Division of Labor

John E.R.Staddon, Duke University

Several years ago I made a short speech celebrating the promotion of a colleague to a distinguished chair. My theme was "division of labor," since his success was due in part to his wife, who assumed the lion's share of domestic duties. The speech was mildly politically incorrect, even then. Now it might well provoke autonomic reactions (Nancy Hopkins on President Summers, q.v.).

But the effects of division of labor cannot be gainsaid (Adam Smith, q.v.). If advancement in one's academic career is to be based on productivity, no amount of argument -- even as much as the several pages devoted to the problem by Linda Kerber in the 8 March issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education -- can alter the fact that a man (or woman) whose supportive spouse allows him to devote 80 hours a week to his work will do better than one who cannot.

The only way out of this box is abolition of the meritocracy in faculty hiring and promotion, which in effect is what Professor Kerber proposes. Schools that agree to this change will soon decline into uxorious mediocrity. Those that do not, will rise to the top, and the work-life problem will continue to trouble their female science faculty, as before.

NAS12:22 PM

College Critics, Come Back to Earth
Thomas C. Reeves, The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute

[Editor's Note: This entry also appears HERE on the History News Network.]

College counselor Steven Roy Goodman recently wrote a piece in the Washington Post expressing grave doubt about the future of higher education in this country as we know it. In Hey, Profs, Come Back to Earth, Goodman points to three critical problems on campus: 1.) political indoctrination by professors, 2.) fuzzy and silly courses, and 3.) skyrocketing costs. Frustrated parents, students, and state legislators, the author contends, are almost to the point of rebellion, requiring administrators and professors to address these problems quickly. To this veteran professor, Mr. Goodman needs to calm down and think a bit more deeply about America's some 4,000 colleges and universities.

Yes, a great many professors, especially in the liberal arts, are guilty of filling their classes with political correctness. (Goodman writes of the political correctness of both the Left and Right, standing the term on its head.) But there is nothing new in this. From the very dawn of the modern college and university, in the Gilded Age, liberal political and moral standards were the rage, especially in the "best" places. The Wisconsin Idea, the union of wise statesmen and professors in a "progressive" movement, could be found, at least in theory, throughout academia. This continued through the New Deal and into the 1940s. Read William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale.

When I was an undergraduate in the 1950s, the "best" minds were always liberal scholars who questioned the status quo and believed in a golden future free of political and theological reactionaries. Historians Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Richard Hofstadter, for example, could do no wrong. (I once interviewed Hofstadter on McCarthyism at his Columbia University office and observed his smugness. As we talked, the New York Times rang him on the phone, pleading for a comment on a current event. He told me, with obvious self-satisfaction, that this happened all the time.) In the early 1960s, when I went to graduate school, I observed that the two conservatives in the department suffered extreme ridicule at the hands of their colleagues. As a professor for forty years, I saw what since 1990 has been called political correctness, in and outside the classroom, as simply a fact of academic life. I very rarely met anyone who did not respect, if not promote, the sacred verities of the Left. The new study by Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte, "Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty," merely documents what a great many of us have long taken for granted.

It is no doubt true, however, that since the tumultuous Sixties and Seventies, as the politics of most academicians moved farther to the Left, intolerance has increased. So far, very few professors have expressed concern about this issue, no doubt because they are part of the vast majority. If this were otherwise, the National Association of Scholars would have many tens of thousands of members. In fact, few complaints about the stilled voices on campus are seen anywhere outside the Right and its comparative handful of media outlets and websites. Why should CBS, the New York Times, or Newsweek complain about the domination of views wholly in accord with their own?

Moreover, I see very little evidence across the country of dissatisfaction with the ideological content of college courses. Yes, a few Republicans on and off campus express frustration from time to time. But meaningful consequences have yet to appear. In most places, student rebellion is far more likely to occur as a result of stiff classroom standards than the expression of fashionable and predictable opinions in lectures. Not many young people will turn down a chance to attend the University of Chicago or Brown because these institutions harbor leftist professors. It is in the very nature of youth (and perpetual juveniles) to attack conservative political, religious, and social principles. Thus "cool" professors like Ward Churchill are far more likely to be popular than the handful of right-wing academics who brave the prevailing winds.

Secondly, Goodman makes a good point when he calls attention to the many silly courses in any college catalogue. But no one forces these courses on students. (The exceptions are a variety of required "diversity" classes, and one hears little complaint even about them.) Indeed, young people sign up for them in great numbers, being assured that they are intellectually undemanding and yield high grades. How many undergraduates major in Mass Communications in this country? It is hard to keep a straight face when "student-athletes" announce their majors during televised sporting events, often relying on double negatives to express themselves. If you want genuine student rebellion on most campuses, try purging the catalogue of "Mickey Mouse" courses and majors.

Thirdly, higher education is clearly too costly. Indeed, it is outrageously expensive. But who really cares? Upper class and upper middle class parents have long sent their young people to prestigious institutions regardless of cost. It is a ritual of the "best" people. Diplomas from the Ivies and their cohorts are certificates of American nobility and admission tickets into the top ranks of the corporate, social, political, and academic world. (Wouldn't it be refreshing to have a presidential candidate who graduated from California State at Dominguez Hills or Weber State?) The flow of the privileged, and those who would like to be, into the "finest" institutions will continue no matter how high the price. In fact, the higher the price, the more exclusive and prestigious the degree.

First and second generation college students may bristle at the cost of their usually state supported education, but they will continue to overwhelm admissions officers with applications because they believe that any sort of college degree produces a valuable reward: a well-paying job. It is my impression that a solid education means very, very little to the vast majority of undergraduates. I've talked for decades to students and counseled them in their selection of courses. The "payoff" in employment and cash is almost always paramount. In an increasingly secular and materialistic culture, how could it be otherwise? You're known by your wealth, not your knowledge of Latin, the fine arts, or European intellectual thought.

In short, I doubt seriously that colleges and universities will feel the need to engage in the soul-searching that Steven Roy Goodman thinks is desperately needed. Administrators will continue to collect high salaries, professors will continue to be granted tenure, tuition will rise, political balance in the faculty will be ignored, and students will continue to flock into institutions of higher education to acquire or maintain wealth and prestige. Do you want to raise student and alumni morale? Sign up athletes who will win more school trophies. (Note the recent renaissance at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee after their two NCAA tournament basketball victories.) Do you want to buoy the spirits of professors? Raise their pay and lower their teaching load. Do you want to satisfy college critics? Worry a lot and pretend that higher education in America is something that it truly isn't.

NAS2:04 PM