Chapter One: Tasks, Talents, and Temperaments in Teaching the Challenge of Compatibility

The question of the effectiveness of colleges and universities has assumed a new salience in America. A fresh set of demands on institutions and their faculty for increased productivity has set in motion a variety of efforts by faculty and administrators to examine the processes by which higher education is carried out. Both administrators and faculty have been besieged by angry parents severely disappointed with the results of their children's education for which they, the parents, conscientiously saved, then spent, considerable sums of money. Their hope, as well as their expectation, was that the respected and exalted institutions of higher learning would elevate their students to greater sophistication in matters of culture and general education, as well as in practical skills of value to their lives immediately upon graduation. The unhappiness of parents has been vociferously expressed directly to the colleges and universities, whose teaching staffs have usually been at a loss as to how to respond, except defensively. In addition, as the undercurrent of parental dissatisfaction has made its way to the legislators who vote on educational policy and budgets, the states and federal government--who provide external funds in the form of direct institutional support or financial aid to students--hav