The rebels who wanted utter license to do anything they jolly well pleased, now want nothing so much for their children as cocoons into which the dangers of the world cannot penetrate. Administrators and professors, whom the students of the 1960s villified as fascist pigs, are now expected to serve as stepparents and as touchy-feely therapists. And higher education is responding with alacrity. Lehigh University has just banned parties on campus without an adult present. They do need adults as teachers, exemplars, counselors and friends, but they have to explore the world on their own.
Life is dangerous.
College is not a Scout jamboree. The reckoning with reality and its risks is essential to everyone's passage into adulthood.