[MD] The Academy is Evil! Here's what I'd do instead...

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[John]
Would you accept an answer from somebody who doesn't hold the Academy in
disdain?  But would like to see it improved anyway?

[Arlo]
Of course.

[John]
I agree with Mark on the flexibility issue, and by this I'd say what it most
needs is more tolerance for varieties of religious experience. ... I agree that
there are schools of thought which are ridiculous and I'm certainly not a fan
of any kind of "anything goes" mentality which throws open the doors to any
nutjob with a holy book and an agenda. 

[Arlo]
Okay, well my question is how would you achieve this? What process would you
propose that would bring in more "good" stuff while continuing to weed out the
nutjobs? 

On the topic of religious experience, most universities have religious studies
programs (that are admittedly very Occidental-biased), so I assume you mean you
want *other* programs to include religious experience in their curriculum, not
an expansion of the program's offerings. Is that right?

[John]
But the wholesale adoption of a values-free worldview, and the almost
police-state-like imposition of this worldview has crippled true intellectual
debate and growth oughta be checked somehow.

[Arlo]
Well, okay, again, if you see this as the problem, what solutions would you,
Mr. Academy University President put in place to alleviate it?

[John]
And one of the big problems, I'd say, is that the seeking of status is what
blocks this process.  The whole game where the student is focused mainly on
saying what the teacher wants him to say, so he can go on to the next guy.

[Arlo]
Well the foundation of taxonomic processes mandates that students demonstrate a
comprehension of "old knowledge", so I think this has to have a place in the
Academy. Many 101-201 classes (if not most) are designed specifically to be
knowledge disseminating classes. 

Do you think we do too much of this? That knowledge production should be pulled
in sooner? If we cut down on the dissemination (and assessment of
comprehension) of old knowledge, do you think that helps the students?

I am not sure how, then, to get away from early (freshman/sophomore) courses
being primarily oriented to familiarizing students with the bulk of "old
knowledge" before they can be expected to create something new out of it.

Having said that, I agree with you that assessment is far too heavily weighted
towards rote memorization and recall (in these early classes), and the Academy
should adopt assessment strategies to see if students really "know" the old
knowledge, which would include some ability to formulate evaluations, analyses
and propose cross-course syntheses. 

[John]
Do away with grades, like Pirsig suggested in ZAMM.  Turn them into places
where people go to learn, rather than  get grades and degrees.  If that could
be accomplished somehow, I think we'd see a huge improvement in the whole
thing. 

[Arlo]
I fully agree, the problem is that the Academy is not simply a place for
self-enrichment, it also functions as an "accrediting agency" that stamps you
as "being able to do job X". 

Anyone at anytime can "audit" classes at nearly every university, and this
option is precisely the "no grade" option. Most people do not choose this,
because in addition to the knowledge, they NEED the grade to make their
investment translate into a job (auditing classes costs the same as regular
enrollment).

And that's a big problem too; cost. Most people do not have the luxury of
spending $600 per course unless that can translate into better income. I have
the fortunate ability to audit classes at a great discount, so I have the
luxury to take things I would normally never be able to justify spending money
on. 

Bottom line, I think, is that grades is unavoidably tied to accreditation that
justifies the expense. How do we change THAT?