The Margin for Excellence
The sounds of the time beat out an unmistakeably hedonistic message. They call for instant stimulation, instant learning, instant application. Nowhere do they make provision for excellence. I t is likely, therefore, that the greatest present threat to higher education is t,he possibility that the margin for excellence will be all but obliterat,ed by the lust for selfgratification. Strippcd of all its educational and social arnenit,ies and ancillaries, t,he college or university has as its primary function the task of developing in each student), according to his talents and abilit,ies, a disciplined imaginat,ion and a readiness t o meet intellectual challenges. A scarcely less important function is that of finding and fostering individuals capable of sustained objective study and creative innovation of knowledge. The two functions are neither unrelated nor mut,ually inclusive. Excellence in developing student,^, especially undergraduates, may or may not require the same taleuts and character traits as does excellence in t,he development or in the creatiou of knowledge. Because it is somewhat more difficult t,o measure success in the business of developing students than in that of creating Ikno\vlrdgr, t,lrrrc is a t least thc tcndency to cmploy the cstablisl~cclccritrri:~for success in the latter t o the former. I n t,his way, t,he tools and t,he values of the scholar, principally a demanding int,ellect a l l discipline and the concept of creativity through depth of uuderst,a~ldinghave been thrust upon the st,udent. However, even as ,specializat,ion in scholarship and t,he penetration of thought. required for uuderstanding have intensified, t,he social values of the time have encouraged students to expect instant success in learning. I~rrqurtrtly,instructors IKLVC rrsponded to illis dilemma in one of two ways. One group persists in imposing cout,emporary standards of scholarship cxcellence, expect,iug students to acquire in a few years and from t m d i t i o d courses and mat,erials the knowledge and sldls which t,l~eproductive scholars in the ficld have mast,ered only aft,er decades of experience. Needless to say t,l~is approach disillusions many more students t,han it at,t,r:icts. A second group goes to tlie opposit,e extreme, attempt,ing t,o give students thc instant knowledge t,hey expect. Often this "instant knowledge" is of the same quality and has about the same effect as the patent medicines sold by the medicine show operators of the early West. Ilotli np-
editorially speaking proaches make it possible for the s c h o l : ~to give tllc lion's share of his innovative energies to his discipline without 1r:zving to invest :uiything like the s:lme commitment t o cre:ltivity in his teacl~ing. As students exert more and more influence over the courses, a d as specialization and competition withiu disciplil~esbecome more inteuse, the expectation is that the movement t,omard the patent medicine :qqmacl~will be favored and themargin for excelleuce will be diminishrd, first at t,l~eundergraduate level and inevitably in all phases of highcr rduc.1' t'ton. r. 1here also is some respected :lGldemic orthodoxy t hat, stands in tlie w:~y of a simple solution to this pn~blrnl. The difficulty in lalowing how effective nu educ:ltion:d experience Itas heen in developing disciplinrd im:igi~~:rtion or s rmdiness to meet i~~tellectonl ch:~lleugeslong has bcen used as :Z re:tso~lfor ilot pursuil~gthese goals more aggressively and objectively. The :ugumrnt, goes: if the student has the :~bilitv:111d the motiv:[tinn he can lcarn just as others with :tbility :lnd motiv:rtion le:lrned in the past; given our preseat lmo~vlrdge,the benefit-cost ratio is most favorable for an emphaiis on subject m:ttter over persoriality developmelit. The problem with this is that the complesity of Imo~vIrdgc has increased so much Easter than the students' xbility t,o assimilnte it, that itiformation storage m:ly bc crwvding out other forms of mental development ill m:ny courses and curricula. Scholars ;we themselves caught up in t,l~isknowledge rxplo?ion and c:rn therefore nppreciatc the need to g u : d ng:li~~st ~~rrsentations th:~toveremplr:~sizrinformatiot~storngr :it tlir rxprnse of critical t h i n l h g and develollmeut of im:~gioation. I'er11:rps this :rppreciation c:~nsrrvr :is tlie motiv:ition for 1.rexamining the tactics of teaclliug, espccidly :is they rel:lte ti1 student development. ICxcellence in higher rducafioi~tnkes many forms nnd all must be preserved :~ndenriched. The tempt:~tion of the moment is to s:lfegu:lrd the quality of tllr sclwlnrship effort and t o let the soci:d V L I I U ~ SOF the time drfioe the rlu:llity of instruction. T o succunib to this tern~11:ltion could indeed cost us the crextive energies arid sI.;ills of a generation of student.-. To ignore thr soci:ll values of the time and to teach :is if I~no~\--lcclgc xere more important than the students could cost higher education its clierished academic freedom. T h r clinrncter of tlie university :\nd its f:iculty is being tested. The margin for exceller~ce,especinlly in te:rcl~ing,is the mor:~lissueof the day. VTL
Volume
47, Number 12, December 1970
/
787
