When Hope and Fear Collide:

A Portrait of Today’s College Student

Arthur Levine and Jeannette S. Cureton

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998, 187 pages

Reviewed by Dean M. Batt and Martha A. Turner

Despite its cataclysmic title, When Hope and Fear Collide does not belong to the "what’s-wrong-with-higher-ed" genre of scholarly literature, at least not at first sight. A sequel to Levine’s 1981 When Dreams and Heroes Died, the study profiles attitudes and behaviors of 1990s undergraduates. Drawing upon data from student opinion surveys, interviews with student leaders, surveys of chief student affairs officers and on-campus focus groups, the study offers insight regarding today’s students’ heroes and role models, the public events most significant to them, their political and social commitments, academic goals and expectations for the future.

Given the diversity to be found on—and among—college campuses, it might seem difficult to sketch the typical student of even one institution, let alone of the whole academy. Demographically, colleges and universities are becoming progressively more like the nation at large; less than twenty percent of today’s students fit the "traditional" stereotype (18 to 22 years old, full-time, residential [Levine and Cureton, 1998, p. 49]). Necessarily, the authors describe trends and patterns using rather broad strokes; those who work closely with students will find few surprises. What the book does offer is an apt summary of 1990s students’ most prominent collective traits, as compared with those of recent generations. For example:

• Students of the 1990s, like their predecessors, lack faith in the nation’s leaders and social institutions. They are, however, much more likely than students of the 70s and 80s to participate in volunteer service activities, typically pragmatic and local ones.

• Students today enter college with a consumer mentality. "Their focus is on convenience, quality, service, and cost" (p. 50). Students are quick to resent infringements upon their perceived "rights" and as a result, litigation is increasing.

• "[T]oday’s undergraduates think of themselves in terms of their differences rather than their commonalities" (p. 79). Campus organizations are fracturing into smaller and smaller identity groups, often based on narrowly defined criteria of race, ethnicity, religion, geographic background or sexual orientation. Students are uncomfortable discussing the tensions associated with this self-imposed segregation and "multiculturalism remains the most unresolved issue on campus today" (p. 91).

The book concludes with a historical overview and a proposed future curriculum. Like Levine’s 1981 student profile, the current study characterizes student generations as alternating between "periods of community ascendancy" and periods of "individual ascendancy" (p. 146). Yet the present group of students, the authors suggest, fails to fit neatly into the cycle that has held sway throughout this century; today’s students are neither as public-spirited as those of the Roosevelt or Kennedy eras nor as self-absorbed as the post war generations of the 1950s or 70s. In fact, the authors claim that the historical period with which the 1990s has the most in common is the early nineteenth century, a transitional era which saw America’s rapid transformation from an agrarian to an industrial nation. This claim of the present era’s breakthrough status seems overstated. Each generation in the twentieth century has experienced global transition, whether its defining moments involved the trenches of World War I, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Apollo 11 moon landing. Nevertheless, students born in the 1970s could indeed be called America’s first post-industrial generation: the first to have grown up in the microchip age. And regardless of birth date, today's students face a future characterized by technological obsolescence, finite natural resources and global economic interdependence.

The curriculum proposed by Levine and Cureton is founded on the notion that the major/minor/general education approach does not adequately prepare students for a rapidly changing, post-industrial world. The authors call for a holistic, interdisciplinary curriculum emphasizing life skills such as critical thinking, ethical decision-making and appreciation of diversity—a curriculum that will nurture students’ hope and sense of responsibility for the future while giving them the power to confront their fears. It is an inspiring vision: an academy able to combine an intellectually vibrant liberal arts orientation with a practical grasp of contemporary student needs and desires. Few would deny that "critical thinking," "continuous learning," and "creativity" (p. 161) are skills worth cultivating. What is disturbing about these proposals, however, is what is not said. Namely that demands for this sort of curricular reform are nothing new.

For at least half a century, commentators on higher education have foreseen the accelerating pace of change and have called for a retreat from established disciplines in favor of an integrated, liberal arts educational experience. Nearly twenty years ago Levine himself complained that too often the college courses "offered under the rubric of general education ... seek to impart the body of knowledge associated with a particular subject matter" (Levine, 1981, p. 138) rather than emphasizing such things as problem-solving and lifelong learning. Nonetheless, most American colleges and universities continue to organize undergraduate education in terms of discrete, content-oriented courses and departments. A Writing Across the Curriculum class may replace a traditional English 1 requirement, or perhaps the General Education course list has given way to an Interdisciplinary Core; still, the discipline-specific major remains the centerpiece of undergraduate education at most institutions.

Any entity as vast as American higher education is bound to be plagued by inertia. But the deterrent to student-centered curricular change goes beyond the usual institutional sluggishness. As reported in an article in The Economist, the belief among college faculties that scientific research represents higher education’s most valuable commodity has had the effect of eroding a sense of community in universities around the world. A recent Carnegie Institute survey invited faculty members to rank their relative loyalties to their academic specializations, departments and home institutions. In each country surveyed, the majority of respondents listed commitment to one’s specialization as the most important and institutional affiliation as the least (David, 1997, p. 20). Needless to say, this climate of opinion makes it hard to implement a fully integrated undergraduate learning plan.

Ultimately, When Hope and Fear Collide leaves us not with a recipe for magically transforming the academy into a more student-friendly environment but with a challenge. The academy is fragmented and today’s students, awash in unprecedented technological, demographic and geopolitical change, need a sense of purpose and commonality. The challenge for those who make undergraduate learning their top priority is to actively recruit other university constituents into the community-building process. Such partnerships do not have to be revolutionary to be effective. As an obvious example, a campus-wide internship or community service program could draw on the resources of academic departments, career placement offices and alumni in order to provide a hands-on learning opportunity that could also help allay student fears about finding work after college. Student affairs personnel have long recognized that their programs and services play an important part in a student’s overall educational experience. If Levine and Cureton are to be believed, student affairs professionals should have a say in the curriculum as well.

References

David, P. (1997, October 4). Inside the knowledge factory. The Economist, 3-22.

Levine, A. (1981). When dreams and heroes died: A portrait of today’s college student. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Dean M. Batt received his Ed.D. from Arizona State University in 1971. He is currently the Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management at The University of Vermont.

Martha A. Turner received her Ph.D. in English from Duke University in 1989. She teaches in the English Department at The University of Vermont.