Undergraduate Education

THE CARNEGIE Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching established a commission in 1995, renamed in honor of its late president, Ernest L. Boyer, to investigate the education of undergraduates at research universities. It reflects an old debate on whether undergraduate education is best carried out at colleges devoted to that purpose or at universities giving first priority to research.The catch is that many of the best students think their education should come at the most famous universities, which give priority to research.

When he was in prison, Harold Bailey said, he would often think about the homicide that resulted in his 20-year incarceration and about how his criminal record might cost him opportunities for employment or education. To continue the undergraduate education he had worked at for two years, Bailey would sit in his cell and voraciously read novels, autobiographies, academic texts — any work he could get his hands on. Since his release in 2005, Bailey has earned two degrees, a bachelor's and a master's, from Coppin State University.

Lloyd K. Garrison, a civil rights lawyer and great-grandson of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, died of a heart attack Wednesday in New York. He was 92. He joined the National Urban League in 1924, an act of which he said, "My eyes were opened to the realities" of racial discrimination, and was its president, 1947-1952. In 1935, while he was dean of the University of Wisconsin law school, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made him the first chairman of the National Labor Relations Board.

I am a proud product of the Baltimore City public school system. My high school years at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute prepared me exceptionally well for the rigorous academic studies that led to a career in medicine, health policy and economics, and now higher education. Unfortunately, my education in Baltimore during the 1970s contrasts sharply with the experience of many urban students across America who are mired in underperforming K-12 school systems that poorly prepare them for higher education and the world of opportunities beyond.

I am a proud product of the Baltimore City public school system. My high school years at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute prepared me exceptionally well for the rigorous academic studies that led to a career in medicine, health policy and economics, and now higher education. Unfortunately, my education in Baltimore during the 1970s contrasts sharply with the experience of many urban students across America who are mired in underperforming K-12 school systems that poorly prepare them for higher education and the world of opportunities beyond.

When he was in prison, Harold Bailey said, he would often think about the homicide that resulted in his 20-year incarceration and about how his criminal record might cost him opportunities for employment or education. To continue the undergraduate education he had worked at for two years, Bailey would sit in his cell and voraciously read novels, autobiographies, academic texts — any work he could get his hands on. Since his release in 2005, Bailey has earned two degrees, a bachelor's and a master's, from Coppin State University.

If you can read this, don't bother to thank a teacher. Such is the theme woven throughout "Inside American Education."Thomas Sowell, a noted conservative writer, contends that public schools have failed to educate students in even the most basic skills of mathematics and English, and that academic performance among undergraduates enrolled in the nation's colleges and universities has likewise declined.Offered as evidence is the decade-long decline in scores on standard measures of academic performance, including the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)

Last year, Daniel Redman visited a village in Ukraine to learn what happened to its Jewish community during the Holocaust. This summer, he'll travel to China and Syria to interview religious leaders for an investigation into spiritual leadership. But Redman is no professional scholar -- he's a junior at the Johns Hopkins University. His work is being made possible through the Woodrow Wilson Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which lets undergraduates do the kind of original research once available only to graduate students.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Stanford University President Gerhard Casper has called for a reexamination of the notion of a four-year undergraduate education, which for over three centuries has been the cornerstone of American higher education.In an interview, Dr. Casper said that the rising costs of a college education have made him question whether it is cost-effective to have most American undergraduates spend four years in a relatively unfocused course of study that does not necessarily qualify them for entry to the labor market when they graduate.

Future teachers and those who train them worry that an ambitious plan to toughen the standards for becoming a teacher in Maryland could drive would-be educators out of the state or into other careers.The proposal by a 21-member task force is designed to increase classroom training of teachers and emphasize their knowledge of subject matter over "how-to" courses.The plan, which is being considered by the state Board of Education and the Maryland Higher Education Commission, would eliminate the traditional undergraduate education major offered by Maryland colleges and add a school year of student teaching.

