Monday, May 6, 2002

Oprah's Contribution: As countless others race to be the first to imitate it, Kathy Rooney meditates on the significance and demise of Oprah's book club. The whole article is really worth reading for its thoughtful analysis and well-researched insight (Rooney says she recently completed a thesis on the subject). Rooney mentions both those who were sad to see Oprah bow out, as well as those who are now gloating. She concludes that: While it lasted, the club was an unquestionably encouraging phenomenon, indicative of an American impulse toward intellectual self-improvement and a hunger for the kind of seriousness and stimulation that good literary fiction can offer. Such a story as that of the Oprah Book Club should not suffer from so weak an ending. The closing of the book before a satisfactory denouement represents a tremendous loss to the promotion of active readership. I couldn't agree more. Robert McHenry takes a slightly different pathto largely the same conclusion. (Now I wish Radio gave me an easy way to find and link to the other posts I've made on this topic. How do you do that?) 1:06:59 PM

Protests and Marches: Dave Enders, a junior majoring in English at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has written a great piece about his experience protesting at the April 20 war protests in D.C. Apparently, the protest wasn't quite what he expected. Enders writes: I joined a group in front of the Washington Monument to listen to speakers and wait for the planned afternoon march to the Capitol. But as Martin Luther King III addressed the students seated on the grass, the scene felt more like a reflection of things past than an indication of things to come. Asked why they were in Washington, most students gave vague answers about stopping the war, but they were unable to explain how milling about in front of the monument would do that. This is a great point: What do "protests" and marches do today? At one time, they seemed to be a radical statement, but now their efficacy is less clear. As Enders' later observes, "Washington is used to these sorts of disruptions." In other words, massive protests may have become almost status quo, making it difficult for them to disrupt the status quo in any way. I don't think that's the case completely, and the way a protest or march is run can have a significant effect on its success. Enders thinks the protesters should have been more confrontational; I agree. Why didn't the protesters storm the capital building? Why didn't they demand access to the senate chambers and make their demands from the Speaker's Podium? Why didn't they form human chains around the monuments and refuse to let anyone enter (i.e. the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, etc)? Those actions would have certainly resulted in more arrests, and people might have died if the police got out of control (which they likely would have). Yet, perhaps that's what it's going to take to shake up this system (that's what it took in the '60s). As Kathleen Christison has noted, At a time when the United States is officially engaged in a war on terrorism, which is officially defined as war against evil and evil-doers, moral arguments have a great deal of resonance. Right now those "moral arguments" are so deafening in one direction, that people who feel otherwise need to make a lot more noise to be heard. At any rate, Enders leaves us with a lot to think about. He says: I came to Washington looking for other students who, after a few years of college, have, like myself, become impassioned about what they see as social injustices. What I found were people looking for leadership. I wonder when they (we) will realize that if we want leaders, we have to be leaders. (A related question: Why don't students like this show up in my classes? If they did, how would I know it?) 10:58:54 AM

Putting knowledge to work for the public: Apparently not all academics like living in the "Ivory Tower" and are working hard to put their skills and knowledge to work where they're needed most. Clem Price, a professor of history at Rutgers University at Newark, challenged academics to put their scholarly abilities to work in the public interest. Today the Chronicle reports on "four doctoral students who took time away from their graduate studies to work in internships at civil-liberties and human-rights groups." (registration may be required...) 10:29:55 AM

The American Council on Education is releasing a report today about current trends in higher education. The report itself sounds interesting, but equally interesting is the way it's being reported (or not). I can't find any headlines through Google or Yahoo News (Reuters), but the two places I have found coverage are taking completely different angles on the report. First, Morning Edition is emphasizing the report's finding that only 40 percent of four-year-college students now follow the traditional route to a degree, enrolling right after high school and relying on their parents and on loans to pay the bills. But The Chronicle of Higher Education is leading it's coverage of the report with the fact that institutions' retention data "greatly understate" the rate at which students actually complete their undergraduate educations. The two points are obviously closely-related, but NPR's coverage seems to focus on the fact that students are working their way through college for some purpose. I wonder what that purpose might be... At any rate, the Chronicle article is definitely worth reading. [Later:] Here's a more complete summary of the ACE report from the AP. 9:18:36 AM