The Abandoned Generation: Rethinking Higher Education.

By William H. Willimon and Thomas H. Naylor. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman's, 1995. 171 pages.

A Book Review by Dean M. Batt

"What sort of human beings are we producing at our colleges and universities?" (p. xi, note 2) According to Willimon and Naylor, this question should be asked more often because currently, the answer is not favorable. The authors argue that higher education has failed to nurture students' moral and social development. As a result, adolescent self-indulgence, rather than preparation for responsible adulthood, has become the keynote of campus life at too many colleges and universities. Willimon and Naylor's specific allegations will sound familiar to those who have followed the conservative critiques of higher education over the last decade. Faculty, the authors say, spend too little time in the classroom and devote themselves too narrowly to their agendas; universities have become too big, too bureaucratic, and too consumer-oriented college curricula lack coherence and academic rigor, leaving students with too much free time while in school and too few skills upon graduating. Willimon and Naylor distance themselves, however, from studies which advocate returning to a mythical "good old days" before open enrollment and revisionist canons1 . Rather, they call for a complete restructuring of the college experience to better serve the current generation of students.

The starting point for Willimon and Naylor's assessment of higher education, as the title The Abandoned Generation suggests, is the authors' perception of today's college students. College students (the authors clearly have in mind young adults in their teens and twenties) suffer from a crisis of "meaninglessness" in their lives (p. 14). Willimon and Naylor attribute this crisis to societal trends such as economic stagnation and high divorce rates, which have left children to be "reared in a vacuum, with television as their only supervisor" (p. 16). Colleges and universities--as communities dedicated to fostering personal and intellectual growth--presumably could reclaim students from this "culture of neglect" (p. 17) and help them become happy and well-adjusted members of society. According to Willimon and Naylor, higher education has failed.

The book is divided into three parts: "The Symptoms," "The Problems," and "The Solutions." The first section argues that the most serious indication of higher education's failure to nurture students is the pervasive substance abuse, especially problem drinking, that exists on most campuses. Other symptoms, include students' tendency to dismiss all academic concerns from their minds when they leave the classroom (apart of the college experience that occupies far too little of their time according to the authors), and to value high grades (the ticket to good jobs and graduate schools) over genuine learning. In the second section, the authors identify the specific institutional shortcomings they hold responsible for these signs of neglect. Faculty and administrators often lack consensus regarding their institutional mission and educational philosophy. Some schools try to be "All Things to All People" (p. 72) and sacrifice undergraduate education to more glamorous goals such as research or high profile athletic programs. Finally, community spirit has broken down, thanks to the assumption (especially among faculty) that professional responsibility on campus is confined to one's specialized area, be it the lab, the classroom, or the bureaucratic cubbyhole. In place of the adult leadership and discipline the authors believe today's students need, Willimon and Naylor find on campus only confusion, inconsistency and the abdication of responsibility.

The third section of the book details the authors' proposed solutions to these ailments. Their recommendations range from simple attitude changes among university employees to a dramatic restructuring of undergraduate education. At one extreme is the suggestion that faculty take more seriously their roles as friends and mentors of students: They should find ways to make themselves and their academic culture occupy a larger part of their students' lives. In order to create a richer academic environment on campus and fill students' time with things other than alcohol, Willimon and Naylor also advocate heavier course loads and an agreed-upon core curriculum. Finally, the authors recommend severing undergraduate education from the big multi-purpose university and creating small residential colleges like those at Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Downsizing, they argue, will make it easier to maintain the sort of community environment they favor. In addition, colleges will be forced to eliminate redundant programs and require undergraduate faculty to teach more classes, thus controlling costs.

At the heart of The Abandoned Generation is a vision of higher education as small liberal arts colleges where bright young people share vigorous intellectual lives with knowledgeable adult mentors. For those who care about academic communities, this is an appealing vision, especially in contrast to the "dens of hedonism" (p. 126) the book offers as the current more common alternative. Nevertheless, I am not convinced that the residential liberal arts college necessarily provides the ideal model for higher education.

