A couple of years ago, I went on a five-day field trip to Yellowstone National Park with some Duke students. It was one of those classes from hell.
The students weren't particularly rowdy. I could tell that they were trying to be on good behavior. But they showed so little intellectual interest in the field trip that I was frustrated.
First, I tried to cajole. Then I gave up on being nice and swore. Finally, I went back to being nice. I was trying to educate, but it wasn't working. Mostly, I was ignored.
On the last day of the field trip, I took them out to a bar. I had a couple of shots. They had more than a few. It was, in my opinion, a fair deal. After five emotionally trying days, I needed those drinks a hell of a lot more than the students.
Almost all of the classes that I've taught at Duke have been much better than my class from hell. In fact, I ran that same field trip last semester and it went very well. It wasn't close to perfect. But there was a decent level of intellectual engagement. For me, that's what teaching is all about. I came home happy.
My typical experience with teaching undergraduates has been between these two extremes. Some classes have had a reasonable level of intellectual intensity. Most haven't.
What's curious to me is that while my hindsight views of my classes usually have not been positive, students tell me through their reviews in class after class that I'm doing a great job. They say that my classes have a lot of valuable and insightful discussion. That only serves to tell me that it's likely that a good number of classes at Duke are worse.
On the other side of the coin are serious students who find out that many of our classes are so cheesy that they could be comatose and still get an A. Or they enroll in a class only to be told by the professor on the first day that, "These are my office hours, but please don't bother me unless it's an emergency."
Intellectually, undergraduate life at Duke is weak. It's a fact that has been stated by many in print, both students and faculty. It's been stated so often that whatever shock value such statements once had has long since disappeared.
A lot of people, including me, would like to see this lamentable situation change. Duke leadership, including its president, would like to see it change. But they are too wimpy to say so publicly. Instead they brought in a ringer, Larry Moneta, to try to shake things up.
I don't think that there is much that Moneta can do that would make a substantive difference. Intellectualism can't be manufactured by social organizing and rearranging housing.
Many of Moneta's ideas certainly can't hurt. It can't hurt to have the occasional genteel theme dinner. It can't hurt to have a group besides fraternities dominate social life. There are aspects of Moneta's "village" concept that are less than desirable. Parts of Moneta's village seem so artificial and sanitized that Duke is driving students underground to make an alternative village, one that poses more potential danger to student safety than anything that took place in the Duke of old.
But whatever changes have taken place and are planned, the transformation that is necessary to make Duke a serious, intellectually enriching place is beyond the power of Moneta. It's beyond the power of Keohane as well.
Whether Duke has a vibrant intellectual life for undergraduates depends almost entirely on its students and faculty. If these two groups want to establish serious intellectual exchange, then Duke can have all the intellectualism it wants. But if they don't, making an intellectual village won't help. The social contract for intellectual activity begins in the classroom. And like all contracts it requires something of both parties. It requires both of them to make an honest effort and demand honest effort from each other. Right now that contract is found rarely in classrooms at Duke. Truth be told, it exists in quantity at precious few institutions.
Instead what commonly exists is what Anne Matthews describes in her book "Bright College Years" as a "nonaggression pact" between students and faculty. In our pact, faculty promise not to push students. Courses tend to be lightweight in content and workload. Grading is easy. In exchange, students promise not to bother faculty after class and impinge on their research time.
If Duke wants to elevate its intellectual intensity, it needs faculty who are willing to shave off a little more of their research time and provide undergraduates with a solid education. It needs students that are willing to remonstrate and avoid the classes of faculty who are poorly prepared or try to get by on easily graded classes that expect little in the way of intellectual involvement. It needs both faculty and students to engage in a dialogue on how to achieve the goal of having a consistently high intellectual experience.
What's the role of leadership in all of this? If leadership wants to manipulate housing slots and tweak Duke's social life, let it go ahead with the caveat that it shouldn't make life so sterile for students that they are required to go off campus to have some fun. But if leadership really wants to help, it needs to stop making duplicitous statements that it thinks Duke provides its students with an outstanding intellectual experience and education. It's hard to solve a problem when Duke's public face is one that adamantly denies that any problems exist.
I didn't intend to write about grade inflation, but given that The Chronicle recently wrote about my Washington Post article....
First, my article never was intended to promote local changes in grading at Duke. Grade inflation is a national problem. It should be dealt with at a national level.
I don't agree with The Chronicle that the magnitude of GPA is irrelevant. When mean GPAs reach about 3.3 at an institution, grading beyond the freshman level is essentially binary, consisting of almost entirely Bs and As. Under these conditions, it's very difficult to distinguish between those who do good work and those who are truly exceptional. It is also hard to motivate students who need the motivation of grades.
The Chronicle is correct in stating that there are differences in grading across departments. Here are the numbers. In the 1998 academic year, the mean GPAs for the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences were 3.50, 3.34, and 3.10, respectively. These inequities have widened over the years. Those interested should see: http://www.hostcompany100.com/goneforg/diffgrades.htm.
Stuart Rojstaczer is an associate professor of hydrology in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.