From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: College as Pro Factory (was Re: discrimination at CMU)
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 06:13:11 GMT


In article <1992Nov14.001314.24628@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com
(Steve Dyer) writes:

>In article <Bxnrno.GBo@queernet.org> rogerk@QueerNet.ORG
>(Roger B.A.  Klorese) writes:

>>The primary role of a drama school is to teach acting, not
>>prepare professional actors.

>>The primary role of a chemistry program is to teach
>>chemistry, not prepare professional chemists.

>Yeah, well, if you say so.  

Heh.  By deja vu (again) I somehow knew those would be your
very words.  

But I think Roger does have a point, too.  I took him to be
saying, perhaps as something of a lament, that the roles
colleges and universities are expected to fulfill in society
have changed fairly markedly in the past decade or two, to
the detriment of general education.

For example, speaking of undergraduate-level programs, I
think his chemistry remark is arguably stronger than the
drama school one, a division roughly along arts vs sciences
lines.  Yet isn't he also referrring to what used to be called
(still is, in a lot of places, I think) arts *and* sciences,
implying that typical students got a solid general education
in the humanities, in sciences (with some laboratory
experience), in social studies, and in English literature
and composition?  BA degrees tended to be distinguished from
BS degrees *mainly* by a foreign language requirement for
the former.

While some of all this is still in place (the English part
seems to me to have taken the greatest beating), the earlier
presumption was that some degree of specialization began to
emerge with the choice of a major in the junior year.
Upper-level undergraduate courses were either (or both) a
transition to graduate studies or to the world of work.
That's still there, of course, but not in the same way.

>And Julliard's role is to teach music, not prepare
>professional musicians.  Right.  Keep tooting that horn.

Fine arts (which of course would conceptually include visual
art, music, and theater), as well as engineering programs,
were rather apart from general education programs, even when
I was in school (which I think was about 20 years before you
or Roger).  And of course what's called communication arts
these days (primarily radio and television training) existed
back then only as a somewhat separate journalism program.

>I imagine that admissions officers of the graduate programs
>in the most competitive programs in both the arts and
>sciences would probably state it somewhat differently.

A key word here is competitive, I think.  Over the past
couple decades, what you say has increasingly become true.
But it really was not true when much before that, apart from
a very few places, of which Julliard would be one (a couple
other music conservatories as well), and of course MIT and a
few other elite schools would be others.  

But this competitive orientation, and such self-descriptions
as the laughable "world-class" have only existed at major
state universities for about 20 years.  During this time,
the former goals of turning out well-rounded people with a
broad background in our own civilization have given way to
increasingly narrowly defined, job-oriented skills.  To a
significant degree, job training has replaced education as
the principal function of higher education.

Another component of the picture, I think, is that higher
education has increasingly been saddled with making up
deficiencies caused by disastrous losses of quality in
primary and secondary education in our country.

I guess I should be glad I went to school when getting a
fairly decent education -- even in high school -- was not
only possible but usual.  Furthermore, it came at a price an
ordinary mortal could afford.  Kids get out of college
nowadays with debts several times the worth of my house,
whereas I was able (with difficulty but able) to pay for all
of my own education by working while in college.  My first
year of college -- everything including tuition, fees, room,
board, and books, you see -- cost $1400.  Tuition at this
university is now $4000 per semester for nonresidents, but
when I came here (my junior year) it was $130.  I thought I
was being skinned to pay $73 for tuition in my freshman
year.

And I probably could not even get into this graduate school
now, since my undergrad grades were not impressive apart
from my major (Russian) and music.  I think I graduated with
a 2.41/4.0, which is *way* below what it takes to get in
here now.  But I was admitted with no trouble in 1963, and
the GRE wasn't required either.

None of this relates much to the original bone of
contention, discrimination in CMU's drama program.  But I
lived with a gaggle of drama students for several years when
I first got here, and it was really quite a bit less
oriented toward professional acting than it is today; most
of the graduates were not dreaming of tv series (in fact
they all disdained tv quite a lot); they were looking for
teaching, writing, and college or community
production/directing positions.  Professional-level work
would presumably follow for some after a rather long
experience in the actual world of work.  One got a grounding
in the theory and practice, but not in the business and
the self-promotional aspects.

As far as the music school was concerned, which is where I
started college, the expectation was that one would aspire
to a professional-quality performance from the very first
day, but one didn't anticipate being a real professional
much before the age of 50.  Interestingly, there is still
something to that part.  There are (always have been) some
totally amazing young musicians; I remember Barenboim at 16
and Ashkenazy at 21, and today we have the likes of Midori.
But to take Barenboim and Ashkenazy as examples, they were
certainly earning a good living as kids, which made them
professionals of a sort, but neither was a true master
before the age of 50.

It's a funny thing, isn't it?  If you're going to be a great
mathematician, it happens in your 20s; if you're going to be
a great musician, it doesn't happen until you're in your
50s.  Something about the nature of the work, I guess.  And
poor old painters, most of them are long dead by the time
they get good!  :-)

<> Always wear gloves to a restaurant, to the theatre, when
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<> -- Arnold Zwicky (amz@tut,cis.ohio-state.edu)
-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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