When Ronald J. Daniels began to sense that he was a serious candidate for the Johns Hopkins University presidency, he drove to Baltimore by himself to check the place out. Daniels had never been to Hopkins before. His meetings with the presidential search committee had all been in New York. So one day this summer, he walked around Hopkins' leafy Homewood campus and admired the colonial architecture. He explored the medical campus in East Baltimore and then picked up crab cakes to take home to his family in Philadelphia.

When Ronald J. Daniels began to sense that he was a serious candidate for the Johns Hopkins University presidency, he drove to Baltimore by himself to check the place out. Daniels had never been to Hopkins before. His meetings with the presidential search committee had all been in New York. So one day this summer, he walked around Hopkins' leafy Homewood campus and admired the colonial architecture. He explored the medical campus in East Baltimore and then picked up crab cakes to take home to his family in Philadelphia.

Last year, Daniel Redman visited a village in Ukraine to learn what happened to its Jewish community during the Holocaust. This summer, he'll travel to China and Syria to interview religious leaders for an investigation into spiritual leadership. But Redman is no professional scholar -- he's a junior at the Johns Hopkins University. His work is being made possible through the Woodrow Wilson Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which lets undergraduates do the kind of original research once available only to graduate students.

THE CARNEGIE Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching established a commission in 1995, renamed in honor of its late president, Ernest L. Boyer, to investigate the education of undergraduates at research universities. It reflects an old debate on whether undergraduate education is best carried out at colleges devoted to that purpose or at universities giving first priority to research.The catch is that many of the best students think their education should come at the most famous universities, which give priority to research.

Somewhere out there, joked Towson State University President Hoke Smith, is a college professor who moves from state to state, and always buys a big house next door to a powerful state legislator. The professor mows his lawn every Wednesday noon and then departs for a round of golf."I wish we could get rid of that guy," Dr. Smith said.So do a lot of other people in higher education, which is under pressure from frustrated legislators, taxpayers and parents to increase the workload of college and university professors.

Future teachers and those who train them worry that an ambitious plan to toughen the standards for becoming a teacher in Maryland could drive would-be educators out of the state or into other careers.The proposal by a 21-member task force is designed to increase classroom training of teachers and emphasize their knowledge of subject matter over "how-to" courses.The plan, which is being considered by the state Board of Education and the Maryland Higher Education Commission, would eliminate the traditional undergraduate education major offered by Maryland colleges and add a school year of student teaching.

Somewhere out there, joked Towson State University President Hoke Smith, is a college professor who moves from state to state, and always buys a big house next door to a powerful state legislator. The professor mows his lawn every Wednesday noon and then departs for a round of golf."I wish we could get rid of that guy," Dr. Smith said.So do a lot of other people in higher education, which is under pressure from frustrated legislators, taxpayers and parents to increase the workload of college and university professors.

When Ronald J. Daniels began to sense that he was a serious candidate for the Johns Hopkins University presidency, he drove to Baltimore by himself to check the place out. Daniels had never been to Hopkins before. His meetings with the presidential search committee had all been in New York. So one day this summer, he walked around Hopkins' leafy Homewood campus and admired the colonial architecture. He explored the medical campus in East Baltimore and then picked up crab cakes to take home to his family in Philadelphia.

If you can read this, don't bother to thank a teacher. Such is the theme woven throughout "Inside American Education."Thomas Sowell, a noted conservative writer, contends that public schools have failed to educate students in even the most basic skills of mathematics and English, and that academic performance among undergraduates enrolled in the nation's colleges and universities has likewise declined.Offered as evidence is the decade-long decline in scores on standard measures of academic performance, including the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Stanford University President Gerhard Casper has called for a reexamination of the notion of a four-year undergraduate education, which for over three centuries has been the cornerstone of American higher education.In an interview, Dr. Casper said that the rising costs of a college education have made him question whether it is cost-effective to have most American undergraduates spend four years in a relatively unfocused course of study that does not necessarily qualify them for entry to the labor market when they graduate.