Poisoning the Ivy: The Seven Deadly Sins and Other Vices of Higher Education in America / Edition 1

by Michael Lewis (3)

Overview

"This is a dirty book about higher education." So begins Michael Lewis's provocative new book, one that calls into question the conventional wisdom and about the excellence of American higher education. Lewis argues that teaching and research on America's campuses are plagued by mis- and malfeasance. He further argues that these troubles are the paradoxical implications of professorial self-conceptions. The academic claim of moral and ethical specialness, according to Lewis, unexpectedly creates an environment where hack work or even no work at all is tolerated and in some cases actually rewarded. Through his chapters on "The Seven Pedagogical Sins" and "The Bad Joke of Scholarship, " the author traces the trajectory of the effects of collective denial on the quality of education in America. In his final chapter, Lewis offers a series of reforms intended to reverse faculty permissiveness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765600714
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/31/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1450L (what's this?)

About the Author

Michael Lewis, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. An Almanac of Academic Betrayals: The Phenomenology of Denial, Chapter 2. Hear, See, and Speak No Evil: The Facilitation of Denial, Chapter 3. The Seven Pedagogical Sins: Dirty Little Secrets 1 , Chapter 4. The Bad Joke of Scholarship: Dirty Little Secrets 2, Chapter 5. The Spurious Shield of Specialness: The Need for Reform, Appendix: A Single Standard, Please

Editorial Reviews

Lewis (sociology, U. of Massachusetts-Amherst) accuses professors of claiming a moral and ethical specialness that creates an environment in which hack work or even no work at all is tolerated and in some cases rewarded. He traces the effect of their collective denial on the quality of education. He also suggests reforms. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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