pay the tuition and pass. While this pitch may be necessary for the school's economic survival, it is somewhat controversial and misleading. Not all TC3 faculty members agree that higher education should be vocational, and TC3 students often confuse technical knowledge with suitability for employment. The truth is that vocational training and liberal arts education are complementary because every employee is both a technical specialist and a human being, and employers evaluate both aspects when hiring. Faculty controversies and student confusions about vocationalism in higher education are not unique to TC3. For at least half of a century, job training has been recognized as one of several primary functions of higher education (Institute of Education sec 2.1), but nowadays, as Taylor complains: Increasingly, learning is seen as a direct function of the existing economic order. It seems to be concerned with little more than the direct preparation of young people for work. The emphasis is on vocational learning, on an essentially utilitarian concept of education rather than on the pursuit of truth and knowledge for its own sake (12). Teachers in the liberal arts particularly must wonder what they have to offer, job-wise. If as Draper suggests (732) they have been preaching Marxism, they have not converted many students from the pursuit of riches. Recently, more and more young people say that college is a place to begin the hunt for money; fewer and fewer freshmen seem to be interested in finding meaning or "expanding their minds" ("College Students Value Money" 3). Professors often seem unable to admit that they are mere job trainers. Do they fear competition from nonacademic job trainers whose products typically are much less expensive and far less time-consuming? Do they fear that their colleges and universities, if seen as businesses, will lose the huge private donations and massive government subsidies that keep academia afloat? For whatever reason, faculty like to portray themselves not as job trainers but as public servants engaged in the overall improvement of humanity. They call themselves mind builders who stimulate general intelligence (see Professor Sagan 15) or research scholars who improve humankind collectively through advanced humanitarian studies (see Keohane 101). At most, like James Mason Wood, educators admit that they pursue "dual objectives: education for living and educating for making a living" (qtd. in Fitzhenry 139). A tad arrogant, Wood's language seems to suggest that nobody is "living" without professors' help. Students are not necessarily persuaded by the educators' rhetoric, and in business the customer is always right. If there are fifteen million college students in the USA (Adams M6), and 75% of them are going to college in order to enrich themselves ("College Students" 3), then the math says that colleges and universities--the ones that want to survive--had better figure out how to help their students to find wealth. No professor who actually improves minds should object to this Philistine development. After all, in the job market generally, people with minds have considerably more value than people without them. The importance of mind is generally not well understood by young job seekers. Technical diplomas can lead to job placement interviews, but most interviews don't lead to jobs. In the corporate world these days, employment screening is a process of several stages. Applicants whose technical backgrounds look satisfactory on paper are interviewed carefully in person and generally tested for all possible signs of negative attitude, lack of discipline, lack of initiative, arrogance, bigotry, aggression, ignorance, disloyalty, dishonesty, immorality, immaturity and general lack of personal virtue. (Writing tests are used frequently in this process.) The various screens are used to gain a complete personal profile. Employers want to buy services, not trouble. Hiring a lemon can sour an entire work team. Companies have external battles to fight against competitors in the marketplace; they don't need rebels, criminals or parasites to make conflict within their own ranks. Employers assess job candidates as people, not as humanoids with implanted technical knowledge chips. Candidates without technical skills don't have to tools to do the job, but people deficient in virtue are not employable in positions of responsibility or trust. The question for TC3 and all job trainers is how to impart both knowledge and virtue. The far more difficult of these two is virtue, as Socrates recognized at the beginning. To this end, academia long ago developed and traditionally used the liberal arts--religion, history, philosophy, literature, and fine arts. These disciplines taught positive thinking, empathy, self-control, self-sacrifice, public mindedness, morality, and good character in general. Today in the academy, unfortunately, some of these liberal arts disciplines have declined into advanced stages of decadence, so that their practical use may well be questioned by employers. Because educators have shirked their responsibility to teach virtue, on job resumes character is indicated more clearly by public service activities than by philosophy, literature, or other liberal arts courses. Socially responsible schools, however, must relearn to teach virtue to prepare "productive citizen leaders" to build a "good society" in the future (Harrington 46). <page break> Works Cited (Hacker's Style Manual model paragraph numbers are added below for information in blue italics.) Adams, William D. "Higher Education: The Status Game." Los Angeles Times 13 Apr. 2003: M.6. Hacker 32b23 newspaper "College Students Value Money Over Mind." Society 35.4 (1998): 3-4. Hacker 32b22 journal paginated by issue Draper, Mark. "Take Back the Temple; Restore Higher Education's Higher Purpose." Eighth Annual National Conference of Accuracy in Academia. Washington, D.C. 8 Jul. 1994. Hacker 32b47 lecture or public address Fitzhenry, Robert I. ed. The Harper Book of Quotations. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Hacker 32b9 book listed by editor Harrington, Katherine. Liberal Education 89.2 (2003): 46. Hacker 32b22 journal paginated by issue Institute of Education. Report on National Consultation. London: University of London, 2000. Hacker # 32b49 government publication Keohane, Nannerl O. "The Mission of a Research University." Daedalus 122.4 (1993): 101. Hacker 32b22 journal paginated by issue Sagan, Carl. Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. New York: Ballantine Books 1993). Hacker 32b6 book. Taylor, Robert. "The Decline of Higher Education." The Financial Times 19 Jul. 2001: 12. Hacker 32b23 newspaper Tompkins Cortland Community College. 1 Dec. 2003. < http://www.tc3.edu/abouttc3/mission.asp > Hacker 32b27 web site
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