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In ¡°Richard Arum: US undergraduate education is declining and failing¡± (News, 11 July), Arum, dean of the University of California, Irvine¡¯s School of Education, ¡°blamed falling levels of independent study by students on institutions, stating that they are failing to enthuse students to study or inspire them to prepare for lectures and seminars¡±.

I would like Arum to tell the rest of us how to ¡°enthuse and inspire¡± students to study and prepare.

As far as I can tell, students have not changed that much in decades ¨C the big change took place in the early 1970s, as research shows. And I doubt that professors were all that much better back in 1960.

It is not all about grade inflation, either. In the big class that I teach, with a median grade of C+, attendance is between about 70 per cent and 75 per cent, on average. A lot of the students just do not care, and never will. They get flushed out, in my case, with Ds and Fs. And I know that I am hardly unique.

manyworlder
Via timeshighereducation.com

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