Abstract
At the end of her book on the marginalization of moral education within universities from the eighteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, Julie Reuben summarized a dilemma.3 Modern universities, she observed, never abandoned their traditional moral aims. Despite moral pluralism, they continue to claim that they “should prepare their students to live ‘properly’ and contribute to the betterment of society.”4 The problem, she argued, is that they “no longer have a basis from which to judge moral claims.”5
The mission of Yale College is to seek exceptionally promising students of all backgrounds from across the nation and around the world and to educate them, through mental discipline and social experience, to develop their intellectual, moral, civic and creative capacities.
—Yale College Mission Statement1
I’m all for moral, civic, and creative capacities, but I’m not sure that there is much I or anyone else could do as a teacher to develop them.
—Stanley Fish, Save the World on Your Own Time2
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Notes
Stanley Fish, Save the World on Your Own Time (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 18.
Julie Reuben, The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
Christian Smith, Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 46.
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), xxiv.
Stanley Fish, “Save the World on Your Own Time,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 January 2003, http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2003/01/2003012301c/careers.html (accessed September 15, 2008).
Stanley Fish, “The Case for Academic Autonomy,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 July 2004, 1.
Michael Davis, Ethics and the University (New York: Routledge, 1999).
Derek Bok, Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 65.
Charles Taylor, The Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 27.
Mark Edwards, Religion on Our Campuses; Roy Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005);
David Myers and Malcolm Jeeves, Psychology: Through the Eyes of Faith (New York: Harper San Francisco, CA, 2003);
George Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997);
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Reason within the Bounds of Religion, Rev Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999).
A. Nemtsova, “In Russia, Corruption Plagues the Higher-Education System,” The Chronicle of Higher Education 54.24 (22 February 2008): 1.
Mark Schwehn, Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Alan Wolfe, “The Potential for Pluralism,” Religion, Scholarship and Higher Education, ed. Andrea Sterk (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 23–39.
George Kuh, “Do Environments Matter? A Comparative Analysis of the Impress of Different Types of Colleges and Universities on Character,” Journal of College and Character 2 (2002), http://www.collegevalues.org/articles.cfm?id=570&a=1;
John Templeton Foundation, ed., Colleges that Encourage Character Development (Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 1999).
Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, Character Strengths and Virtues (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Howard Kirschenbaum, “From Values Clarification to Character Education: A Personal Journey,” Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development 39.1 (2000): 17.
Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini, How College Affects Students: A Third Decade of Research, Vol. 2 (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005), 350–51.
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).
Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy and Tradition (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 225–226.
Bart Pattyn, “Is It Wrong to Teach What Is Right and Wrong? The Debate at K.U.Leuven” (Brussels, Ethical Forum, 29 November 2007), http://www.fondationuniversitaire.be/common_docs/EF6/Pattyn2.pdf (accessed 15 September 2008).
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© 2009 Perry L. Glanzer and Todd C. Ream
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Glanzer, P.L., Ream, T.C. (2009). The Quandary Facing Contemporary Higher Education: Moral Education in Postmodern Universities. In: Christianity and Moral Identity in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101494_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101494_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37728-2
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