The book fails to convince partly because of its methodology. The authors prefer sharing anecdotes to compiling statistics on faculty and student values and behaviors at various types of institutions. While this approach does make the book appealing to the nonspecialist reader, ultimately its credibility must rest on the authors' long experience as teachers and mentors of students (at Duke University, Middlebury College, and The University of Vermont). In the absence of consistent supporting data, the approach invites readers who are equally familiar with higher education to match anecdote with anecdote, experience with experience. For example, the authors portray typical college students as adolescents living on campus and experiencing freedom from parental restraint for the first time in their lives. Those familiar with metropolitan commuter universities (a substantial segment of higher education) may have difficulty seeing their students and institutions represented in The Abandoned Generation. The authors' concern about a breakdown in community may be as relevant to commuter colleges as to residential ones, but the challenge to faculty and staff at the former is likely to center on making space for college life amid the pressing claims of work and family rather than on filling up the time of students who lack meaning and structure in their lives. Although Willimon and Naylor do acknowledge that each institution must develop a plan to suit its unique student body, they show little awareness of the diverse and increasingly "nontraditional" student populations on many campuses nationwide. Consequently, their call for a restructuring of undergraduate education along the residential college model seems a Procrustean bed.

The book's portrayal of college life is blurred and overgeneralized in other respects as well. For instance, it is unclear whether the authors see students as already "abandoned" by society when they enter college--plagued by meaninglessness, indolence and habits of substance abuse--or whether the typical undergraduate begins college hopeful and curious, only to have those qualities eroded by the anti-intellectual culture on campus. Experientially, both versions ring true; those of us who work with college students can easily recall students who fit each profile. When we start considering the individuals behind the generalized portrait, however, we may wish that the authors had acknowledged students who stretch the stereotype in more positive ways. Political activists, community volunteers, people whose social lives revolve around music or computers or athletics rather than partying--students like these contribute as much to a campus environment as those described in The Abandoned Generation. I do not mean to repudiate Willimon and Naylor's crucial points about problem drinking on campus and the need for colleges and universities to create a more nurturing and intellectually vibrant culture. I am concerned, however, that their characterization of an entire generation of young people as "abandoned" overshadows the many positive contributions today's students are making on campuses around the country.

In spite of its generalizations, I find much to admire in The Abandoned Generation. Different readers may see Willimon and Naylor's specific assertions as courageous or presumptuous, insightful or tunnel-visioned, depending on the readers' own experiences with colleges and universities. Nevertheless, the authors' willingness to draw attention to the uncomfortable underside of campus culture and their explicit linkage of students' social and academic lives are valuable additions to any discussion of contemporary higher education. As a student affairs administrator, I would have liked a more sympathetic and informed perspective regarding the role of student affairs personnel (whom the authors characterize as bureaucrats with little stake in a university's educational mission). Indeed, I wish the book had extended the same challenge to administrators and student affairs professionals that it hands to faculty. A sense of community on campus does not simply occur as a result of individual participants fulfilling individual tasks. It must be deliberately fostered through a spirit of sharing and generosity that extends beyond disciplinary specialization and designated office hours. In the absence of such a community those whose lives are most closely bound to the campus environment--resident students--are likely to suffer the most. Although the book addresses itself primarily to undergraduate faculty on behalf of these at-risk students, the challenge to create a more wholesome campus culture must be taken seriously by everyone involved in higher education.

References

Bloom, A. (1987). The closing of the American mind. New York: Simon & Schuster.

D'Souza, D. (1991). Illiberal education: The politics of sex and race on campus. New York: Free Press.

Taub, D. J. (1991, February 28). College Park, College Newsletter. National Clearinghouse for Commuter Programs, University of Maryland at Park, NM.

Footnotes

(1) See, for example, Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind or Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education.

(2) D. J. Taub (1991) reports that 40% of American college students are adults and 85% commute or live off campus; only 15% are the full-time 18-22 year old residential students often taken as the norm in discussions of campus life.

Dean M. Batt received his Ed.D. from Arizona State University in 1971. He has worked at a number of colleges and universities in a variety of capacities. He is currently Vice President for Student Affairs at The University of Vermont.