Higher Expectations: Can Colleges Teach Students What They Need to Know in the 21st Century?

by Derek Bok

Overview

How our colleges and universities can respond to the changing hopes and needs of society

In recent decades, cognitive psychologists have cast new light on human development and given colleges new possibilities for helping students acquire skills and qualities that will enhance their lives and increase their contributions to society. In this landmark book, Derek Bok explores how colleges can reap the benefits of these discoveries and create a more robust undergraduate curriculum for the twenty-first century.

Prior to this century, most psychologists thought that creativity, empathy, resilience, conscientiousness, and most personality traits were largely fixed by early childhood. What researchers have now discovered is that virtually all of these qualities continue to change through early adulthood and often well beyond. Such findings suggest that educators may be able to do much more than was previously thought possible to teach students to develop these important characteristics and thereby enable them to flourish in later life.

How prepared are educators to cultivate these qualities of mind and behavior? What do they need to learn to capitalize on the possibilities? Will college faculties embrace these opportunities and make the necessary changes in their curricula and teaching methods? What can be done to hasten the process of innovation and application? In providing answers to these questions, Bok identifies the hurdles to institutional change, proposes sensible reforms, and demonstrates how our colleges can help students lead more successful, productive, and meaningful lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691206615
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	05/17/2022
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Derek Bok is the 300th Anniversary University Research Professor at Harvard University. He served as the twenty-fifth president of Harvard from 1971 to 1991, and as interim president from 2006 to 2007. His many books include The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges, Higher Education in America, Our Underachieving Colleges, and The Shape of the River (all Princeton).

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction. An Overview 1

Chapter 1 A Brief History of the College Curriculum from 1636 to the Present 5

Chapter 2 Educating Citizens 22

Chapter 3 Preparing Students for an Interdependent World 43

Chapter 4 Character: Can Colleges Help Students Acquire Higher Standards of Ethical Behavior and Personal Responsibility? 58

Chapter 5 Helping Students Find Purpose and Meaning in Life 80

Chapter 6 Improving Interpersonal Skills 95

Chapter 7 Improving Intrapersonal Skills 109

Chapter 8 Unconventional Methods of Teaching 123

Chapter 9 Prospects for Change 137

Chapter 10 Encouraging Reform 158

Conclusion. Reflections on the Future 179

Notes 185

Acknowledgments 203

Index 205

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Building on his clear-eyed assessment of the state of teaching in higher education, Derek Bok has turned to society's expectations for the preparation of college students for all aspects of life in the world: can teachers convey life skills beyond class content? Higher Expectations provides a wide-ranging, pragmatic, and at times critical map for the enterprise that Bok has served for seventy years."—James L. Shulman, vice president of the American Council of Learned Societies

"Higher Expectations is a remarkably fresh and candid look at what higher education can and cannot do to meet today's challenges. Derek Bok's temperate prose cannot conceal his passionate concern that our colleges and universities are falling critically short of equipping students with what they need in the twenty-first century, making his proposed curricular remedies all the more compelling. Remarkably fresh, deeply informed, and persuasively written, Higher Expectations embodies Derek Bok's work at its best."—Michael McPherson, President Emeritus, The Spencer Foundation

"As higher education grapples with epochal disruption, Derek Bok—the nation's indefatigable dean for all seasons—provides in Higher Expectations exactly what all educators will need to rebuild: a cogent and compelling articulation of higher education's core educational purposes, from venerable goals, like educating citizens and cultivating evidence-based reasoning, to such suddenly urgent priorities as resilience, design thinking, and creativity. Across these pages, Bok both outlines the emergent contours of an empowering liberal education, and models in his own prose the finest benefits of liberal learning: careful analysis, reasoned, research-informed judgment, thoughtful attention to dissenting positions, and an abiding conviction that college learning can and should help our society build a better tomorrow."—Carol Geary Schneider, President Emerita, Association of American Colleges and Universities

"In this elegant, wise, and generous book, Derek Bok directs his gaze to how colleges and universities can rethink the educational enterprise to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Bok is as close as we get to higher education royalty."—Joshua Kim, coauthor of Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education

"Timely and important. Bok's analysis of modern higher education is authoritative and insightful, and his recommendations are convincing. Anyone concerned with the future of higher education should study and act upon this book."—William Damon, author of The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life

Editorial Reviews

One of Forbes' Best Higher Education Books of 2020

From the Publisher

★ 07/01/2020

Former president of Harvard University Bok (The Struggle To Reform Our Colleges) ponders a profound question: What do 21st-century college students need to know? In this highly readable and engaging book, he delineates how colleges can better prepare students to gain the skills and develop the habits of mind necessary to succeed in life, especially in a fast-moving, knowledge-based society. Bok focuses on both content and instructional methods. He offers a historical overview of American college curricula and reform efforts from the 17th century onward, which should be required reading for anyone interested in how teaching and learning have evolved. The lack of civic engagement among some voters and the hyperpartisanship evident in recent elections spurred many educators including Bok to examine whether and how colleges can provide civic education in efforts to protect our democracy. Bok also delves thoughtfully into other subjects such as international interdependence, intercultural competence afforded by study abroad, foreign language requirements, ethical behavior, character building, personal responsibility, and cocurricular and extracurricular activities. Throughout, he stresses that curricular reform needs to start with learning outcomes—hence the question, what is it that our students need to know? VERDICT Highly recommended for college faculty and administrators, and anyone interested in how college students can find meaning and purpose in life.—Elizabeth Connor, Daniel Lib., The Citadel, Military Coll. of South Carolina, Charleston

Library Journal

2020-05-03
Former Harvard University president Bok examines ways in which higher education can shape better citizens.

The author looks back over seven decades of teaching to examine where tertiary education is and where it’s going. It’s now said that students retain little information from the lecture format, with better results coming from active participation rather than passive reception. Though in days past, Bok’s charges at Harvard filled the halls to hear the likes of Stephen Jay Gould and Michael Sandel, such talented interpreters are rare. All the same, “at least half of college faculty continue to lecture extensively, especially in large college courses, despite persuasive evidence that active forms of problem-solving are more effective at helping students learn to think carefully and reason well.” Meanwhile, writes the author, altogether too many professors resent teaching, and the more renowned the school, the stronger the dislike for it: “Their rewards from the outside world…come almost entirely from their research.” If universities are to weather the coming financial and cultural storms, Bok suggests, they’ll need to retool to offer answers to real exigencies, such as the fact that employers (and donors) complain that students emerging with diplomas lack “soft” or “noncognitive” skills such as a willingness to work as a member of a team and observe basic social niceties. More to the point, Bok also argues that institutions must do more to teach beyond mere rubrics, touching especially on questions of ethics and civic engagement, and point the way to how students might acquire “wisdom enough to decide how to live purposeful, fulfilling lives” and prepare themselves for lifelong learning. Whether faculties will want to take the time to produce “active and informed citizens” remains to be seen, notes the author, and such faculties tend to serve their own interests.

A useful though eminently debatable case for reform in the interest of teaching to today’s needs.

Kirkus Reviews