Students Will Rise When Colleges Challenge Them to Read Good Books

David Randall

Executive Director Ashley Thorne writes about college common readings in The Chronicle:

So which attitude [toward student reading] prevails in college today? ... resignation and low expectations.

One proof is in the books colleges assign as "common reading" to first-year students over the summer. For the last six years, the National Association of Scholars has tracked these assignments and noted patterns. Our annual report, "Beach Books: What Do Colleges and Universities Want Students to Read Outside Class?," documents that colleges typically assign recent, easy books. Very few choose anything challenging. This year, 91 percent of the books were younger than the 18-year-old students themselves.

Most faculty and administrators who coordinate common-reading programs say their goal isn’t to nurture a love of great literature. As Cheryl Spector, of California State University-Northridge, put it, coordinators "never intended to be arbiters or guardians of high culture." Instead, they just want students to read something. Coordinators also want students to read the same thing so that they have some kind of intellectual experience in common and not just common knowledge of Snapchat and the Kardashians. Because core curricula have all but disappeared, many colleges and universities want to fill the gap that remains.

Go to The Chronicle to read the rest of the article!

Image Credit: Public Domain.

  • Share

Most Commented

October 29, 2024

1.

The Looming Irrelevance of Middle East Study Centers

Today’s Middle Eastern Studies Centers are facing a crisis due to the winds of change in the Middle East and their own ideological echo chamber....

November 19, 2024

2.

Lee Zeldin Should Reform EPA Science Policy

NAS welcomes the nomination of Congressmen Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency....

November 20, 2024

3.

NAS Welcomes Administrator McMahon's Nomination to Serve as Education Secretary

With McMahon, the new administration has a chance to drastically slim down and depoliticize the Education Department....

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

October 12, 2010

2.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...

May 26, 2010

3.

10 Reasons Not to Go to College

A sampling of arguments for the idea that college may not be for everyone....