 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-04-29 12:42
On this board there have been several discussions/threads on graduate education and its value in current day American society.
While not specific to music performance education, this Op Ed in today's NYT is an interesting piece written by a Columbia University professor.
Many of his arguments about what is wrong with higher education in the US is applicable to graduate programs in music.
I look forward to comments from all of you after reading this short piece.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html?em
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2009-04-29 13:09
What's next? A dissertation entitled: Gustave Langenus: How His Approach to Reed Preparation Evolved over His Career? (This would be an even better title if I could somehow work "utilized" into it.) Or has that topic already been done? No worries, just insert another clarinetist/bass clarinetist/oboist/saxophonist. Eventually some poor Ph.D. student might even get down to me! Except, by that time I'll probably be dead. ![[frown]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie2.gif)
Seriously, these criticisms have been around for years but nothing changes. Too much investment in the status quo by those with the power to preserve it. Just another reason why I'm looking forward to retirement.
Best regards,
jnk
Post Edited (2009-04-29 13:17)
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Author: george
Date: 2009-04-29 14:26
The increase in scientific knowledge in the past couple of centuries is absolutely astounding--universities must have been doing something right.
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2009-04-29 15:03
I like some of these ideas but not others. For instance, I am all for a more multi-disciplinary approach but I already feel that in some cases depth is being sacrificed to breadth which is not wise. Therefore, if this strategy were carried to its extreme at the undergraduate level, where would we find our future professorial staff? Furthermore, if one university were strong in French and another in German, as is suggested, where would that leave the student who was equally strong in both with an interest in linguistics? I realise that new technology has a part to play but it would be a less than ideal situation.
Forgive me if I am misunderstanding some of the intricacies of the US system (being from the UK myself) but I am sure that a lot of the argument applies to both.
Vanessa.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-04-29 15:30
I think this article has more to do with its author and his desire (as a religion professor) to feel less isolated from the rest of the academic environment than it does with general problems of graduate study.
For instance, much of what he suggests as across-the-board reforms simply wouldn't make sense in the context of science and engineering. The author is clearly writing from the perspective of someone in the humanities. Not that there isn't a need for interdisciplinary research and degree programs in science and engineering (I came out of one), but there is still a real practical need for in-depth study of particular sub-specialties in those fields, which this author seems to ignore.
On the other hand, the author's field of study, religion, is arguably at a low point in the academic world. As the author suggests, academics in other fields are likely to underestimate the relevance of religion as an area of academic study. Reorganizing the departments of universities in terms of broad societal problems in the manner suggested by the author would have the effect of FORCING people in other fields to work together with people in "overlooked" disciplines such as religion.
Of course, this comes at the price of academic freedom and the ability to study things in-depth--does it really make any sense to reassign an expert in particle physics away from the disbanded "Energy Department" to the "Water Department" because that's the policy problem du jour?
Additionally, I get the impression from this article that its author's vision of the university is as a sort of public-policy think-tank that supplies vocational training. Whatever happened to LEARNING???
Post Edited (2009-04-29 17:17)
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Author: Ryan K
Date: 2009-04-29 19:37
I think, mrn's comment on learning is incredibly apt. I'm looking to become a lawyer. But will I take humanities electives (mostly musical)?
Sure!
Why? Because I want to learn more. I don't want to make them my career, and studying for the sake of studying, and broadening one's mind, can better your main focus.
He also assumes that people only get college degrees to get jobs. There's probably people, even in this rough economy, who go back to school simply for the title, with no intention to use it. Similarly, there are people who acquire higher degrees for the sake of learning a lost art, or to enhance your knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
The best point he makes, however, is that Higher Education's results are not fully...made know to its participants. If the students knew that their prospects were grim, they wouldn't go into it. His system would become de facto, as any program that didn't turn out results would simply die. This is another great case where Capitalism and its principles could be put to great use.
Ryan Karr
Dickinson College
Carlisle, PA
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Author: brycon
Date: 2009-04-29 19:47
Thanks for posting the article Dileep; it provides, for me at least, a welcome sojourn from reed and barrel discourse.
I am not so certain that if "American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured." Taylor then asserts that this rigorous regulation will cause agility and adaptability in the university? These statements seem highly dubious.
Some of Taylor's points may be good: collaboration between universities and teleconferencing. However, I think that his broad restructuring of curriculum and cross-disciplinary study creates, at the least, the potentiality for broad-brushed and ephemeral thinking.
The way in which the university attempts to examine an object such as history or philosophy- removed in some respects from their relationships to other objects- may not be the perfect mode of study, but I am not so sure Taylor's remedy would be any better.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-04-30 00:51
brycon wrote:
<<Some of Taylor's points may be good: collaboration between universities and teleconferencing. However, I think that his broad restructuring of curriculum and cross-disciplinary study creates, at the least, the potentiality for broad-brushed and ephemeral thinking.>>
There are already universities that do this. For example, UT Dallas (University of Texas at Dallas) and UT Arlington have a program where you can complete a Master's degree in Computer Science online through either school, but you take courses from both schools.
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2009-04-30 01:24
This article is ridiculous.
Why - well, because, like mrn says (I agree with 100% of what he says) the propositions are like FORCING someone to study a particular piece of society.
This is silly. Giving the government the right to decide what departments might be worth studying is like asking a musician to decide what area of biology to study to find the cure to HIV. It's too big government. Without getting too political, getting back to the microcosmic sense of the argument, in a general sense, if you look at the top rated schools they are looking at big picture problems from an intercolaborative perspective.
That's what makes these the elite colleges - because they are finding UNIQUE solutions to difficult problems. That's why it's a bazillion dollars to go to them. It's because they teach applicable majors with interdisciplinary applications. There's a reason Goldman Sachs hires engineers to do risk management positions.
I personally think the whole idea is kind of bizarre and indicative of what so many people regard as the big-government approach to solving problems. But I'm not trying to make this a political argument!........
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2009-04-30 03:34
Chairman Taylor needs to read on of my favorite books by Brubacher, J. (1977). On the philosophy of higher education. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Everything is there and the arguments, most of which refute Taylor's contentions, are just as relevant as they were over 30 years ago.
My favorite quote though is from Aristotle and is found on page 75. "He granted that it was good to know how to play the flute, but cautioned against learning to play it too well."
HRL
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2009-04-30 14:20
Pretty brutal stuff!
Most of it I disagree with. The purpose of a narrow dissertation is a training in the art of enquiry. But I do agree that a University must also serve a role of helping to make sense of and structure a body of knowledge. If we lose our way in the minutiae we have failed.
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